![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I'm still in the very beginning stages of learning Italian, where there are very few things I can say and they mostly don't string together. Vocabulary is always my problem with languages; the pronunciation and underlying grammar are things I pick up on almost immediately. And one imagines vocabulary is the main problem for anyone; there are terribly many words to learn.
What I keep running up against this time is not remembering a word, but knowing I know that word: I must know the word for 50, because I know the words for 40 and 60 and 5. I spent several minutes staring in frustration at the sink, not being able to find the word "sink," knowing that months ago I knew the word "sink" and could say I'd put something in the sink.
I was not during this time thinking the English word for sink. I was just staring at this object I knew I recognized but could not name. It feels horrible and frightening. It is not like forgetting someone's name, or having something on that tip of your tongue. It is worse than forgetting your line in a play, or your music in the middle of a recital, both of which I've done, because in those cases I could still say a line or play a note. This is like a hole in my brain. It genuinely feels like slamming up against something, a surface which is flat and perhaps made of the industrial plastic used for the outer shells of televisions.
I eventually had to leave the bathroom because it was hurting me. My brain kept pinging for this word and getting no response, and I would stare harder and harder at the sink, thinking "I recognize you."
Lavandino, by the way. I had no problem recalling it the following day.
What I keep running up against this time is not remembering a word, but knowing I know that word: I must know the word for 50, because I know the words for 40 and 60 and 5. I spent several minutes staring in frustration at the sink, not being able to find the word "sink," knowing that months ago I knew the word "sink" and could say I'd put something in the sink.
I was not during this time thinking the English word for sink. I was just staring at this object I knew I recognized but could not name. It feels horrible and frightening. It is not like forgetting someone's name, or having something on that tip of your tongue. It is worse than forgetting your line in a play, or your music in the middle of a recital, both of which I've done, because in those cases I could still say a line or play a note. This is like a hole in my brain. It genuinely feels like slamming up against something, a surface which is flat and perhaps made of the industrial plastic used for the outer shells of televisions.
I eventually had to leave the bathroom because it was hurting me. My brain kept pinging for this word and getting no response, and I would stare harder and harder at the sink, thinking "I recognize you."
Lavandino, by the way. I had no problem recalling it the following day.
