My Italian journey
Imparare italiano è bellissimo!
I love to speak and teach Italian to others. Italy is a great country steeped in history, art, music and literature not to mention style and creativity. For me the Italian language and culture has been an enriching and rewarding adventure packed journey. Which I would love to share with others.
I was a teenager still at school and about to go on the school ‘history’ cruise. A wonderful adventure of a lifetime at age fourteen, which included visiting cities and ancient sites in Italy. I felt that I needed to learn some Italian to be able to get by with in Italy.
I have never looked back since the day that I purchased my mini ‘Collins’ Italian ~ English dictionary and my first ‘teach yourself’ style book complete with 33″vinyl record! Yes, a Vinyl record to learn Italian. It was called ‘Avventura‘ – A beginner’s course in Italian. It is ironical though that the title of my first Italian ‘teach yourself’ style book is in fact the word ‘Adventure’ in English. It was a tricky start for my adventure as the pack: book and vinyl were far from a piece of cake. It was what you’d call a total immersion style learning pack unlike French lessons at school. I followed ‘Le avventure di Bertoldo Bertolini’ and chapter 1 began with Identification- il primo sogno! Umm –Identification and the first dream!
Perhaps this was the beginning of a rather bizarre ‘Avventura con Bertoldo Bertolino‘ as he dreamt that he was in ‘Roma antica’ dressed as Nero! Following Bertoldo as he slipped in and out of his Italian historical day-dreams was quite difficult to follow. I did however, learn some Italian and a great deal about how not to teach a foreign language in an unpractical way. After all, how was I to cope with a real situation involving ‘identificazione’ (identification): Chapter 1 How to ask: who is..? What are…? etc, when the first lines of my book read: ‘Questa è Pisa e questa è la ditta Granata, “Fratelli Granata” When what I would need is to say would be: “Come si chiama? =”What’s your name? and when would I ever require the phrase: “il ministro è grasso” – “The minister is fat”. that could only get me into trouble surely.
I wonder what your experiences of learning a modern foreign language were like and if you’re still use it now?