I had an exciting trip planned to Italy, with stops in Rome, Florence, Pisa, and a wedding in a charming village in Tuscany. I thought it would be nice to speak a little Italian while traveling around the country. I’ve always had this nagging feeling that I could be much cooler if I could speak multiple languages fluently. Many of my European friends effortlessly spoke four to six languages, while in India, people typically mastered three: Hindi, English, and their regional language, in my case, Marathi.
But I must confess, I’m a bit lazy when it comes to learning languages. My past attempts at becoming multilingual were not very successful. I had completely given up on Spanish and struggled with Catalan during my PhD, with disastrous results in my tests. However, I somehow managed to pick up and maintain a decent B1 level of Catalan, just enough to earn the respect of Catalan-speaking folks. The best part is when I tell them I only speak Catalan, not Spanish – their reactions are priceless.
I have a friend who has the remarkable skill of memorizing words and phrases in various languages. He delivers them so convincingly that you’d think he’s a native speaker. Inspired by him, I decided to gather basic Italian words and phrases, memorize them, and start using them during my trip. Even if I could learn just a few sentences, it would make me happy.
What I’ve discovered is that people genuinely appreciate it when you make an effort to speak their language (except, perhaps, for the French, who have a reputation for their strict language standards). They don’t mind if you make mistakes – what matters is the genuine attempt.
So, my journey began with the quest for a list of basic Italian words and phrases. I scoured the internet, compiled a list of common verbs, nouns, and phrases, and created a CSV file. Then, I turned to ChatGPT to translate them all into Italian.
The exciting part was that Italian and Catalan share some similarities, which made it easier for me to pick up vocabulary and understand sentence construction. This gave me a boost of confidence and motivation.
I put together the list, and you can check it out on my Notion page: link. It’s not comprehensive, but it should at least enable me to have conversations and navigate simple interactions during my travels.
Best part of the page is that I can always expand it to add new words, and also I could use it to learn another “language”. I just need to translate the English column into whatever language column.
Now, the real test will be whether I actually get to use this phrasebook during my Italian adventure. Fingers crossed!
