Learning the language

This post isn’t strictly about Abruzzo, but it does reflect an important and obvious aspect of spending time anywhere in Italy; namely the Italian language.

 I think Italian is a beautiful language.  It rises and falls with ideas and emotion.  I have met many English speakers who appear to speak with one tone only but I have never encountered that with Italian.  Considering that you ask a question in Italian by raising the intonation at the end of your sentence how could it not sing!

While I was in Abruzzo recently I realised that although I can get by with my Italian, I  hadn’t really improved very much in the last year.  There are many reasons why this is the case but the reality is that all of them reflect a lack of work and discipline on my part.  I’m not someone who is gifted at languages, science and mathematics are more my strong suits.   I do have one key element on my side though, I’m motivated.  That does make it easier.  I want to be better at Italian.  I want to cultivate the friendships I have already made and I want them to grow.  I know that won’t happen unless I can communicate better.  Sure my Italian friends make allowances for my stumbling attempts at getting my thoughts across, but  I can’t rely on them to do that forever.  I’m sure they’ll also find it easier if I’m less faltering in my efforts to speak their language.

Now although I’m motivated I still need to be reminded to do the work.  I’m hoping that a little widget from Learn10 will help me achieve my goal.  Each day I’ll get sent an email with 10 Italian words and their translations.  The email will remind me to work on my Italian and also give me some material to work with.  What I do with that material, how disciplined I am, remains to be seen.  I do know that if the email encourages me to work on the language for 30 minutes every second day it’ll be much more than I have  done in the last six months.

If this interests you at all I have placed the Learn10 link on a new page called Learning  Italian, so you can see it for yourself.  Or alternatively go to the Learn10 site, and sign up for your 10 word a day email.

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