L'italiano
Nov. 19th, 2003 08:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dancerjodiI keep forgetting to look at the lyrics from Lacuna Coil's "Senzafine". I want to see if I can actually read them.
In high school I took 4 years of Italian. The first three were with an exceptional teacher and I learned quite a bit, if I had a partner to converse with on a regular basis I'd be confident going to Italy and talking to everyone about anything. In my senior year however I ended up with a shitty teacher who was also an accountant part time (!) - so we watched movies most of the time during tax season. Needless to say if you don't use it, you lose it.
So in college I didn't pass the Foreign Language exam and I had to take two more years of Italian (at the time Simmons was great for having lots of requirements other schools didn't, like we had a Physical Education requirement too!). The professor there was right off the boat and lived in the North End with her sexy and young husband and their baby daughter. She was fabulous, she helped me gain back what I had learned in HS and even more. We not only focused on language but culture (historic and recent). I think my most challenging project was doing a presentation on Dante Gabriel Rossetti, where I had to write a 1-page paper about him and then MEMORIZE it so that I could present it to the class without reading. Damn, but I did it and got an A+.
Where does my italian ability lay now? Well, when I finished the courses in college I could read it very well, but conversation was tough because my brain needed a few minutes to figure out what things meant. If I had someone to converse with I'm sure it would have gotten more comfortable. But (heh) if you don't use it you lose it.
Another item on the long list of things that Jodi will do when she's done with grad school is become comfortable with the language again. I still have my school books (very good ones too, I think) and having the North End nearby is a good resource (despite the fact that it becomes less and less Italian). I want to get some CDs to listen to in the car. Brian even mentioned possibly wanting to familiarize himself with the language - that will come in really handy on our eventual trip to Italy (we're following *his* heritage this spring for our 5th anniversary - I'm hoping we'll follow mine later, heh, probably won't be till our 10th anniversary).
But listening to that Lacuna Coil CD in the car this morning kind of served to remind me that I haven't lost it all. I was thinking to myself: "OK, what's verb for 'to buy'? How would I say 'I'm driving to work'?". There's a lot of this information in my head, I just have to pull it out again.
Around this time of the year I tend to think of family, nationality and traditions more, so you'll probably see lots of these kinds of posts in the next month or so :)
I think I want to go to the North End for dinner on Friday :)
In high school I took 4 years of Italian. The first three were with an exceptional teacher and I learned quite a bit, if I had a partner to converse with on a regular basis I'd be confident going to Italy and talking to everyone about anything. In my senior year however I ended up with a shitty teacher who was also an accountant part time (!) - so we watched movies most of the time during tax season. Needless to say if you don't use it, you lose it.
So in college I didn't pass the Foreign Language exam and I had to take two more years of Italian (at the time Simmons was great for having lots of requirements other schools didn't, like we had a Physical Education requirement too!). The professor there was right off the boat and lived in the North End with her sexy and young husband and their baby daughter. She was fabulous, she helped me gain back what I had learned in HS and even more. We not only focused on language but culture (historic and recent). I think my most challenging project was doing a presentation on Dante Gabriel Rossetti, where I had to write a 1-page paper about him and then MEMORIZE it so that I could present it to the class without reading. Damn, but I did it and got an A+.
Where does my italian ability lay now? Well, when I finished the courses in college I could read it very well, but conversation was tough because my brain needed a few minutes to figure out what things meant. If I had someone to converse with I'm sure it would have gotten more comfortable. But (heh) if you don't use it you lose it.
Another item on the long list of things that Jodi will do when she's done with grad school is become comfortable with the language again. I still have my school books (very good ones too, I think) and having the North End nearby is a good resource (despite the fact that it becomes less and less Italian). I want to get some CDs to listen to in the car. Brian even mentioned possibly wanting to familiarize himself with the language - that will come in really handy on our eventual trip to Italy (we're following *his* heritage this spring for our 5th anniversary - I'm hoping we'll follow mine later, heh, probably won't be till our 10th anniversary).
But listening to that Lacuna Coil CD in the car this morning kind of served to remind me that I haven't lost it all. I was thinking to myself: "OK, what's verb for 'to buy'? How would I say 'I'm driving to work'?". There's a lot of this information in my head, I just have to pull it out again.
Around this time of the year I tend to think of family, nationality and traditions more, so you'll probably see lots of these kinds of posts in the next month or so :)
I think I want to go to the North End for dinner on Friday :)
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Re: Italian
Date: 2003-11-19 06:20 am (UTC)Only the curses. ;)