How does living life in a foreign language change impact your life? Have you ever wondered how speaking a second or third language more often than your native tongue can reshape your thinking?
In this episode from the archives of The Bittersweet Life, Tiffany reflects on 15 years of living abroad and how it has transformed the way she communicates—even in her first language.
We dive into the surprising cognitive and emotional challenges of navigating life in a foreign language, especially for writers, who rely so heavily on nuanced expression.
Plus, we explore how bilingual or multilingual couples often gravitate toward one shared language in their relationship—and how this dynamic might shift dramatically when raising a child in a multilingual household.
Tune in to discover the fascinating ways language shapes identity, relationships, and the thought-process.
You can listen right here, or find the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, and elsewhere.
Related Episodes:
Language is one of our most popular topics! You might be interested in these past episodes about language:
Episode 476: Italy Bans the English Language
Episode 430: Does Language Shape Thinking?
Episode 63: LANGUAGE, Part 3 (with J J Michael)
Bittersweet Moment #96: Disappearing Languages
Bittersweet Moment #54: Learning to Read in Two Languages at Once
Bittersweet Moment #3: LANGUAGE
Five key takeaways from the episode:
- The hosts discuss the challenges and nuances of being bilingual, including how speaking multiple languages can affect relationships and self-expression.
- Tiffany shares her experience raising a bilingual child in Italy, including funny language mix-ups and the benefits of exposing her son to both English and Italian.
- They explore how living in a foreign country for an extended period can impact one’s native language skills, sometimes leading to difficulty recalling words or expressions.
- The conversation touches on the differences in expressions and idioms between languages, and how direct translations can sometimes lead to humorous or embarrassing situations.
- The hosts discuss how speaking in a foreign language can sometimes allow for more direct communication, as the speaker may not have the same emotional associations with words in their non-native tongue.
Full Episode Transcript:
About the show
Support for The Bittersweet Life comes from listeners, people who love the show enough to donate at our website www.thebittersweetlife.net or through Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/thebittersweetlifepodcast. And if you run a business, a podcast, or any other kind of artistic endeavor and you want a shout out from us on our show, support us on Patreon at the $50 a month level. If you’ve never heard this show before, glad you found us. I’m Katy Sewall. I’m a longtime public radio producer and host who five years ago stepped off the path, quit my job and moved to Rome. That was very out of character for me. But that’s where this show begins and where we begin exploring what happens when you take a risk, what happens when you decide to begin again, or what happens when you move abroad or even just away. Together, we hope to discover what possibilities life is still offering us. My co host is Tiffany Parks. She’s a writer and an expat living in Rome for the last decade. She dreamed of moving to Rome, and so she went. No real plan other than to try. We’re childhood friends, too. We met on the school bus in the sixth grade. Don’t be afraid to start way back at the beginning of the show. That’s when we’re on the streets of Rome. And subscribe and join us today, too. We’ll keep you in good company and you might just change your life. Now, on to the show.
Opening
Welcome to Rome. This is The Bittersweet Life with Katy Sewall and Tiffany Parks.
Katy
Hello. This is The Bittersweet Life. I’m Katy Sewall.
Tiffany
I’m Tiffany Parks.
Katy
And today we’re going down the language train again. People love when we do language shows.
Tiffany
I know a language is fascinating. We’ve, we did a couple, maybe three, at least two, but maybe three language episodes. But I think they were all way back in our first season. I just started thinking recently about how much more I have to sort of add to that conversation because my life is so different than it was back in 2014 or whenever we started this podcast.
Katy
Yeah, season one, you would have been. You didn’t have a kid. You did have a job. You were working with Italians.
Tiffany
Honestly, having a child really made the language thing, you know, even more interesting.
Katy
Well, you lead us off. Where do you want? What road do you want to take us down? Let’s establish that Tiffany lives in Rome, for those of you who don’t know. And she speaks Italian on a regular basis.
