Italian for beginners

The first thing to remember about the Italian language is that it has two modes of address for the second person singular – the informal “tu” and the formal “Lei”.
To complicate matters. “Lei” can also be used for the third person feminine singular, although when being used in this mode it is represented with a lowercase “l” as in “lei”, but is conjugated in the same way. So too, “lui” – the third person singular masculine – keeps the same conjugation as “Lei” and “lei”, but only in the present tense.
If you hadn’t already noticed, Italian can be complicated.
The language – which officially became known as Italian in 1870 – is actually based on Tuscan and Umbrian Italian with a good dose of other regions’ dialects thrown in for good measure. Perugia is supposed to be an excellent place to learn Italian because the Perugina dialect is very close to the national lingua which means you get practice.
So, apart from its complicated history and complex conjugation, learning Italian is fun because the University Per Stranieri – the University for Foreigners – or literally The University for Strangers - is fun, or at least it’s interesting.
Stranieri, as the University is endearingly known around town, runs courses in Italian.
It also does an excellent sideline in Italian bureaucracy 101.
Successfully enrolling requires a mix of planning, energy and tenacity, a dash of assertiveness, a pinch of charm and a dollop of luck ….. and that’s even before you’ve started the never ending schlepping to the bank, the segretariat and the questura (police station) - if you want to stay in Italy legally.
Once you’ve got your marco de bollo – that’s the adorable postage stamp-like tax payment receipt – affixed to your enrollment form and been handed a timetable, it’s finally time to start class.
We either had the good fortune or made the mistake of enrolling in a one month Stranieri class, which we later found out meant three months of work was crammed into one month.
We declined to sit the entry examination and therefore should have proceeded into the Beginners A1 class.
We figured a refresher in “Mi chiamo….” Or “My name is….” wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
Wrong!
Even though the rules clearly state we should have been in Beginners A1, we somehow ended up in Beginners A2 (we think the woman who enrolled us in the segretariat thought she was doing us a favour, and well, maybe she was but then again ….. well we’re not entirely convinced!)
So off we go to Beginners A2.
Once there we find we are the only native English speakers (not a bad thing we think) surrounded by loads of Spaniards, a couple of Belgiums, a few Germans, a chick from the Czech Republic and a Japanese guy who is studying to become a priest.
Most of the Europeans are what’s called Erasmus students – which means they are studying at Perugia’s normal Italian university (they have one too) on a European Union scholarship. Perugia has lots of these Erasmus students.
Our teachers are Francesca – for conversation and pronunciation – and Antonella for grammar.
We spend our first week reviewing the present tense and then move onto the passata prossima, or the recent past. The next week we’re learning the future, a day later it’s time for direct object pronouns and then we are onto the passata indirecto or the indirect past – for which there are a long list of terms and conditions to learn about when it’s appropriate to use.
Sandwiched in between these large chunks of grammar are loads of new vocabulary as well as about a thousand irregular verbs and lists to learn on their conjugations. There are also personal pronouns as well as other adjectives that can be conjugated similarly to personal pronouns but are in fact not pronouns.
You get the picture. We covered a load of new material in four weeks.
Now, maybe we’re naïve (or just delusional), but we’ve both done our fair share of Beginners’ Italian classes.
Italian was not brand new to us.
It was, however, new to almost all our European classmates.
Why then were they able to speak it so much better and with oh-so-much-more ease than us.
Well, here’s the answer as explained to Alex by Julian (or shoolien) from Belgium.
“Yeah, I know I should probably be doing more study, but it’s really all just too easy. If I don’t know a word I just add an “o” or an “a” to the French word and it’s almost always right.”
It took Alex about a week to recover from that little bombshell.
So there you have it. Even after busting our guts with hours of extra study everyday, attempts to memorise verbs and vocab, we’re never going to be able to simply add as “o” or an “a” to words in our native tongue and get the Italian.
To be honest Julian’s secret made us feel a whole lot better about our failure to keep up with the class.
Having said that, we did have a snicker when one of our teachers asked if anyone in our class liked Italian desserts such as tiramisu.
Overwhelmingly the answer was: “What, is tiramisu Italian?”
Who are these people?

ps. it probably doesn't help our case to admit we usually study with a verb book in one hand and a Peroni in another. Is that bad?