I'm new around here
Surely by now I’ve lost all (three) of my readers due to my inactivity. But what can I say?—I’ve been busy. In the last few weeks I’ve gotten to know Bologna much better. At first, I could only navigate by checking a map or by tracing the paths that I knew worked. If I, say, had to get from my apartment to the Piazza Santo Stefano, I would follow Via Castiglione all the way in to Le Due Torri, then turn and walk from Le Torri to the Piazza. To those who know Bologna, this is a hopeless roundabout path that requires doubling back on oneself, but it was the only way I knew how to get from point A to point B; or rather, I knew how to get from A to B and from B to C, so to get from A to C, I would have to go via B, no matter how out of the way it was. The other day I learned a far more direct way to get from my apartment to Santo Stefano, a path so obvious that I can’t believe how far out of my way I would go. But my sense of where Santo Stefano is was so intimately linked to the path I took to get there, so I didn’t even notice that I was doubling back as I walked.
Learning a language is like learning a city. At first, you know the basic streets: I take Via Castiglione to Le Due Torre, then turn right and walk down Via Santo Stefano to the Piazza. This works, yes? I could get where I wanted to go reliably, though not exactly quickly. It worked, because I could piece together the paths I knew to get where I wanted to go. Similarly, when we learn a language, we start with fixed phrases: “my name is…” “how are you?” “I am fine” “how old are you?” “I am…years old” and so on. We piece these phrases together to get, roughly, where we’re going in the language, even if it’s not efficient or graceful.
But by chance, I went to a friend and colleage’s apartment right on Santo Stefano and discovered, to my astonishment, that I don’t have to go via Le Due Torri at all. So now I know Bologna a little better. Similarly, as our proficiency in a language increases, we become more and more able, not only to express what we want to say, that is, to get from point A to point B, but to express it concisely and gracefully: we learn the city well enough not only to get where we want to go, but to get there via the most direct, or safe, or beautiful, or romantic, or lively path (for getting somewhere quickly is only one reason to walk through a city).
Of course, this learning process never ends: even people who have lived in a certain city their whole lives still learn and discover new ways to cross and traverse the space. As they explore and re-explore their city, they (if they’re inquistive) trace new paths, new parcours across the city. Similarly, we have never truly learned a language: we are always learning it. I may feel comfortable in this city I inhabit and may be able to navigate it effectively, but I cannot claim to know it except in the most restricted sense. I can move through it and operate as a guide to its highways and byways (stale idiom) though I’m in no way an expert. But I’m learning.
