#even if my mother tongue is not english and I don't know living in italy how I am supposed to do it

[goblinwithartsupplies]

A half blood Christmas

I’m a huge lost media buff and I just realized I had this floating around in my phone and thought I’d post it incase the hosting website ever shut down. It is copy pasted directly from the website and all credit goes to Rick for writing it and the translation from Italian was done by Ari Wilde and Cam Baragiola

PJO ITALIA

dicembre 25, 2020

AN HALF-BLOOD CHRISTMAS (UN NATALE MEZZOSANGUE), A SHORT STORY BY RICK RIORDAN —

Rick Riordan posted a new short story on his official site today, set in the Percy Jackson Universe. The story was originally published on La Repubblica, a renowed Italian newspaper. This short story is the first that Rick has written entirely in Italian, a language in which he appears to be fluent in.

Since Italian is our mother-tongue, we were very excited and eager to read this story, and we have decided to translate it in English, and share it with Percy Jackson fans from all over the world!

An Half-blood Christmas

“Where are we?” asked Percy. “Florence,” said Nico.

Percy furrowed his eyebrows. “And why?”

The son of Hades snorted. “It's not like you need a reason to go to Florence. But you told me that you'd like to find a perfect gift for Annabeth, right?”

“Right.” Percy pressed his hands on his stomach. He never liked shadow travelling. “But I thought that we were going to go to Times Square's Christmas market. There are so many stands –”

“Times Square!” Nico shivered. “You're romantic. If you want a gift that's worthy of your girlfriend, you need an Italian gift, everybody knows it. Come on.”

The streets in Florence were empty. The winter clouds were heavy and grey. In front of Nico and Percy, the massive dome of the cathedral looked like a huge medieval spaceship, ready to take off.

“The shop is near,” Nico said, walking across the square. His face was hard to read due to the mask that covered his mouth.

“Which shop?” Percy asked. Nico didn't reply.

Percy looked at the shop shutters, the only people in the square were running around. Even the very tall Christmas tree seemed to shimmer sadly in front of the cathedral. In Italy, as in the States and everywhere else, this was a very hard year. Demigods, like Percy and Nico, couldn't get sick during the pandemic, but they could spread the virus, so they had to wear masks to protect the mortals in their lives, because that's what heroes do.

However, the son of Poseidon was tired and ready for a new year. Recently, monsters were "social distancing" too, and it was difficult to fight monsters with a sword when you were six feet apart.

‘Here we are,” Nico said.

The front of the shop wasn't much different from the others. It was at the entrance of an alley, with an iron grate on the closed door and advertisements on the dark windows: Jewels! The best offers!

“Seriously?” Percy asked.

“When we get in,” said Nico, “act kind and respectful.”

“As usual,” Percy said.

Nico coughed. “Anyway, this shopkeeper will help you find the perfect gift for Annabeth, I promise you. But. . . ”

“But?”

“He's a little strange.”

“As usual,” Percy repeated. He checked his pockets. “And how should I pay him? I have only dollars and an expired copoun for sandwiches.”

“Don't worry,” Nico said. “The shopkeeper doesn't charge for money. He'll let you pay in other ways.”

“Now I'm worried.”

Nico opened the grate, pushed the door and went in. Percy followed him.

Inside the shop, the walls were covered with lockers full of jewels and trinkets of any kind.

Behind the counter, with his back turned, there was a man with a huge red cloak, hair like a wild and white avalanche. He was working on a desk, repairing a diamond necklace.

“Impossible,” Percy murmured. “Santa Claus?”

“Where?” the man exclaimed, turning around alarmed.

He wasn't Santa Claus.

His cloak unfolded, becoming red wings. From his white hair appeared pointed ears like those of a lynx. From his beard, which was also white, boar tusks were lifted. His nose was a beak like the one of a vulture.

Percy swallowed. “I'm sorry. I thought you were somebody else.”

“Percy,” Nico said, “let me introduce you to Charu, the Etruscan god, guardian and guide of the dead.”

“Pleased to meet you,” said Charu, eyes burning like flames. “How can I help you?”

“Excuse me,” said Percy, “are you an Etruscan god?”

“Yes, yes,” Charu said. “Before the Roman intruders, these lands were the home of the Etruscan people. For this reason, this region is called Tuscany, are you following?”

“But why –?”

“Percy,” Nico interrupted him, “Charu is the last Etruscan god. He stayed after the others were gone, to help the dead cross over.”