Tiffany
Yes, I’ve lived in Rome for 15 years. Tomorrow. I know, crazy big anniversary, but, yeah. So I always. I could speak Italian decently before I moved here. And I just really took to it. It was just something that was always really easy for me, pretty much. I mean, it’s not like I was fluent overnight, but it didn’t take too much effort on my part, and it just felt right. It really felt good. So by the time I met my husband, we just started our relationship in Italian, because I spoke Italian very well, and he spoke some English, but it wasn’t great. But over the years, his English has dramatically improved to the point that he can speak it really well. Now he can’t speak it quite as well as me because I’ve lived here for 15 years, and he’s never lived in the States, so obviously. But his English is really good. His comprehension particularly is very good. And so I’ve noticed that things have kind of shifted in our language relationship. Because you know what they say and what I always say to people is usually what happens is you start a relationship, whether it’s a friendship, a working relationship, a romantic relationship, mother and child, whatever it is, you start a relationship in a particular language. And it’s very, very difficult to change languages later on. And I felt this for the first time, really, with a good friend of mine named Agnes, who is French. I studied a little bit of French. I can speak some French, but her English was just so good. And we met in the States. We naturally spoke English together. Our relationship continued in English, and I moved to Montreal eventually, and my French got decent. Like, it never got to the level of my Italian, but it was. It was okay. And she came to visit me, and I said, oh, maybe we should speak French together, because now I can speak French, you know. And so we started Speak for. And it just felt weird. The way I describe it is like you’re pretending to be someone else.
Katy
Yeah. Like you’re playing a character or something like that.
Tiffany
You’re playing a character, you’re playing a role. Like, it just doesn’t feel like it can be your true selves in any kind of authentic way that your relationship has gone thus far. It just seems like all of a sudden you’re strangers or something.
Katy
Which is so interesting because a person listening who’s currently learning a language feels that same way. Like they’re pretending when they’re talking the language that they are that person. Or we’ve talked about in the past, when you’re learning a language, it’s so hard to have A sense of humor or understand that other people are being funny or. And so it’s almost like you’re in social situations with no personality.
Tiffany
Absolutely. Yeah.
Katy
Yeah. My name is this. And yes, two people, please, and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, but yeah, so that’s interesting, that idea that. Because for your friend, English would have been her second language.
Tiffany
Well, second, third, or fourth. I don’t know. She speaks a bunch of languages, but, yes, definitely not her first language. So here she is going into her first language. And I mean, now, I don’t know if maybe if she felt the same way I felt, but I definitely felt something was weird. It just didn’t feel right to speak French with her. Plus, she made fun of my Montreal accent, so that was another reason she was horrified, because she’s Parisian. She tells me, I don’t have it anymore, you know, not to offend any Quebecois people who might be listening. So I always thought, you know, we talked about this before you and I talked about this before I had Aurelio. I said, I’m gonna be really strict, and I’m only gonna speak to him in English. And I thought, like, what is that gonna be like? Because, you know, Claudio will be speaking to him in Italian, and I’ll be speaking to him in English, and then I’ll turn around and speak Italian to Claudio. Will it be weird? Will it be confusing? And the truth is, and I didn’t really expect this, but the truth is, I’ve gotten to the point where I wouldn’t say 100%. Definitely not 100%. Somewhere between maybe 50 and 75% of the time, I’m speaking English to Claudio, and he’s answering me in Italian. Every so often, he’ll say something in English to me.
Katy
Now, have you asked him why he answers in Italian versus English?
Tiffany
I just think it’s just so much faster, easier. Like I said, his comprehension is what’s really good. He can speak it, and he’ll speak, like, if you come over, he’ll speak English to you, obviously. And you guys have had long conversations in English, right? Yeah, I’m, like, putting Aurelio to bed, and I’m stuck in the other room. You guys are having some deep conversation, and I’m missing it. But I’ve heard of relationships between parent and child where the parent speaks one language to the child and the child responds in a different language. And I’ve always thought that was weird, too, because it’s usually when it happens is in a situation like my situation with Aurelio, where I’m the quote unquote foreigner living in a country with my child who is obviously native to both countries. And so he’s speaking the language of the place he’s living. And I’m responding in my native language. I don’t do that without really. I make him. I make him speak English. I am just as strict as I said I would be. Pat, pat, pat on the back. And sometimes he will speak to me in English, I mean, in Italian. And I just say, why are you speaking to Mommy in Italian? You speak to mom in English. And he’ll go in English. And every so often he’ll say, because I don’t know how to in English. And so I’ll just tell him what it is. But he speaks absolutely fine English. He probably has a bigger vocabulary in Italian, but not by much. And his grammar in English is great, with a few exceptions, which I’ll describe. Which are hilarious. I’ll describe those later. So the reason that I’m doing this, speaking to Claudio in English, I’ve realized, is because I want Aurelio to hear as much English as he can. I did not even start doing it thinking about that. I just did. It was like a subconscious thing, you know, Every word that he hears in English is good for him. And Claudio has not had a problem with it. He never. If it’s like something really specific, he might be like, I don’t understand. But he gets almost everything I say. And I speak pretty much at normal speed. And sometimes he’ll answer me in English. Sometimes I’ll be like, let’s speak English in the house. And he’ll be like, okay. But then he forgets. But I’m so much more aware of language now because of Aurelio. Whereas it used to be it was just the two of us. It was so easy for me to slip back into Italian. I wouldn’t even notice. But because I have this, like, hyper awareness with Aurelio, I speak English. It’s like on the forefront of my mind that I’m much more aware of what language I’m speaking now. And so I make a conscious effort now to speak more English in the house. And if Claudia responds to me in Italian, you know, that’s fine. I don’t think that it’s changed our relationship. But it’s interesting because it used to feel kind of weird when we spoke English together. And it doesn’t feel weird anymore. When we were in America for those two weeks, I think I probably spoke to Claudio 95% of the time in English.
