Day T-2: Last Minute Duolingo Learning

I think most people who know me know I like words - how they sound, their nuanced meanings, how they change over time and geography, etc. They may not know that it's the main reason why I've loved reading LOTR since childhood, especially because of Tolkien's interesting use of vocabulary, reappropriations of Old English, and the inventions of entire language families. The plot and themes are fantastic, I suppose, but still doesn't make my heart beat faster like reading about how formen became forod. Nerdy, I know, and probably not something I should put on my Coffee Meets Bagel profile.

Beyond meaning and plain sound, language to me is also connected to music, with each dialect and accent following a unique set of rhythms, intonations, melodies, and harmonies. I remember promising myself maybe 10 years back that I'd learn Italian if I had time some day, precisely because it's simultaneously a musical language and the language of music. My first exposure to its facsimile was watching Garfield on Saturday mornings, and there was one episode where Garfield and Odie were speaking, meowing, and barking in a super stereotypical Italian accent. Racist, I now know. Too bad I was hooked at the ripe old age of 7, and started imitating the way they talked, likely driving my sister nuts when I made our legos and stuffed animals go to war with their Italian cousins. Then came learning the piano - and all the terms I knew nothing about, like arpeggios, fermatas, scherzos, and my favorite, fortissimo. Playing like that definitely drove my mom and dad nuts.

So when this trip presented itself on a silver platter with a cut-rate price tag, I jumped on it. Remembering the promise I made years ago, I promptly downloaded Duolingo...and didn't start using it until a month ago. While it's been a fantastic (second time I've used the word...I blame my boss for overusage) way to pick up some elementary Italian, ensuring that I won't starve, some of their practice phrases are ones I'll probably never, ever find myself saying. Some of my favorites:

-The dog does not eat cheese / Il cano non mangia il formaggio: Who knew?
-I have eighty grandchildren / Ho ottanta nipoti: Maybe if I was born in the 1500s, was a Manchurian prince with multiple wives, and lived past the age of 55...
-My friends are not real friends / I miei amici non sono veri amici : Are they partnering with Italian therapists?
-The other women are more beautiful / Le altre donne sono piu belle: They're definitely trying to get me slapped in the face. Or called a chauvinist. Maybe they really are working with an Italian therapist to get more patients.

Each section is thematic, with units like Numbers, Present Tense, Plurals, Family, etc. I've passed about 30 of them at this point, but there's one ahead that I really want to get to before I take off on Sunday. Perhaps I'm nuts, but shouldn't the Directions unit (I think it's Unit 40?) be way earlier than say, Wild Animals? I'm pretty sure I'm going to need to say "Where is the best gelato in Florence and how am I going to get there" much more than I'll need to say "I like the monkey in the zoo, not the duck / Mi piace la scimmia nello zoo, non l'anatra.". Just saying, Duolingo.

That said, they definitely put the Food unit early - good job at making it Unit 4! Overall, it's been super useful, blowing through the units quickly, and feeling confident about speaking to actual Italians about things like the weather (and farm animals). With that, I'm off to tackle the present perfect so I can finally get to the Travel and Directions units.