“Alas,” said Charu. “That's true. I'm still waiting, hoping for other gods to return, but it has never happened.” He pointed a finger at the shop windows. “During the centuries, many have come to my shop, marching towards death. Nobody ever comes back. Well, there was that one guy, Dante, but except for him, nobody. People, and gods, leave me their most prized possessions for safekeeping, as you can see. What are you looking for?”

Percy wasn't sure he wanted to get Annabeth a present that had belonged to a dead god, but he didn't want to offend Charu. He explained the different things that Annabeth liked.

“Does your girlfriend like strategy?” Charu smiled, baring his tusks. “I've got just the thing.”

The ancient god took something from a locker. It was a gold bracelet, made of tiny keys. “This”, he said, “has been crafted by Sethlans, the Etruscan god of the artisans. The keys . . . well, I'm just saying, they can open many things and solve many problems.”

Percy was stunned. “It's perfect,” he admitted. “But it must be expensive.”

“I'll just ask you a question,” said Charu. “Tell me the right answer: why should ancient gods, like myself, celebrate Christmas?”

Nico looked nervous. Maybe he didn't think Percy would ace an oral quiz. But Percy thought carefully at the past year and at his friends, like Nico, who had helped him through it.

“Because”, said the son of Poseidon, “Christmas is for everybody. It represents hope. Especially in those trying times, all of us — gods, demigods, mortals — have to help each other out. We have to remain alert and optimistic, like you, watching over those who cross. ”

The god smiled. “Well said. Here's your gift. Maybe we'll meet again, eh? Merry Christmas!”

Once they were outside again, Nico said: “That was impressive, Percy.”

“Thanks,” said Percy, holding the bracelet. “But I guess the perfect gift is not a jewel. It's a good friendship. Merry Christmas, my friend.”

“Same to you, Seaweed Brain.”

Percy laughed and, together, they walked back into the shadows.

[a-multilingual-dream]

Hello!

My name is Juliet. I recently finished my masters degree in sociolinguistics, and then moved to France to work for a travel company. I used my first three months of living in this new country and working full time to get settled in, but now I'm ready to get back to my language studies!

And what better place to get motivation than here ;)

Let me introduce the languages that i speak / want to speak:

🇩🇪 German 🇩🇪 (Native)

This is my mother tongue and i actually have a certificate to teach German as a foreign language - i love teaching it, so if anyone needs help, don't hesitate to contact me.

🇺🇲 English 🇺🇲 (C1 / C2)

I started learning English at 12 years old in high school, and later taught myself by reading English books and watching English tv shows. My master program was mostly in English and i actually wrote my thesis in English, so I'm pretty comfortable with the language.

🇨🇵 French 🇨🇵 (C1)

Oh French - my love and my enemy. I grew up next to the French border and starting learning it in 5th grade. I proceeded to do 2 student exchanges in France, spent a year as an au pair in Paris, later did my Erasmus semester in Paris and recently moved back to France. I love France, i love French - and the pressure is high to speak it fluently. This actually makes me pretty self-conscious when speaking it, which in turn makes me worse at it. By moving to France, i hope to really improve my language skills, especially my vocabulary.

🇮🇹 Italian 🇮🇹 (B1)

Italian is my favorite language in the world, and Italy is my favorite country in the world. I just love everything about it, which is why I decided to learn Italian a few years ago. I have been studying it on and off for about 4 years, a mix of beginner classes at my university and self study. After finishing my masters this spring, i spent the summer traveling through Italy and ended the trip with a 2 week language course in Torino, and it was absolutely amazing! I'm excited to keep learning and to hopefully go back to Italy many times :)

🇯🇵 Japanese 🇯🇵 (beginner)

I've been wanting to study Japanese for sooo long, i think it's been 5 years since i bought my first Japanese language book. 5 years later, do i speak any Japanese? Nope. I can read and write hiragana and katakana, quite a few kanji, and i know basic sentence structure. But that's it. I think it's soo interesting to learn all about a language that's completely different from all the languages i know, but that also makes it challenging to learn it all by myself. I had planned and booked a 6-week language course in Tokyo in the summer of 2020, and was soo excited that i cried when I booked it. Well, I cried even more when the whole trip got cancelled bc of COVID... After that i didn't really get back into studying it, although I'm still as interested in it as ever. So I've been thinking about trying out italki this year... I will try to make a decision about how to go forward with my Japanese study during January.

~Other~

If i had the time to study more languages (which at the moment i absolutely do not, but life is long) i would be interested in Chinese and Korean. After getting to know the basics of Japanese i find it really fascinating to learn a whole new writing system and a completely different grammar, and although I've had absolutely no connection to Asia so far in my life, i absolutely want to travel there and learn more about its numerous languages (which i know aren't just Japanese, Chinese and Korean 😉). It's just like there's a whole new world to explore there!