Katy
Was he still Answering you in Italian or was he more in an English speaking mode?
Tiffany
He would do more English. I found that, like if we were around English speakers, like if we were sitting and having dinner with my family and I said something to him in English, he would respond to me in English. Or if we were sitting in the living room and my mother was sitting there and I spoke to him in English, he’d generally respond to me in English. And I think that’s kind of a respect thing as well. I don’t think that you need to do that. But I have a friend who is in the same situation as me and she feels in her opinion that it’s rude for her to speak to her children in English when she’s with people who don’t understand English. I don’t happen to agree with that, but that’s how she sees it. She feels uncomfortable speaking English to her children if she’s with her mother in law, for example. So it could be that or it could be just he’s in the midst of a conversation that’s going on all around him, that’s in English, and it just feels more right to speak in English.
Katy
Yeah.
Tiffany
Although I do have to say we were in the car with my sister and my brother in law once and Claudio said something to me in Italian. And I, we had this very short conversation in Italian. And it must be so great to have like the secret language that you guys can speak in that no one else around you understands.
Katy
Your sister said that?
Tiffany
Yeah. To have this language that you can just slip into and the people sitting next to you won’t understand it. I didn’t do that on purpose to exclude her, but I think it probably was something personal. Now that I think back on it.
Katy
I think it is a privilege.
Tiffany
Oh, it’s totally a privilege.
Katy
Yeah. But you have to be careful because.
Tiffany
You never know who’s listening to you. And I have a great little story to tell. I wish I could remember who told me this story, but it was an Italian woman of a certain age and she spent a year or something living in London. But this was way back, a long time ago. I think it was in the 60s or the 70s. She was on the metro in London, the underground, with another Italian girl. And there was a very, very handsome young black man on the train. And the two of them were talking about him and about how gorgeous he was and about how sexy he was. In Italian. They were speaking Italian. They were totally, you know, not shy at all because they knew or they thought he couldn’t understand and eventually he stands up because he’s his stop. And he’s about to turn to go, and he just turns to them and he says, grazia, signorina. And he gets off. And he had understood every word that they had said.
Katy
That’s beautiful.
Tiffany
Yeah, I love that story. I wish I could remember who told me that. But anyway, back to the sort of. Some of my realizations. We’ve talked a lot about the fact that I have a hard time remembering words in English often. Yes, it happens to me all the time on this show. Wait, is that. Is that a word?
Katy
That’s my favorite thing. Use a common word.
Tiffany
Interesting.
Katy
Interesting. If that’s a word and you’re like, yeah, interesting’s a word.
Tiffany
And it’s shameful because I’m a writer and I, you know, I write all day long. I write books, and I also write at a magazine, and I write for this show.
Katy
And you write in English.
Tiffany
And I write in English. I write almost entirely in English. And what happens to me, a couple of things happen that I found are very interesting. One of the things is that sometimes I can’t remember a word, but I can remember how it feels to say the word. Like, how it feels in my mouth. What I mean is I can remember, like, how many syllables it has and where the accent falls and, like, if it ends with a ly. I wrote this down on a piece of paper the other day because I thought about it, because I was trying to remember the word ostensibly, and I couldn’t remember the word. I had the meaning in my head, but I knew it was an ly word, like bly word, and I knew that it was four syllables, ostensibly. I was like, I had it in my mouth. I couldn’t get it out. And I eventually did, but it took a while. So that’s one thing that happens. And then another thing that happens is I can think of the Italian word before I think of it in English, which is just bizarre to me that I would know, you know, quote unquote, know a word in Italian that I didn’t know what it meant in English.
Katy
So do you know what the ostensibly would be in Italian?
Tiffany
That I don’t know. I don’t even think I know what ostensibly means. And I think when I. When I came up with that word, I actually checked the dictionary meaning, and I was wrong. So it wasn’t even the word I was looking for. I think it was a different one that just sounded like it. I didn’t write down what that word was. But I can’t remember.
