Sunday, January 10, 2016

Reflection 15

As my final week of 20 time comes to a conclusion, I look back and reflect on my experience. While I have made huge strides in my goal- learning Italian- I regretfully say that I was met by two, one bigger and one smaller, challenges. The first one is rather small, this is the fact that almost all people, or groups of people, speak Italian differently. Some of these differences are minor, however, some of these differences are more significant. I am learning proper Italian, which makes it hard for me to talk to my dad or my grandparents, who speak a dialect known to their area in Italy in which they came from. This means that when I'm trying to have a conversation with my dad I might say something that doesn't make sense to him but actually is a correct word, or vice versa. The next bigger challenge is that I am trying to learn Italian while also having to learn Spanish in school, and while also having to use English in my every day life. This makes it hard to learn because the best way to learn language is for full immersion in the language, which cannot be achieved because, other than my father, I do not see anyone else on a day to day basis to whom I can speak Italian to. Also, and perhaps more important, is the fact that the language of Spanish and Italian are so similar that it is very easy to mix up the words and sounds between the two, which I do often, because I am learning both at the same time, which I underestimated the troubles of doing so while picking my 20 time project.

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