Languages

Intellectually I knew coming into Grad School that I would have to learn at least some of a bunch of modern languages to get along in the scholarship. For some reason I figured that most of it was in German and English, I wasn't worried about the bits that are in French - twelve years in the Canadian public school system including two years of French immersion were not lost on me, which is, I feel, a bit of a miracle considering - but I knew that I'd have to become at least vaguely passable in German. I totally didn't think about needing Italian at all. This I feel was slightly silly of me, what with the working in Italy thing and all.

Just my luck of course that a LOT of the scholarship on the subjects I'm doing this term is in Italian. I only have marginal sympathy from my profs. Unfortunately I don't think my excellent knowledge of how to order gelato and pizza will help much.

Sigh. Why did I decide to go into a field where I need to know five foreign languages (Latin, Ancient Greek, German, French and Italian) in order to do any serious work?

Things I need to buy: a good Italian-English Dictionary.