Katy
Fair enough.
Tiffany
But there are certain words, I mean, in every language has its own specific words that don’t exist in any other language, you know, So I think sometimes I come up with the Italian word because there just isn’t an English word or just not a good enough one. And that definitely exists. Also the opposite way. I have found myself going onto a dictionary and looking up the Italian word to see what the English word was.
Katy
Yeah.
Tiffany
Another thing that happens is sometimes I can think of the antonym of the word. I can think of the opposite in English. And I have to go on thesaurus.com and click on antonyms to see what the opposite is, because I literally can’t think of the word for what I’m looking for. I can just think of the opposite of it, which is just also really weird, especially to be a writer and to have words come so difficultly to you when you’re a writer. And it isn’t all the time. Okay. But it does happen, you know, regularly, probably once a day.
Katy
Well, and it’s interesting because it sort of indicates that when we think about picking up a new language or becoming fluent in a different language, a lot of people dream of that. You don’t think that if you become so fluent, you might actually start to lose the one that you were fluent with first, you know, or that if you live in that language so much of the time that your native language could start to drop away?
Tiffany
I think it can. I think it happened to a lot of people coming to the United States. I mean, my grandmother spoke Italian with her mother when she was a child. I don’t know that it was her first language because she was born in the US but both of her parents were off the boat from Italy a couple years before she was born, so she heard only Italian at home. And then eventually her mother died and her father wanted only to speak English because for fitting in and stuff like that. And she lost it. She lost it completely. 100. I think if you’re just learning a language and you’re living in. Well, obviously if you’re living in your own country, it’s never going to happen. But I just think if you are an expat and you worry about that, you just have to constantly be practicing your own language, I guess, you know, find friends that speak your own language. And it just seems weird that you would have to say that because usually it’s the other way around. But no, it does. It does happen. I think that having Aurelio is really good for me. It’s really good for my English, Obviously, being a writer hopefully is good for my English too.
Katy
But see, and interestingly enough, I thought that staying with Aurelio and you last time I was in Rome was helpful to my Italian because.
Tiffany
Well, I can totally see that.
Katy
Yeah. Aurelio would often say the English and the Italian word back to back. He was younger then. He may not do that anymore. Or he would say half of the sentence in Italian and half of it in English.
Tiffany
Yeah.
Katy
Because I could understand what the sentence was. Then I started seeing what all the elements of that sentence were. So for me, it was a fine learning experience.
Tiffany
Yeah. Yeah. They call that code sharing or code switching. Usually children do it, but adults do it too. I do it. I do it sometimes. Throw in Italian words in the middle of a sentence. It’s actually not a sign of really of confusion. I’ve done some reading on bilingual children. You know, a lot of people say, especially in the past, they used to say, you know, you speak two languages, you speak neither. Well, especially when it comes to children. But it’s really not true. And sometimes language speaking can be delayed for some children, but not always. And usually anyways, they catch up and they’re better than their peers in either language. But Aurelio actually spoke quite early. He does have some confusion, though. Just little things, but they sort themselves out. One of my favorites, he doesn’t do this anymore. He’s figured it out. But it was so cute. So in English, you know, we don’t use double negatives. Double negative makes a positive. So you would never say, I’m not doing nothing. You’d say, I’m not doing anything. But in Italian you say, non, so niente. I don’t know anything. Non vedo niente. I don’t see. But niente means nothing. It doesn’t mean anything. So it’s just a different way of constructing the sentence. So when about a year ago, he would say, what are you doing, Aurelio? If he looked like he was doing something naughty, like, what are you doing? And he’d go, anything. But he meant nothing. He meant nothing. And I would say, you know, do you want anything to eat? He would just use that single word. He would say, what do you want? Anything. But he didn’t mean anything. Again, he meant nothing. And he finally figured that out. And I tried to explain it to him. I’m like, nothing means nothing. No thing, zero. Nothing. Anything. But how do you explain the word anything? Like, it’s impossible.
Katy
Yeah. It’s like infinite possibilities.
Tiffany
Yeah. And kids don’t know those words, so.
Katy
Right. Yeah.
Tiffany
So it’s hard. It’s actually one thing that’s interesting about having a bilingual child is you do have this whole other language to explain them something if they don’t get it in the other language.
Katy
Oh, interesting.
Tiffany
So sometimes ask me what a word means and I can try to explain what that word means. Or I could just say it in the other language. He might know it in the other language.
Katy
Right.
Tiffany
So it’s actually, it’s quite cool.
