75/100 My Italian Exam
Adventures in Language Learning
My process in learning Italian was a process of learning how to learn, a long game.
It’s important to know that it is a European scale that is largely recognized as the standard approach to measuring language comprehension. There are three levels (A, B, C) each with two subsets (1 or 2). A1 is the total beginning, knowing how to express simple needs or making introductions. On the other side you have C2 which certifies ones to be a translator or interpreter; it is the near-native level.
Many will say that Italian is an impractical language, especially compared to other languages like Spanish or French or Mandarin.
I’m against this line of thinking. If you are a native English speaker, you have no need to worry about learning a “practical” language, in fact it would be a supreme gesture of hospitality to learn any language but especially a “minor” language.
After having bombed Spanish too many times in high school, I wasn’t ready to go back to that, so when I found that my university offered classes in Italian, I felt open to it. My original thought was that if I could at least learn how to order something at a restaurant, I could call it a win.
I’ve won.
My professor was incredible and demonstrated how possible language is, how accessible learning is if you know words. After taking all the classes offered there, I continued studying independently until my 100 days of solo travel in the fall of 2017. In that journey, I stayed with my Italian friends and took the CILS exam at the University of Padua.
In this learning process, I reconnected with an Italian family I met several years earlier while backpacking in the Sierra Nevadas (shout out Giorgio).
We had an exchange student from Italy who found us (shout out Fulvio), and we hung out a lot. Later another student from Italy would visit to present at a conference we hosted. Being the only Italian-speaking person anyone really knew, we were put in touch (shout out Giordi boy).
This process was a foundational experience in developing patience to learn something difficult and how to go about it with tact and focus. I received my B2 certificate in Italian in April of 2018.
With this training, I started towards French.
More soon,
Trevor