If at first you don’t succeed, try, try and fail again

I was out the other night in Belgrade when I found myself listening to a language I didn’t understand and a conversation about which I had no clue. It wasn’t the first time that this had happened to me here in Serbia, but after three years in the country I thought that the worst of it was behind me. The strange thing was, I wasn’t missing out due to my far from perfect Serbian, but because when I’d chosen a language at the Institute for Foreign Languages I’d evidently picked the wrong one. Apparently, I should have chosen Italian. It was a very strange experience, sitting in a room full of people all talking Italian and not having a clue what was going on. And it wasn’t that they were all Italians. More than half were Serbs and yet, they were all, with the exception of me, fluent. I felt like screaming ‘Hajde pricaj na srpskom’. I suppose it was because I wanted to understand and be understood, but also because I wanted the chance to practice a language that I regretfully don’t often get to use. But as

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