Katy
That is cool.
Tiffany
The other thing that he sometimes gets confused on still is he’ll use the word. Instead of saying short, he’ll use the word court. Because in Italian it’s corto. So it’s kind of just like he’s anglified the word. And he does that with a lot of words. But I think court has got to be the cutest one. But he usually does it with verbs. So he’ll say like. And again, he doesn’t do this so much anymore, but did it in the past. He’d say like, I’m swooning the guitar. Suonare is to play in Italian, so I’m swooning the guitar. Or he’d say, I’m baving some milk, bathing Bere. Bevo is to drink. He will do that every so often.
Katy
Oh, that’s so interesting.
Tiffany
Yeah, it’s really cute, to be honest.
Katy
Well, and there are some. When you’re going between Italian and English, it’s that difference. Like bevo is a very different word than drink. But some Italian words sort of resemble the English word for it.
Tiffany
Yeah. There are some words that are close but not exact and you can get into some serious trouble if you say the wrong word.
Katy
Oh yeah?
Tiffany
Oh yeah. I’ve had friends get into trouble.
Katy
Like what?
Tiffany
The word preservativo, what does it sound like? Pre. Servativo. Preservative, right, yeah, preservative. It does not mean preservative.
Katy
It means condom, which is a preservative in a way.
Tiffany
In a way, yeah.
Katy
Or a preventative actually. Probably more likely.
Tiffany
I had a friend, she once went to dinner at her now ex boyfriend’s parents house. You know, they had fresh bread on the table or something and she said, oh, you know, Italian bread is so good, it’s so fresh. American bread, it’s so bad. It’s full of. It’s full of condoms.
Katy
It’s full of condoms. That would be bad.
Tiffany
She said, the mother just looked shocked and she just went, that’s pretty great. And then I have another Friend who. There’s another word, polizione. Sounds like pollution, Right. It actually means ejaculation. Oh, interesting.
Katy
Interesting.
Tiffany
She said to someone she was dating, oh, there’s just so much, you know, ejaculation in this city. It’s just everywhere.
Katy
And he’s like, wow, I hadn’t noticed.
Tiffany
Interesting. Yeah. You have to be careful.
Katy
And it’s also one of those ones that you don’t realize till later on, like, you find out down the road. Yeah. Wow.
Tiffany
Yeah. And then what happens to me also is. And this isn’t quite as dangerous, but what. What I will do is I will use an Italian word that, you know, it really does mean the same thing, but it’s just used differently. There’s just a slight difference in the meaning. So a great example of this is exaggerate. Exaggerare. It pretty much means the same thing, except that in Italian, there’s another additional way you can use it, which can mean to sort of overreact over, dramatize whatever you’re feeling. Your emotional state is to kind of just go to the excess.
Katy
Kind of like we would use melodramatic.
Tiffany
Yeah, melodramatic. But it could be any emotion. It doesn’t have to be like, being dramatic and being overly dramatic. Any emotion that you might feel going to the excess would be exaggerating in Italian. And I remember I was talking to our mutual friend Suzanne was. And I used it. I used exaggerate in that way. And she just kind of laughed. I realized later that I didn’t use it in the correct way. Like you wouldn’t use. You would say, overreact maybe, but you wouldn’t say, you know, I was just exaggerating. Because exaggerating, we think it means, basically, you’re lying just in quantity. You know, you’re saying, I have $100,000 when you have 10,000. So I just remember her being like, huh? And then I realized later that in English, you don’t use it that way.
Katy
Yeah.
Tiffany
The same thing can be true with expressions as well. There are expressions in Italian that you just don’t use in English. But when you live here long enough and you use those expressions so much in the foreign language, they can start creeping into your native language. And I used to joke about this with a friend. You know, we’re both native English speakers, and we would use these expressions that we would never use in English, like, okay, we’ll hear each other in the next few days, we’ll hear each other. You don’t say that in English. Let’s hear each other. You just don’t say that. But you say that in Italiano. Or you’d say, I just remember saying, yeah, I’m dating this guy, but he just hasn’t been looking for me. He hasn’t been looking for me at all. And in Italian, you use like, cicerocavo. I looked for you. It means like, I was calling you or I was texting you. I was trying to get in touch with you. Then you’d say, I’m looking for you. And she’s like, yeah, he just hasn’t been looking for me at all.
Katy
Or in English, you’d think, okay, so wait, does that mean that you ended up dating but he wasn’t looking for a girlfriend? What does that mean?
