3rd Language Barrier

We met with Ghiotto and the friendly neighbor guy (we must get his name) in Lumignano Sunday to sort out details of the walls on the second floor. We have quite a time communicating with these two. Richard is essentially fluent in Italian, and I generally understand a good of what I hear when I know the topic, so we don't usually have this issue. However, Ghiotto speaks in a Veneto dialect that is, to our ears, a different language. Initially I thought it was just me, but our meeting Sunday confirmed that Richard doesn't understand much either. I am not certain that Senore Ghiotti, the owner of quite a construction company, even speaks Italian! So, there we were with the retired farmer neighbor guy (who also speaks the dialect but doesn't exactly speak the Italian we know) translating the conversation from full dialect to partial Italian and partial dialect to us. Whew -- as if building a house is not difficult enough! With a bit of hand motions and drawings on the floor, they came to an understanding of what we wanted. (We think!) Thus far, everyone has remained extremely patient with us. We do do a bit of shaking our heads "yes," when in reality we really just don't have a clue.

Sometimes when we are in South Louisiana, Richard has the same issues. We all speak English; however, I often find myself "translating" the South Louisiana dialect to him. He loves to retell the stories of the announcement of the "bald crawfish" for sale at Winn Dixie and the question some of my family members once posed to me: "Win'd ya git in?" Again. . . the world is the same all over.