What I'm going to write about is not a fresh event, it happened in December last year and maybe I'd not have written about it, if it wouldn't came up in a conversation with @davideownzall 😂.
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The whole thing started, when my niece announced her visit and also notified me that she's coming with his Italian friend. I'm always happy to see her as she's living abroad and meetings between are rare, a few per year, but this time the news made me smile, even laugh I'd say. Why? You'll find out in a bit.
When I'm asked how many languages I speak, my answer is four, but if I'm honest, three and a half, which usually sparks curiosity and laughter as well as there's no such thing as speaking half a language, so I'm always asked, how come three and a half.
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Some people say it's not normal to speak four languages, but this statement comes from those who only speak one and it seems too much for them. I usually say four languages is not much, or it's not a lot, and I mean it, but I am coming to realize people think I want to show off, which is far from the truth. Let me explain.
In my country, I'm part of a minority and my mother tongue is Hungarian and is different from the official language, which is Romanian. This means I am speaking two languages by default. This is not because I'm forced to, but because it's the right thing to do if you want to succeed in life. Then I speak English of course as by my standards, that's also a must, if you want to succeed. I always wanted to know English, so after I finished high school, started studying it, took some courses and exams, and have never stopped upgrading my knowledge.
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And we arrived to the fourth, or the half language I speak 😆, which is Italian. I've always loved it and watching Italian TV, helped me learn a lot. At some point, my plan was to get certified as an Italian speaker, so I started studying, but life shifted me away from it and this plan took a back seat. Regardless, till this very day I'm still learning, every time I have the occasion, by watching Italian movies, news, reading in Italian, translating to others and so on. I even read Italian posts here on Hive
This is all nice you'd say, but the truth is, I've never had a real chance to test my knowledge, to speak with an Italian. Till now. So you can imagine the grin on my face, when I heard I'll have an Italian guest in my house.
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When they arrived, after the necessary pleasantries, I let the guy know that it was the first time I spoke Italian and that I have learnt it from TV, which was really funny as I must have looked like a fool saying that, but his reaction was the best I could get as he said incredible and was really surprised and happy as well. (I'm avoiding using Italian words, as some do, in an attempt to look smart, as mixing languages is the worst thing you can do.)
So the visit was a lot of fun and although it required some effort on my behalf, to focus on providing my best language skills, it went well. I'm not saying I spoke academic level of Italian, but we were able to understand each other very well and apparently I didn't make huge mistakes. The feedback was more than good. Imagine a person who only speaks Italian (yes, he lost some brownie point here as in 2025, this is unacceptable for his age), coming to a country where Italian is not spoken, could speak Italian freely and understand everything we spoke about. I was told, he was thrilled and had a very good time, but still shocked that I've never spoken Italian before and still managed to converse freely.
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For me, this was a real test, as understanding what it is said is one thing, but speaking is a different matter. My biggest fear was that he speaks calabrese, as he's from Calabria, but he didn't, he spoke clear Italian, which was a huge relief for me.
I'd still rate my Italian as half as writing is not my strong suit, but with a little time and effort invested in learning more, could bring better results.
It was fun though and shows you never know when you need another language.
In case you're wondering, I didn't serve Italian food 😆. I have a rule. In my house, foreign guests are being served with traditional Hungarian dishes, unless there's a special request. So the menu was egg soup, which it not quite tradition, but it's my grandmother's recipe, whom my niece has never met unfortunately, she loved the soup and I'm the only one cooking it for her and my aunt, when we visit. The main course was Hungarian chicken paprikash, which the Italian loved a lot. He has never had any, so it was a win, but I told him if it's not for his taste, I could make him some pasta or pizza, which was a joke obviously.
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I agree, not knowing English in 2025 as a young person is not really acceptable, but when you said from Calabria it's not too surprising either as education in the south is not really decent
Haha but like this you really tempt me to start replying all your posts in Italian 😂 anyways that's really a good job to have reach a good level without any teaching... And you tempting me for a visit 😂 I'm from the opposite side of Italy, even if speaking clear Italian the accent will be totally different
We have a saying in Hungarian regarding those who only speak one language and it goes something like this: "if they forget their language, they can't even speak", so ... you know what I think. It's ok for the elders as times were different back when they were young, but now? There's no excuse and it shows laziness or poor judgement, especially that in most school there are language classes (2 foreign languages mandatory in Romania) and everything is available for free online. So ... what stops you to study, right?
It's not even the accent, I can handle it (I think). What can cause problems is the dialect, or what you call it, as you know Siciliano is not Italiano and sometimes not even Italians understand each other, if they are from different regions and they speak the local language. Same dish is called differently and so on.
Ora sì che mi caccerò nei guai 🤣 😆
Yeah, elders is OK, I mean they barely had primary school, but young people... Back at my times English was at late years of primary school now they start at kindergarten...
Yeah, every region has its own dialect and it's different than Italian, I absolutely won't be able to understand dialect from Napoli or Sicilia... Sometimes there's a different dialects within the same region
Like bat in Italian is pipistrello but in my dialect is barbastreio, totally different 😂
Italian only for next post 😂
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Well much different in the States. Most only learn one other language and often it is forgotten. High school requires 1 year of foreign language or least it did. Most take Spanish. I know some Spanish and Mandarin. 1/2 haha less than that on both for me. I do know Spanish more as I was taught, Mandarin I was self taught and a little bit from fluent speakers.
I don't agree with this kind of programmes. Learning a second language can have a lot of advantages and it helps you develop your language skills. Spanish slowly is a huge advantage in the US I guess as a good part of the population is Latino.
That's impressive. I took a bit of Spanish in school, but I wouldn't say I could speak it at all. I've probably forgotten more than I ever learned.
Oh, what a shame. I hate Spanish, although I understand it well, but it could be of use to you as there are a lot of Spanish speakers in the US.
Haha be careful who you say that to! It's a sore subject over here!
That I hate Spanish? 😄 Well, I do and I'm not going to hide it, but it has nothing to do with people. I hate it because it's very fast because it has very few consonants and so many vowels in a row that it's impossible to speak it 😬 I mean I could learn it, nothing is impossible, but I'd prefer another language.
No, that many people here speak it. There is this whole "great replacement theory" kicking around that gets the MAGAs all fired up.
Oh, that is interesting.
Italian food is 100% my taste, but it makes me gain weight quickly. Although, to be honest, anything that suits my taste makes my weight skyrocket like Bitcoin on December 5, 2017.
Welcome to my life 😆
There's a saying in Hungarian: "everything that is good is either immoral or fattening" 🙊😆