Tiffany
Well, it works. When you both speak the foreign language, it works. And that’s why you fall into that, because you’re so used to using those expressions in other aspects of your life that you end up using them together. And it can be hilarious when you stop and think about it. It’s kind of funny.
Katy
Yeah, they’re great. Well, it reminds me it’s a little different because it’s an example of somebody trying to learn English when they speak Vietnamese. But when me and my dad were traveling to Vietnam all the time, we knew these two young women that were good friends with each other, and we were with them one day, and one of them started crying a lot and was having a little bit of trouble getting it back together, really emotional, and was just sobbing. And her friend comes and puts her hand on her shoulder, and she says, I think we need to go to the relax room. And of course, we love that. But what is that? It’s the restroom. Right. In English, I think we need to go to the relax room.
Tiffany
I was like, I would love to have a relaxed room in my house. That sounds awesome.
Katy
I love that it’s just an accident, but it’s so charming. Yeah, it’s lovely.
Tiffany
Yeah. Sometimes they can be charming, definitely. And then sometimes they can be terribly embarrassing. Yeah. Or sometimes some languages, they just. There’s more to the point. It’s not necessarily that this language in general is more to the point, but just this phrase makes so much more sense than the way that, you know, you would say it in a different language.
Katy
Yeah.
Tiffany
And so you want to say it in that way. It starts to become natural to say it in that way. And not everything can be translated.
Katy
Yeah. But see, how do you. When it comes to learning a language, how do you learn those things that cannot be translated? How do you just come to know what those things mean in Italian.
Tiffany
It’s context. They’re not going to be the first things that you learn, of course, but if you live in a culture and you live in the. In the language, you will eventually start hearing expressions and you’ll, you know, you might understand all the words and not necessarily the meaning, but by. By having context and constantly hearing it. That’s how you learn. I mean, that’s how children learn. Everything is by context. How would they be able to learn language if they don’t speak it? They’re not born knowing how to speak a language, but they learn it through context.
Katy
That’s true. Yeah. It’s sort of like sometimes you learn a phrase or you use a phrase in English, but you don’t actually know what the real words are. I’m trying to think of an example.
Tiffany
Oh, I know, I know. My mom does this. She says it doesn’t matter.
Katy
It doesn’t matter.
Tiffany
It doesn’t matter. And I. It drives me crazy that she says it doesn’t matter. I’m like, mom, it’s matter with a T. Yeah. Another one that people. People, a lot of people use is they say, I should’ve. I should have done it. But it’s not of. It’s have. I should have, like a lazy tic that people.
Katy
But at what point does the lazy tic become what English is?
Tiffany
I have to say, I’m not one of those people who’s up for, like, changing the meanings of words just because.
Katy
I should have called, but I should have called as. Yeah is equally respectable. Probably in normal colloquial English, you can.
Tiffany
Kind of get away with slurring your words, but if you’re writing it down.
Katy
Oh, yeah, of course.
Tiffany
You’re not going to write should of. But some people probably do.
Katy
Yeah, for sure. I was thinking of the phrase nip it in the bud. I think for years when I was a younger person, I thought it was nip it in the butt, which, you know, But I mean, two and two together nip it in the bud. It’s like you have to kind of gain. And not only hear it, right, but you have to have a. Gain some knowledge of gardening for it to make any sense whatsoever.
Tiffany
Well, yes and no. I think there are tons of expressions out there that we use without knowing why. Why do they say that? And then you go and you figure it out and you discover the reason. I think there’s a lot.
Katy
Hi there. I’m Katy.
Tiffany
And I’m Tiffany.
Katy
Taking a brief moment out of the show. So I can ask Tiffany a question? Yes. So, Tiffany, you listen to podcasts, right? I mean, besides ours?
Tiffany
Of course I do.
Katy
Okay. Yes, well, see, me too. And I was just thinking the other day that sometimes when a show that I really love pops into my feedback, I feel a sense of relief. It might not be relief. I don’t even know what the word right word would be.
Tiffany
No, I know exactly what you mean. Yeah. Because, you know, you’re excited when the show that you love comes up and you wait the whole week so you can hear it, and then, yeah, I totally feel the same.
Katy
Yeah, it’s just so great to have it there. Well, so my question for you is, do you think that there are listeners out there that think the same way about our show? Like, they get a little electric spark when they see it?
Tiffany
I know there are. I mean, we’ve had so many people write to us and tell us. I’m sure there are.
Katy
So the question is, are you out there, dear listener? Are you the person listening to the sound of my voice who feels a sense of relief or joy or just plain excited when the show appears? If you are that person who has found that through the months and years, you’ve come to rely on the company and conversations that you’re finding here, please keep those conversations going by pledging your support at our brand new Patreon page. Yes. Oh, by the way, do you know what Patreon is, Tiffany?
