Just to mix things up or to make our lives more complicated, we both live in Florence Italy. Him native French, but speaks perfect English and Italian. Me, hello, I’m a native English speaker a “Tuscan Texan” that has embraced Italian and a sprinkling of French. Humans beings (or maybe just me?) have a tendency to be lazy, we want to communicate and we want to be understood. I wish it was true but it isn’t in my personal case unless we’re talking about Italian and English, which took years for me to feel comfortable with. While it might seem easy to switch from one language to another with relative ease, it really isn’t.
I always smile when someone says “oh your husband speaks French, you’ll speak it in no time.” Uttered every innocently of course from people who have no idea of your struggle as you wince something that sounds like an excuse. Myth ☁: Having a foreign spouse means you’ll learn immediately! Just have him speak to you only in _ language! In fact, I commissioned the help of a Facebook group Italian Reflections to let me in on their own mistakes and tips which proved to be a really interesting discussion online. I welcome tips and suggestions so please comment with any you may have regarding this post! All I know is my own experience and I don’t pretend that anything I have to say in the matter is complete and utter truth. Quite frankly, the aim of this post is merely to show support for others who might be going through the learning-language-as-an-adult saga in a fun way while attempting to debunk some popular myths around language learning in my very non-scientific yet honest and forthright human reasoning.įurthermore, I want you to add your personal perspective if you’ve struggled with learning a second, third or fourth languages. To be honest, I never thought I would be learning a third language at the ripe age of 32 and it freaks me out. However, I never knew I would be married to a pretty awesome French guy in Italy either. I stumble over conversations with my very patient in-laws who speak no English and insist my French is getting better (bless their souls). By wonderful I mean constantly uttering my painfully embarrassing, awkward pronunciation which sounds a bit like I’m trying to massacre the classic French verbal lesson of “Brian is under the table.” This could be viewed as slightly masochistic on one end of the spectrum and quite exciting on the other. While I do speak Italian (with my fair share of mistakes of course), I have ventured into the wonderful, yet absolutely terrifying, world of learning French. After all, this is very personal for this Tuscan Texan in this day and age.
#Auditory processing disorder in adults memorizing lyrics how to#
This month our Italian roundtable is tackling the topic of “myths and legends” and I want to go into language myths and how to overcome them. It got me to thinking about the beauty in speaking a second, third or (I’m looking at you Dutch people) fourth language and more importantly, considering the myth I grew up with that only kids and their cerebral sponge brains can effectively pick up another tongue. It piqued my interest because as a second language speaker in Italy I thought what about Europe? In The Guardian apparently just over half of Europeans (54%) are able to hold a conversation in at least one additional language, which is pretty impressive considering so many university and high school classes in Italy focalize on a more theory-based curriculum. A while back I was reading somewhere online (ok Forbes) that Less than 20 percent of American adults speak a language other than English.
0 kommentar(er)
