You know, I thought that it would be difficult to continue studying this summer and to begin another language right after having started to feel comfortable with Italian, but in reality it has been much easier than I thought! After only one week of simply talking to some old Oblates who happened to be on retreat in the house in which we are staying and another week of language classes (they placed me in the highest level...strange huh?), I understand about 95% of what is being said (except when they mumble or speak EXTREMELY fast!) and can express many basic ideas! Several of the guys in my house have wondered how I was able to pick it up so quickly, and my best response is this: I think somehow during all those years of listening to Spanish being spoken – along with two years in high school of Spanish class – I lacked only the grammatical structure to put together to missing pieces of the language. And after having learned Italian, I now possess that structure and so now all that is lacking are the words (which happen to be so similar to Italian words that I get confused) and a habitual use of them. And viola!
No comments:
Post a Comment