Learning English was a journey of song lyrics and profanity lists
What language do you think in?
Now that I worked with the lovely N, and her husband was one of the boyfriend’s best friends, their group of friends was slowly becoming my new social circle. I was one of the only 2 people from overseas in the group, and we were regularly asked if we thought and dreamt in our mother tongues or English.
Which language did I think in? Italian or English?
During my ‘I’m not back’ stage when I lived at home after graduation, I truly missed speaking English like I did during my studies in Durham - UK. English made me feel free and autonomous. Most of my inner dialogue at the time happened in English because the storyteller in me imagined talking to the boyfriend, waiting for me in Australia. But since I got here, I was spending almost all my time with him and, if anything, my inner storytelling was regretfully happening in Italian because I imagined talking to my friends back home and telling them about my Aussie leeches and koalas adventures.
I wanted to make the most of my experience abroad and vowed never to speak Italian. I barely spoke to my mother over the phone, but I still engaged in vlogs and podcasts in Italian. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have found a whole episode about this guy I accidentally went on a date with.
At work, on top of the occasional socially acceptable slightly racial slur, I had to learn the local Medical Records filing system, and that’s when I realised that thinking numbers only happened in Italian. My inner monologue went something like: “Ok next file, shelf G, record number mille-duecento-cinquantatre.”
Which language did I dream in?
The language of dreams was trickier to pinpoint. I was under the impression that dreams, much like A.I. generated images, weren’t really real, but simply needed to convey the idea of things to my brain. Considering the whole thing happened inside my head, this content loop was even more approximate, and a real language was ultimately needless.
The killer running after me around my high school, which was suddenly a castle full of stairs, because I didn’t study history, didn’t need to verbalise what I already knew because I made it all up inside my dreamy head.
How did my English journey start?
At the tender age of 5, my favourite word was ‘monkey’, and English was the fun afternoon activity I thought was mandatory for all kids. Another crafty parenting lie.
I grew up with English consistently being the language of my favourite music, from Spice Girls to Marilyn Manson. Luckily, every CD had a booklet with complete lyrics, and I had a heavy dictionary at home and lots of offline time.
I kept a list of all the swear words I encountered in my musicscapades and, let me tell you, ‘Wasn’t me’ by Shaggy was a goldmine!
Learning Latin throughout High School and re-starting with grammar from scratch was a game-changer in my English learning too. Creating all the necessary mental compartments for nouns, declinations, prepositions, verbs tenses, etc, for Latin made it incredibly easy to organise English as well.
English wasn’t a collection of swear words from song lyrics anymore. It had structure!
Then, the internet happened.
Back in MySpace days, that heavy dictionary became a permanent part of my desk setup. Real conversations were very different from my English textbooks, and people used fancy words such as ‘would’ and ‘indeed’.
For some time, I legitimately thought that Myspace was a roleplay platform and my go-to icebreaker became: “Good evening, my lord”.
I know, this is so embarrassing!
Eventually, I realised that ‘Medieval English’ wasn’t required. Alas, I did not consider slang.
I thought ‘brb’ was a universal nickname for all Barbaras. And because I was a polite Barbara, whenever someone wrote ‘brb’ in a chat, I would reply with “Yes?… Tell me!… What do you need? … I am here … Hello? Are you there?”
People must have thought I was the clingiest girl on the planet when all I needed was UrbanDictionary.
I became friends with this Canadian emo guy, we spent hours messaging back and forth. He was always talking about parties, his metal band, and alcohol, which I thought was sooo cool until, one day, he told me his mate just passed out. “Passed out? OMG what happened? Are you okay? Where is your friend? Did you call an ambulance? What will you do now? I am so sorry.”
I thought ‘passed out’ was the same as ‘passed away’.
I was picturing him drinking and messaging me with the dead body of his friend lying on the floor next to him.
I want to bury my face writing this too, don’t worry.
Up until that point, conversational English was only written and knowing ‘the cat is on the table’ (the English equivalent of ‘Donde esta la Biblioteca’) was utterly useless.
That was also when I signed up to the Social Network chat where I met the boyfriend. I recall when we started a video-chat, and all of us non-English speakers were confronted with our first native speaker pronunciation correction outside a classroom. Mine was for the word ‘weird’ as I’ve always thought it was pronounced ‘wired’. But the list is long: lozenges, hierarchy, category….
One time, I couldn’t think of the word ‘raccoons’, so I said ‘washing bandits’, or ‘lightning bug’ for ‘firefly’. Creative English.
Fast-forward a few years, I was sitting at a freshmen table at my posh English college, thinking I had mastered the English language thanks to all my chatting, and I realised I was wrong. I’ve never felt so overwhelmed, anxious, and out of place. When I finally managed to quiet my inner screaming and tune in to the conversation, I couldn’t find the words or the timing to offer any contribution.
Also, Geordie accent didn’t help.
English seemed to be easier when spoken with fellow foreign students. They may not have corrected or improved my English, but the timing was perfect among the whole group. I could crack jokes and even help my Erasmus friends translate random words such as ‘mackerel’.
Who on Earth learns ‘mackerel’ in a second language? I don’t even like fish!
I came to Australia knowing that my formal English consisted of philosophy texts and not considering that it would be highly impractical for everyday situations such as looking for a job, banking, or discussing the healthcare system and its governance.
English quickly became the language of adulting as I’ve never had to do my taxes in Italian, buy furniture, open a bank account alone, rent an apartment or, shocking, have a boyfriend and live with his parents in Italian.
Three members of The Postcard Club (on Substack) have written about their language journeys, and it feels just right that, after my embarrassing stories, I shared some wonderfully written, vulnerable, and insightful articles that you should check out.
Directly from the archives, please enjoy this authentic photographic evidence dated back to 2015, when these events took place:
I am certain I dreamt in English before actually speaking the language. I don't know where such dreams came from. It has now beem my main language for decades, so perhaps they were prophetic :)
I owe so much of it to ... country music 😎
So funny and sweet, as always with your texts! I remember those booklets with the lyrics so well, my parents surely still have all my CDs and cassettes with the lyrics attached.
brb, a universal nickname for all Barbaras - I'm dying, I might just call you that from now on hahah. 🥰