Tiffany
I do. Patreon is amazing website that makes it really easy for you to support the independent art that you love. Like us.
Katy
Like us.
Tiffany
And you can receive fabulous prizes too, depending on, you know, how much you want to pledge to support us. You. There are certain prizes. For example, if you’re thinking of moving to Italy now or in the future, if it’s an idea that interests you, you won’t want to miss my exclusive guide created just for our Patreon supporters called how to Move to Italy Without Losing your Mind and several others just for people who. Who might be traveling to Italy as well.
Katy
That sounds relatively important. If you’re planning on a trip to Italy or a move to Italy, you definitely don’t want to lose your mind. And that’s just one of the many exclusive gifts you can get. Pick out, select. When you pledge your support for our show at www.patreon.com/thebittersweetlifepodcast . We like to consider ourselves artists and we made this thing. And if you like what we’re making, please support it too.
Tiffany
Yes. And Patreon is spelled P A T R E O N. So that’s patreon.com/thebittersweetlifepodcast. And I will put this link in the show notes, of course, and we thank you so much for giving back to the show. That keeps you in good company. And now back to the show.
Katy
So would you say that your relationship, because you speak English with Aurelio and Italian with Claudio, even though that’s starting to morph, would you say that your relationship with Aurelia was different than your relationship with Claudio still? Because we started with you talking about how when you start in a language, it’s hard to switch to a different one because it feels like you’re faking it.
Tiffany
Yeah, but obviously I. My relationship with Claudio is very different from our relationship with Aurelio. But not because of language.
Katy
Well, I mean, in the language context, though, I don’t.
Tiffany
You know, that’s a really good question, actually, because with Claudio, I. Not always. Because I do speak English with him now a lot, but, you know, I’m always speaking a foreign language. And when you speak a foreign language with someone, you’re always kind of. I mean, it does change the dynamic in a sense, because it’s like you. You kind of have the upper hand. Or not. It might be the other person who has the upper hand, but you’re not quite on an even playing field. So sometimes he has the upper hand in the sense that, you know, maybe we’re having a really serious discussion, and I can’t quite speak Italian as well as I would like to, so I can’t express myself as well as he can. And so he’s kind of has the upper hand. And other times I feel like I have the upper hand because it’s almost like I’m doing him the favor of speaking his language. And when I want, I can just go in my language. If I’m not getting the response that I want, I can just go off in my language.
Katy
Yeah. Leave him behind.
Tiffany
Yeah, it’s interesting. There’s definitely very interesting dynamic. And then, of course, with Aurelio, I speak my own language with him, which is comfortable for me. It’s easy for me. But I have to. I have to remember. I mean, not so much anymore. It’s getting very natural to speak to him in English. But when I’m at the playground and there’s other little kids around, I always almost accidentally speak English to these little kids who can’t understand me. I never go into the wrong language when I’m speaking with an adult, but to the kids, I’LL always do it. And it’s because I’m so used to speaking English to Aurelio, and he’s the only little kid in my everyday life, that it seems natural and normal to me to speak English to all little kids.
Katy
Mm. Yeah, that makes sense. And maybe you should.
Tiffany
Yeah, sometimes I just do speak English to them, and they look at me, like, with this kind of, like, strange look on their face, but, you know.
Katy
Mm.
Tiffany
I think they can pretty much get it. You know what they say, like, body language is everything. So.
Katy
Okay, I have one last question.
Tiffany
Okay.
Katy
You know how sometimes when you’re having a really hard discussion with somebody or you’re trying to really say it’s anything emotional, you’re trying to express how you’re feeling inside or how something they did affected you, and the more you talk, the more you sort of realize that I can’t express whatever it is I’m trying to say in words. And if I do, then it starts sounding trite or not what I’m trying to say. We’ve all been in that experience.
Tiffany
Even in your own language.
Katy
Yeah. I was wondering if. If you have two languages to choose from and you’re trying to get at something like that, does it make it easier to express those more difficult things where. If you’re saying, well, in English, I’m not getting my point across. Let’s say you were trying to tell me how much you valued me as a friend, but every time you were trying to explain it, it just sort of came off as like, oh, yeah, we both understand what friendship is like. You know? You know, it just comes off as trite. But you were trying to really express something. If you have two different options, does it work better? Do you feel like you have more resources to pull on?
Tiffany
- I do think so, in a sense. I mean, I think that it’s like I will sometimes throw in an Italian word just because the English word isn’t strong enough.
