Allora oggi . . . it is embarrassing to admit this but I miss my iPhone.  American iPhones are not compatible in Europe and I was unwilling to pay the crazy international roaming fees.  I could have brought my iPhone (and this option I gave serious consideration) and used it more like an iPod for music and Italian lessons.  But what I miss most about my iPhone is the voice-recording feature.  I want to practice my Italian pronunciation and the voice recorder allows me to hear what I sound like and correct mispronunciations.  My Italian sounds way better in my head and I need the voice recorder as a reality check for my progress or lack there of.

While I am on the subject of Italian pronunciation and confessing my vexations, I am italianocentric.  The Italian language is beautiful with its musicality and melodic cadence but it hurts my ears when spoken with an accent.  I struggle daily understanding Italian and I want to throw myself out of a window when I hear it pronounced with a foreign inflection.  Maybe it is a good thing that I don’t have the voice recorder after all.  Yesterday I attended a supplemental class focused on pronunciation.  It was so helpful to practice over and over again the various vowel sounds as well as some of the more challenging consonant combination.  During class we learned the Italian version of Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper with a metronome for tempo and it goes like this: Trentatre trentini entrarono in trento tuttie e trentatre trotte rellando. Restate sintonizzati . . .