Making Friends in Firenze - Pt 2: I Still Can Not Speak Italian

Maybe it was because I didn't wear a tie.

In my last post I talked about how we have managed a year without making friends with anyone native to Florence. The gist of the article was that Florentines are not actually interested in making friends with stranieri and that was the main reason that we failed.

Of course, things are not that simple and, not having got to know any Florentines particularly well, the opinion that Florentines are closed and not amicable is based on hearsay and others' points of view. Whether they are unfriendly or diffident I may never know. And besides who am I to start speculating on whether the population of a particular city are blessed with a unifying personality trait?

There is one other very important piece to this equation though: I still can not speak Italian. I can go to the market or into a shop and make myself understood. I can sit in a barber's chair and manage to explain why I am here and what my wife does (and roughly how I would like my fast-disappearing hair cut). But I have not and could not talk at length and in depth with Florentines (or any other Italians) in their own language. I think that if anything has really stopped us from making Italian friends here, it is this.

At Dr B's place of work there are a few Italians there whose English, although a lot better than my Italian, is not fantastic and they have to put up with a variety of English language accents from Canadian, to American, to Irish and English. I have noticed that when you talk to them, without making allowances for their comprehension, they listen attentively and smile and nod. When you reach the end of what you are saying it becomes plain that they haven't really understood everything that you have said. And you wonder if they have missed the point you were trying to make. You think about whether to repeat yourself, you wonder if they would rather go and speak to someone else in Italian. You both smile. The conversation falters.

I behave the same way when people talk to me in Italian, fast and without making allowances for my comprehension abilities. I nod, smile, my eyes glaze over and then we stand in awkward silence as I try to formulate a response in my limited Italian.

The main forum for my Anglo-Italian relationships has been outside the school gates or at kids' parties. And here is where I have felt most adrift; in a sea of mums and grandparents. I feel that way in England in similar surroundings and there I at least have my ability to speak English.

My (lack of) progress with the Italian language is worth a whole blog post on its own. Yes, it's improved. Yes I can understand it when the calcio commentators mention offside. Yes I can call up the central heating engineers and book an appointment. But spontaneous in depth conversation is still something that eludes me and, for that reason, trying to forge relationships with people who on the whole seem reticent to use any English has been a major factor in the barren state of our Italian social life over here.