Katy
Yeah.
Tiffany
Or vice versa. When I’m speaking Italian, I might put in an English word because I don’t feel like the Italian word is quite right. But I also think that there is another aspect to that, another level, to that, which is when you’re speaking a foreign language, you don’t have all the connotations of your own language from having, you know, 30 or 40 years of having spoken it. And so you can say something and it could be a direct translation from English, but it won’t sound trite to you now. It might sound trite to the person you’re talking to if that’s their native language. But it probably won’t sound right to you because you haven’t heard that said so many times. That word combination is relatively new to you. Sometimes that can almost feel more sincere in a strange, weird sort of a way.
Katy
That’s why language. We could probably do a language show every single week because it’s both so expansive and so limited.
Tiffany
Yeah.
Katy
For the full range of what it is to be a thinking, feeling human being on the planet.
Tiffany
Yeah. I mean, I can’t wait until Aurelio’s old enough to like interview him about this and like have him talk about what his experience has been. Growing up bilingual.
Katy
Yeah.
Tiffany
The last thing I want to say about speaking in a foreign language and having it almost be more expressive is that for the same reason that you don’t have the connotations on certain words and certain expressions and phrases, you can be much more direct in a foreign language. You don’t sugarcoat the words as much. Sometimes it’s because you can’t sugarcoat it because you don’t have the mastery of the language to sugarcoat it. But sometimes it’s just because it doesn’t sound so harsh to you because it’s not your language.
Katy
Yeah. Like at the level I’m at She drinks the Milk does in Italian is direct. It does sound a little harsh.
Tiffany
Something more along the lines of I don’t want to see you anymore, I don’t enjoy your company. I mean, you know, I don’t know, just like picking things up off the top of my head. That sounds so harsh.
Katy
Yeah.
Tiffany
But it doesn’t have that jarring sound because even though you know what the words are, it’s not part of your past memory of language. So you don’t have any associations with it.
Katy
Wow. Well, maybe we’ll do a follow up episode if you guys have any further thoughts.
Tiffany
Yeah.
Katy
And by you guys, I mean you. You listening out there.
Tiffany
Yes.
Katy
Don’t forget that you can become a Patreon supporter of our show. Yes. We’re aiming for $1,000 a month so we can pay our bills and actually go out to dinner once in a while for making this show.
Tiffany
Yes. That would be wonderful.
Katy
Thanks for everybody who’s already dropped on by and supported it. We really appreciate you. We really, really do.
Tiffany
Yes, we do.
Katy
And if you wanted to Support at the $50 level and you have a business or a, a blog or anything, we will actually mention your business. So that’s something to think about.
Tiffany
We will plug you.
Katy
Yeah. Patreon.com/thebittersweetlifepodcast. You can also find us on social media where we are constantly running book contests for authors that appear on this show.
Tiffany
We have lots of book giveaways. Pretty much once a month. We’ve got a book giveaway going at least once a month. And let me tell you, people, not a lot of people. I don’t like to admit this, but not a lot of people participate in our giveaways. So sometimes we’ve got like eight people, sometimes even fewer, especially on Facebook, participating. I do a true drawing. I rip up the little pieces of paper and pick one. So if there’s only like four or five people in the contest, it’s very likely that you might win a book. So, guys, pay attention. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Just search for The Bittersweet Life podcast and take part in our giveaways because you have a very high chance of winning.
Katy
Yeah. Free books. Who doesn’t love that?
Tiffany
No one.
Katy
Save yourself $30.
Tiffany
Yeah.
Katy
And. Yeah. And then you get to delve further into the different authors that we have on board. Yeah. It’s true. You see a lot of contests online and you always think, I’m not going to enter that because so many other people are going to do it. But, you know, it’s just like writing an email to your favorite podcaster. You just don’t do it all that much because you figure someone else is doing it. I’m never going to win that. Why both you should bother. So bother. Follow us on social media and until next time, this is The Bittersweet Life. I’m Katy Sewall.
Tiffany
I’m Tiffany Parks.
Katy
I feel like you should say that in Italian.
Tiffany
Sono Tiffany Parks.
Katy
Join us again. Bye.
Tiffany
Ciao.
Katy
Thanks for all the ways you support us. Give us a good rating on itunes, subscribe to the show and pledge your support at Patreon. And for goodness sake, interact with us on social media. Just search for The Bittersweet Life podcast if you’re interested in sponsoring the show, send us a letter there, too. Our logo is by Jody Rieck at the Lost Laboratory, with help from our muse, Caravaggio. Talk to you next week. Bye.
