First words: spicci

"Non chee lie speechy," the woman said. 

I looked at her, I tried to figure it out. I was paying for food in a supermarket. Behind me snaked a long queue of people waiting to check out. All the tills had similar lines. The aisles were blocked, both with people shopping and queuing. It was 6pm. It seemed as if everyone in the city had decided to get their food at the same time.

The cashier did not seem to want my proffered note. I tried to hand it over.

"Speechy?!" she repeated, more loudly. Maybe she thought I was deaf.

I shook my head, "I'm sorry.." 

She didn't let me finish. She snatched my note, the till drawer crashed open and she rummaged through it for my change. She slapped it down in front of me, a coin slid down to the end of the bagging chute. As I was still picking it up, the next person's goods rained onto me. 

When living in a foreign country with only a basic knowledge of the language it doesn't take much to get unsettled. In my first weeks there would be daily a new word or a new sound. It is, of course, always a good idea to learn a little before moving abroard.

Shopping for groceries was the first real linguistic challenge. Though even that could be parred down to the minimum if shopping was restricted to large supermarkets. However the area in which I lived Ponte Lungo, almost opposite the train station, at first glance seemed devoid of large supermarkets of the sort I was used to. 

There were plenty of small grocery stores, now a dying breed. There I would point at my desired food and having learnt my numbers, stated the quantity. Then I discovered that rather than saying cento grammi (100 grams) the more correct unit of measurement was the etto (un etto, due etti etc....) which was easier to say.

 Most of the time, I was cooking for myself and therefore needed small quantites. Maybe 200 grams of 'melanzane sott'olio' (aubergines in olive oil), 300 grams of pesto for my pasta, 100 grams of olives to nibble on after school/work. This could be a problem as for many years my pronunciation of the number three (tre) would often be understood as six (sei). I would ask for tre etti di olive and receive six.

 I would practise that pesky R sound and somehow it got misunderstood. In days pre-automatic caller ID on the phone's display this was a problem. I recall one instance when I'd given my number, the woman on the other end repeated it with sixes in the place of threes. After trying several times to correct her I gave up. She never called back. 

 After a few days in Rome, I decided to explore further than the immediate vicinity of my flat, so I wandered onto the Appia Nuova, a large shopping street with a central area where cars parked beneath rows of umbrella pines all the way up to Porta San Giovanni beyond which was the eponymous Basilica. There I found a supermarket, a SMA (now renamed Simply), it was there I had my first encounter with 'speechy'.

Eventually, rather literally, the penny dropped as that was what they wanted, pennies or rather, cents. The cashiers wanted small change (spicci). Hence the usual question: "Non ce l'hai spicci?" Or else they wanted the exact amount for the purchase. Later , once in-store cash point machines became more diffuse, rather than deal with pesky cash, cashiers would sometimes ask 'haven't you got a Bancomat card." 

 I learnt not to go shopping at 6pm, the best or, at least, the quietest time is between 2pm and 4pm. I realised that always having some small change was vital, not that it made the various cashiers any friendlier. And if, for some reason I was paying with a banknote, I apologised: "I'm sorry, it's all I have."