Lesson 3 of learning Croatian for Zagreb’s most linguistically challenged Brit, this time served with a side dish of cauliflower, as Stuart Jameson sends us his latest Croatian language learning progress report on October 25, 2017.
Such was the impact of my eye-opening experience at the fleamarket at Hrelić recently, I have been absent from documenting my Croatian lessons as I found it all too much to take in one week. Actually, I simply lost track of time and missed the class. As you may have read from my Hrelić article, I did not enjoy the opportunity to practice numbers while attempting to sell my wares, instead opting to persuade my partner to push prices on passing punters when propositioned. I cowered in the background, hiding behind a cup of hot coffee, retreating into my weatherproof jacket. It’s a pity they don’t make them idiot proof too.
The thing is – I know the numbers. Somewhere in that mush I call a brain there is the knowledge I need to start practising my Croatian outside the cotton-wool comfort of the classroom. The issue has always been down to fear. All those years ago, when I first asked a girl to come and hang out with me by the swings and she said no – that’s when it happened. The Fear. The bottom lip quivered, the corner of my eye became glassy, and off I ran, much to the amusement of my primary-school classmates. (I should assure you now that this wasn’t a recent experience). I’m petrified of failure, of not getting the response I want, of looking like a moron. And in learning Croatian – or any language for that matter – the fear continues to take hold.
There’s an assistant with her back to me in a shop. A shop assistant with their back to me is one of my recurring anxiety nightmares. It’s worse than dreaming your teeth have fallen out. I know what to say. I know it. It’s in there. Somewhere. But which one is it?! Is it “izvolite?” or is it “oprostite?” What follows is an indefinite period of panic where I frantically try and chose the correct word, as if my life depended on taking the red or the blue pill. Izvoliteoprostiteizvoliteoprostiteizoliteoprostiteizvoliteoprostite…Christ alive it’s all so damn confusing! Which one is it?! Sensing weakness, The Fear seizes the opportunity and strikes hard.
“Excuse me, I’ll have a meat burek please.”
F**k this, I was too hungry to mess about anyway.
I’m three lessons in and this is what I’m struggling with, but this week we change tack and learn about fruit and vegetables. I’m learning vegetables while feeling like one. I wonder how you say “I am a cauliflower?” That’s what I’ll ask next time I’m in the grocery store.
Our saint-like teacher has prepared a colourful hand-out with pictures of fruit and vegetables, a vacant space underneath each. At the top resides a box filled with Croatian words and it doesn’t take a genius to guess what the task is. I manage one out of the fourteen listed – brokula – probably because there was a picture of it. From then on, I’m simply guessing at whatever the word actually begins with. Češnjak becomes a carrot, gljive is obviously garlic, luk surely can’t be anything other than lettuce. What a pity that learning languages doesn’t work this way.
We’re left to work out the fruits ourselves for next week – something I will no doubt be using google translate to assist with as I speed through my homework, thus totally missing the point of it in the first place. Ahhhh google, how useful you would have been circa 1995.
We move on to learning “it is” and “this is.” “Ovo je meso e ovo je jaja” I repeat, wondering when I’m ever likely to ever need a phrase telling someone this is meat and this is an egg. Still, saying it fast sounds pretty impressive, so maybe I’ll try it out for the assistant next time I’m ordering in Mlinar.
“Ovo je meso e ovo je jaja e ja sam cvjetača.
That’s sure to get me exactly what I want.
