“We Were Often Laughing”: A Class Quest of Italian Travel Essentials


Italian Travel Essentials

CE Program Coordinator Marianne Legg is looking forward to a much-deserved vacation in Italy. In anticipation of her trip, she enrolled in Janice Brown’s Italian Travel Essentials. We asked her to share that class experience with us.

When we met the first day (“Buongiorno!”) we shared how many brothers and sisters we had, whether we were married or had partners, and how many children we had. AND we did it all in Italian—Already! Janice Brown, our instructor for the Italian Travel Essentials class, had us all speaking Italian before we knew it. Italy

We students were taking the class for various reasons: some had just gone to Italy, some were going soon, and some had Italian family. Everyone was a bit apprehensive about our ability to absorb Italian. We looked nervously at our books. No way were we going to learn that much Italian. No WAY were we going to be able to eat at the restaurant, make appointments, order tickets, take a bus, book a hotel room, use the bank and go shopping, all in Italian!

How wrong we were. We learned all of that and much more in Janice’s friendly fun class, where we were often laughing, actually enjoying our work to perfect our Italian. Janice took us through a chapter a week, and we learned some vocabulary, a verb or two, some conversation, and some cultural travel tips about Italy (for example, there are Metro systems in only three cities—Rome, Milan, and Naples. Otherwise, you can take “il treno”—the train—“il taxi” or “l’autobus”—or you drive your rental car “macchina”). Janice often added some tips of her own to those in the book. And we were grateful for those class members who had been to Italy and contributed their experiences.

Janice had some handouts for us and a wealth of additional exercises, which often were fun to do. We asked each other if we liked “frutti” (fruit) or “formaggio” (cheese). There was a quiz to ask which American president had been elected in the year “duemila” (2000), and how about the year “millenovecentocinquantadue” (1952)? Believe it or not, we all learned to SAY that last one!

Each chapter in our text was devoted to a different facet of traveling in Italy . We learned what the hotel clerk might ask (“Ha la prenotazione?”—“Do you have a reservation?”), how to ask the bus driver where the bus goes (“Va al Colosseo?”—“Do you go to the Colosseum?”) and the numbers to understand how many euros we need to fork over.

Everyone agreed that the section on shopping was extremely important. We were saddened to learn that the legendary request for a “sconto” (discount) is mostly no longer honored. However, I was cheered to learn the essential phrase, “Dove la gelateria?” (“Where is the gelato shop?”)

ItalyAs we got more experienced using Italian, we began to generalize what we learned. Although we learned “Sono un po' in ritardo” (“I am a little late”) in connection with business and appointments, the phrase also came in handy when one arrived in class at 6:40 instead of 6:30.

Needless to say, we students left class with much more confidence in our ability to navigate Italy and interact with Italians in many different situations. Mille grazie (a thousand thanks), Janice!

Learn more about Italian Travel Essentials.