TuscanTweety

I'm doing Pimsleur in prep for my trip to Italy. (I searched this forum for language learning comments, and Pimsleur appeared to be the gold standard. Yes, the price is ungodly, but my public library had the sets for the unbeatable price of free. The only downside is that the CDs (from 1998) are teaching me to ask for things that cost tens of thousands of lire, as opposed to tens of euros.)

The premise of most of the conversational bits appear to be that the listener is a man trying to pick up a local woman.

But I'm female. I am starting to feel completely ridiculous saying "Le vorribe bere qualcosa, signorina?" without that certain twinkle in my voice.

Also, I'm starting to imagine elaborate scenarios between the male speaker and the female speaker. The male sounds like he's leering at all times. The female (who is played by the woman who actually wrote the script) sounds politely indifferent... except when she's practically flinging herself at him, asking to go to his place for that drink instead of the restaurant on Via Veneto. And it's such a cozy little cafe, where the waitress is endlessly tolerant as we debate for hours whether we want del vino o della beera.

Will she ever go out with him? Or does Lesson 28 teach us the Italian for "Get away from me, pig boy, I'd sooner jump naked into the Arno." Stay tuned!

This rant has been brought to you by my inability to remember when to say "DOHve" and when to say "dohVE."

TuscanTweety

Nice typo in my title, eh?

jgg

Thanks for the laugh! I have the Pimsleur Italian tapes and thought the part where she keeps saying "no I won't go with you" was hysterical too. Amazingly this random stuff you learn turns out to be extremely helpful!

OneWanderingJew

hehe...there are no doubt some females who would like that lovely Pimsleur pick up line. Perhaps you should rethink its usefulness

SeaUrchin

So funny, I have both the French and Italian CD's, so they same man tries in both countries. When I listened to my new French ones I had to laugh as I remembered the conversations from my older Italian one.

I bought them on ebay so they might not be the latest editions, I'll have to check.

Dukey

What are you planning to do when the Italians you meet figure out you speak English and express this very strong desire to practice their conversational skills with you?

Think it won't happen? Just wait and see and enjoy your trip.

Scarlett

LOL, very funny and yes, I did notice you were PMSleuring

TuscanTweety

Eh, Dukey? I'd been given to understand (from this forum) that most of the Italians I will meet will either want to practice their English, or will know English so well that my Italian slows them up... but that I will vastly enrich my trip by trying to sling the lingo. So I'm doing my best

Did you mean that the Pimsleur scenarios will help me to practice being politely disinterested in the charms of the local men? I think my burly half-Italian husband will ward off what few passes I might have had.

viaggiatrice

Tweety,
Your post had me laughing out loud this morning. I too am doing Pimsleur in prep for a trip to Italy. Have you gotten to the part where the married man and woman are discussing having a drink together and then their spouses walk in? Very funny.
KT