I am unable to explain why and how I developed the interest in languages – it just struck me years ago. Occasionally when I skim through pages randomly in Wikipedia, I would browse to entries on languages, the choices decided mostly by recent experiences (French, for example, during the days when I enjoyed the musical Notre Dame de Paris) and covering a relatively narrow range – I am almost wholly focused on the Romance languages such as French as well as Spanish.

My recent interest of language shall be in Italian. The reason lies in that kby has been approved of admission in a Sino-Italian collaborative two-year double master degree program in international management. The first graduate year is to be spent in Fudan while the second one will contingently be assigned to studies in either of Università Bocconi and LUISS, which are both located in Italy. This necessarily implies that she has to study the Italian language in order that she will not be trapped in difficulties, at the least in daily life abroad.

My first encounter with Italian dates back to the secondary school days. A friend of mine who was fond of western music began his attempt at learning the language out of a burst of zeal but gave up without my noticing. The most profound impressions that he left in me concerning this issue was his repeated mentioning of the words ciao and in that the former can indicate both 'hello' and 'goodbye' while the latter has exactly the same meaning in English and Italian.

Likely, kby is serious with the language. Yesterday she had me download and send her a scanned-and-compiled-in-PDF copy of the textbook Corso Intensivo D'italiano (or, put literally into English, An Intensive Course of Italian), accompanied by a (bulky) collection of 208 mp3's converted from the attached tapes. (These files virtually served as materials for testing Gmail's ability to handle mails stuffed with tens of attachments. Not surprisingly, Gmail slowed down in response, but after all it worked.)

Turning to Lesson One, or as the book says, Prima Lezione, I find it not difficult for me. Without referring to the vocabulary immediately below the text I can follow the text without much trouble, thanks to the help of my elementary knowledge of Spanish. Sometime in the past I read that to Spanish speakers Italian sounds just like a dialect of even closer relation to Spanish than some languages spoken in the Spanish territory. Three examples extracted from the lesson to verify the point:

While the grazie-gracia and sperare-esperar pairs look close enough in appearance, the relation between perché and porqué may not seem that obvious at the first glance. Dissecting the words gives the answer: per and por both mean 'for', while che (yes, the ending e has no grave) and qué both mean 'what', hence it is no surprise that perché and porqué both mean 'for what', which is exactly what why means.

(Writing has been paused for roughly 11 hours before continuation.)

Perhaps it is better to conclude this post before my mind goes excessively wild. Unconsciously I have developed it to be longer than a single page. So this sentence marks the end.

Guangzhou Pharmaceutical have been able to come back from behind and run out 4-2 winners this afternoon in a tight home Chinese First Division clash with Beijing Insititute of Technology, fulfilling yet another victory in the team's aspiration to attain league title with an unbeaten record. Guangzhou have secured its place in the next season's Premier League after claiming three points last week away in Shanghai in a match also closely contended.

The promotion of Guangzhou stimulates me to reorganize my thoughts of Guangzhou football. My first memory dates back to 1994, when the first edition of what then called Chinese First Division Group A was played. Guangzhou finished the season under the name Guangzhou Apollo as runners-up. But after that, the team seemed to be caught in an unfortunate trend, with its final position in the league table approaching the bottom year after year, and was eventually relegated from the top category of Chinese professional football in 1998. Since then I have little watched live coverage of the team's matches, a change from previous practice for which I cannot make out a reason now. And fragments of memory make up all that I can remember of these nine years of Guangzhou football: last-miniute redemption from relegation in 2000, denial of promotion in 2001, etc..

Guangzhou becoming a Premier League side, what can I expect of it next year? Summarizing the bits of phenomena I have observed of Chinese football, the only conclusion I can draw is the cliche that Chinese football is definitely not something that can be explained with any rational mind. It may be regarded as a miracle that Kaiserslautern won Bundesliga immediately after promotion, yet if the case is duplicated in China, it can possibly be easily accepted. With such a point of view as the starting point, I decide not to trouble myself with the question. Well, whether they will be battling against relegation or competing to be champions or merely aimed at a respectable position, the phrase 'good luck and best wishes' always fits.