So that was my (not so short) introduction. I'll be looking for langblrs that post more or less about the languages I'm learning, so if anyone who studies any of my languages sees this post, don't hesitate to leave a like and I'll have a look at your account!

To be continued...

[metvmorqhoses]

How many and which languages do you know??

I'd like to premise that I am not good at languages in the slightest.

I live for language as a form of becoming, as an anthropological happening which shapes and defines us as we shape and define it, yet as much as my talent resides into being able to sense, understand and occasionally bend the labyrinth that it is (writers are just that) in order to be and create, to ultimately single out meaning from the chaos of the soul, the linguistic spirit in me is actually really static, and above all, relegated to the written word (and to a very specific one).

I find the written relationship with language to be the exact opposite to what we normally identify as the predisposition to "languages" (namely the predisposition to speak many different ones more or less effortlessly).

My being is furiously attached to a specific language. It has to be, or I wouldn't be able to really write in it.

And getting to be that intimate with many languages is not only wildly difficult in my eyes, but somehow I feel like it shatters you while enriching you - principally as an artist, but as a person as well.

Don't people who can easily learn many languages feel like some kind of shapeshifters with many personalities? Is it just me?

I like to navigate languages philologically, as the forking paths of the many veins of the many branches forming the very same tree, I find it beyond fascinating, especially to understand human nature, but at the same time the more languages I know - the more languages I let in -, the more I feel my writing (the supreme way of using language I can conceive) losing its original purity.

Adding languages to a person means adding ways to be and feel, emotions and thoughts that many times can be only truly expressed in their language of birth and which leave you wordless in every other.

You cannot be exactly the same person in every language, and artists have to somehow be. Being unable to carry yourself over every writing medium (from language to language) is maddening.

I find that something in me always rebels to this every time I get exposed to a new language, resulting in me being very language-resistant lol if that makes any sense. I don't easily pick up accents or spoken tongues. I know many people who can do that unconsciously even spending a week abroad or in another region. I'm the opposite of that. I have a death grip on very specific languages and in a very complex way that can hardly be switched even when I'd like to. I have to force myself and the results are far from effortless.

I felt like explaining this because I believe only two languages ever cut that deep in me to actually state I know them - my mother tongue, which is Italian, and English. Italian and English represent respectively my childhood and my becoming.

That said, knowing Italian, I can pretty much understand the majority of the romance languages, especially when written. I've never studied Spanish or Portuguese, but I can easily understand 70% of them at any given moment.

I also have studied French for three years and spent most of my childhood summers in France, so I am not absolutely oblivious to it and can absolutely read in French, maybe searching a few words depending on the difficulty of the text (actually my Egyptology exam at uni was based only on 1800s manuals written in French lol and I had no problem reading them, even if I wouldn't call reading in French a pleasure). Adding to that, I'm from the Northern part of Italy, so my grandparents only spoke Piemontese (Piedmont dialect) with each other, thing that resulted in me completely understanding it (yet I cannot speak it for the life of me lol). Piemontese is very close to French.

Adding to this, I know Latin and Ancient Greek quite well, I studied them at both high school and uni - I've never attempted to speak in them if not when quoting things or reading but I think it's understandable lol

Also lately I discovered I can understand certain things in German without having a single clue of the language (I discovered German Opera, you know), passing through English and other languages, but I'm far from knowing it in a proficient way. It was a fun thing to realize tho.

[iraniq]

Imagine... The Sagittarius effect

You just woke up! It was 8:40 on your birthday. The exact time you were born. You got up. There was a flight to Italy for you to take! To surprise your sweet bff for his birthday tomorrow!

You met like 3 years ago when you were on a trip to Italy. You were in desperate need of food, you hardly spoke Italian, and the boy in the shop barely knew the existance of English. Not to mention your mother tongue. You were starving struggling to explain you needed food. And then, from the nothing he appeared. He asked if you were needing help, his English was a lot "broken" but you manage to explain you were there for food. He handled the situation even paid for your food. As a thank you he insisted on your company for his walk. You spend like 5 hours walking and talking. Using Google Translate to manage to communicate quite often, but it was fun. In the afternoon, when people came out on the streets and weird glances were given your way, you excuse yourself for your poor look, but he explained he was the reason for the attention. He happened to be famous. A designer. Fashion worker, so to say, to be precise, part of the Gucci guild. Yeah... Same "Gucci" famous shit you couldn't stand. Because you are Sagittarius, and this means nothing to people who doesn't know any; but for those who do.... It ment painfull honestly. You throw your opinion at him. Not quite knowing what will come out of your mouth. But at the end he was thrilled and flattered by your honesty. The next day he took you to all the cool places, having the privilege to be let in, in not to mainstream places, because you were with him.

After this your friendship grew more elaborate. You used to call each other, write at least once a day. You become each other's beamsties!

That was the reason you wanted to surprise him, arranging everything with his assistants. You landed at 3 in the afternoon, and the preparations started. Lately he was beyond busy. He only asked for "when and where" upon his meetings. And his alone time in the car while traveling to the needed place was his only free time.

He was supposed to stop at a fresh bar, to grab a juice. As it was still your birthday, he stopped by to grab a drink - beet root fresh juice. He hated that shit, but it reminded him of you, so it was his way of celebrating. He just paid for his drink, and tastes it. On the reflection in the glass you could see his disgusted face, he really hated this. He was about to turn around when you poked him. He jumped and when he saw you he started screaming, so did you. As your people, Italians, Spainis and Frenchmen were famous with the warmest greetings, you just hugged each other and started jumping like retards. You exchanged "Italian greeting" kisses. He informed you he was already late for dinner meeting, but after this he was all yours. You laughed saying you are his dinner meeting, thanks to his assistants. He was so happy, you could swear there were tears in his eyes.

You got in the car and the driver was pointlessly driving in the city. Rome was amazing at this time if the year. You congratulate him on the "no animal furr" initiative. You were so proud. He kissed your hand and said his bffs inspired him to do so.

You had a lovely dinner and took a last walk before going home. He had to share his excitement with the world, without letting them know the reason, so he just did the most harmless thing.

You arrangend a meeting for tomorrow afternoon, as he was busy even on his own birthday.

You woke up, his place was beyond amazing, although he rarely used it, mostly sleeping in his office. Typical workaholic! The place was a wreck! Both too much and too perfect. The living room was beyond creepy!

All these paintings and picture staring at you. The other room was as full of art as the rest.

You remember the red cushion. He called you for advice in how to make it. It was your favourite piece of the place. Although you had enough time to look it all.

The outside was amazing too. A huge garden for you to wander. You heard some noices.

Oh... Big, fat and mostly fluffy parrots. This was the garden where they took the pictures for "In Bloom". Amazing, was the only word running through your mind. It was all beyond art with him. That was the reason you don't stay with him more than a day or 2. You were too... Simple for his magical world.

There was a huge Gucci bag in the kitchen... It must be for you, since there in no one else there.

As you opened it, there was the most amazing scarf inside. Scarfs were your thing indeed. And Ale knew it. You squealed like little bitch and hugged it. It was made of so gentle material.

You ate, took pictures in the house, the garden, library... His library is a motherfucking piece of art!

You went out, meeting him in his office, you talked, laughed. You gave him his present - silver bracelet with "Sagittarius" constellation.

As it was time for dinner you get down to take a selfie with the "In Bloom" poster.

When outside waiting for the car, you saw him, but he wasn't alone. There was a man with him. Tall and skinny, with a huge beard and icy blue eyes. He smiled when he saw me, and winked at Alessandro.

- So...? - the stranger said.

- Jared, I want to introduce you to my best friend, Angel! - he pointed at you proudly.

- Hi! - I awkwardly waved. He came and hugged me. Who the hell was this. He was talking something with my bff, calling him "his" bff.

- Listen here, boy! - I yelled - Ale is my bff, so better be careful! - I waved my finger at him. He looked at me and simply smiled. As so Ale.

- What? - I asked.

- I knew, Lallo since... A long time ago, actually. I was here this afternoon when you were gossiping in his office, and I am totally blown away by you! - he blinked.

Me and Ale just laughed. He looked hypnotized by my looks, which wasn't something much, but...

We had a dinner reservation in Ale's favourite restaurant. His bff offered me his hand to hold while getting in the car. He spend all night talking to me, asking stuff. I was... Dealing with art. Not that I can call writing stories "art" but still, Ale was amazed. I even red them some of the new ones. The were indeed impressed. We talked Ales's art. It turned out Jared is a musician, we talked music too. At 12:15 we left the restaurant. This Jared person was all brainwashed by me, which I took as a joke at first, but I wasn't that sure right now.

As we got at the car, he sit across if you and kept staring.

- What the fuck in wrong with him?

- He is in love with you, as he was with me as we first met! It's the Sagittarius effect! - Alessandro winked and laughed.

---------

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