Foreign Places, Foreign Tongues
Since starting my blog in November 2008, it has had four different names and iterations. I think I've finally settled on the name -- "My Vine Life: Life on the Vine" -- that will last.
Depending on how far back into the archives you go, you'll learn that I did two deployments to Iraq with the Army Corps of Engineers. This blog started with the second deployment as a way to keep my family and friends apprised of how I was doing. For me, this was pre-Facebook, Instagram and smart phone. The great technological advancement of that deployment was using Skpe to video chat with Tom. The blog was called "Pilgrim in the Cradle."
Then the blog morphed into "Pilgrim in the Unions" when we moved to Germany. The name was a salute to the fact that we were living within the European Union and my job focused on the nations that comprise the African Union.
And then, with our move back to the States, the blog became "Casa de Gato Gordo" -- House of the Fat Cats -- which was no longer applicable once we got Colt, our first Australian Cattle Dog. If you want to see Colt back when he was REALLY cute, click here to read my blog about getting our first dog.
As an adult, I have had the privilege of living and working overseas several times. Nearly a year total in Iraq with both of my deployments, three years in Germany, and now nearly one year in Italy.
Aside from a trip through Canada as a child, I had never been to a foreign country until I was 27 years old. I have since visited 35 countries. I consider these opportunities to live and travel overseas amazing, incredible blessings. I do NOT take it for granted. I know it is a rare gift to be able to visit other countries and experience different cultures and languages.
I feel like I was raised in a culture, a school system, and a society that did NOT encourage learning other languages. It frankly wasn't a necessity. Sure, I was required to take the perfunctory two years of foreign language in high school but learning a foreign language seemed to have no actual applicability to my life and was something I was not interested in. I nearly flunked my first and only year of French and then went on to take two years of Latin. I got through college with a Bachelors in Science, never taking another language class. Little did I know what the future held.
God willing, and unless anything changes for us with our families, we hope to be in Italy for another four years. It's hard to believe the first year is already almost over. The time is flying by.
It became very clear to me as 2017 was wrapping up that unless I really started putting some time and effort into learning Italian, I was going to leave Italy in five years and have never developed more than a basic understanding of the language. Essentially knowing enough to order food in a restaurant, which is about all I left Germany knowing.
In Germany, I took a couple basic introductory language courses offered through the local USO but that was about the extent of my effort to learn some German. I do not want to repeat that here in Italy.
All through last year, after the move, I found myself telling people I want to learn Italian; I'm going to learn Italian. And yet, I was not dedicating any actual time to achieving that goal. Early on, the sister of our wonderful landlord, who speaks great English, came to our house on a regular basis and answered questions for us and helped introduce us to life in Italy. But I wasn't learning yet.
Which brings me to the real reason I thought about writing this post. Sorry it took me so long to finally get to the point!
I shared back in January that it was time to stop "pretending" that I wanted to learn Italian and actually start doing something about it. Here is a link to that blog post if you want to go back and read it. Scroll all the way to the bottom where I write about reading Jhumpa Lahiri's book In Other Words. As I wrote in that blog post, I really feel like this is my moment...my best opportunity to finally learn a foreign language.
As you get older, I think a question you contemplate, or might occasionally get asked, is what advice would you give your younger self or young people? I've thought about that question since moving to Italy and I've come up with my answer: Learn a foreign language.
I've adopted the view that knowing a foreign language is like having a super power. The ability to communicate with another person, in their native language, is an incredible ability. It has to be empowering to be in a foreign land, where a foreign tongue is spoken, and you can understand what people are saying and you can communicate with them. I think it pulls back the veil and allows us to enter into a different culture and society in a whole new way, and connects us to the global community.
In my experiences overseas, there is nothing more humbling than meeting people who speak several different languages and all I speak is English.
Going back to that almost F in French, learning languages has not come naturally to me. I don't feel like I've had a strong aptitude towards learning other languages but I'm not going to allow myself to use that excuse. I'm also not going to use the tried and tired excuse...I'm too old to learn a new language.
I am a LONG ways from the kind of comprehension of the Italian language I want to achieve but I can say that in the past three months I have committed time every week to learning some Italian. I'm building my vocabulary, and I have some elementary understanding of sentence structure and the use of masculine and feminine words.
I took an introductory 6-week-long Italian 101 course offered through my organization. I've also downloaded the Mango language App on my phone and have been going through the Italian modules.
Then there's the picture books and flashcards that Tom bought that I've been using, and probably most importantly, I've started working with an Italian tutor via Verbling. My tutor is Alice and she's been amazing, tailoring each session after the things I'm most interested in learning, starting with proper pronunciation.
The photo below is a staged photo. This is not how I've been studying Italian but I wanted to gather together, into one photo, my different study resources, minus my computer, which is what I use for my Verbling lessons.
The reality of my study is more like flipping through vocabulary cards while we're watching Six Nations Rugby games, doing a Mango language module while dinner is cooking and I'm waiting for Tom to come home, or flipping through one of the picture phrase books before going to bed. But, regardless, I'm doing it and I'm committing some actual time to the effort.
Regardless of whether you are young or old...if you have a desire to learn a foreign language than please do it! It's a super power accessible to all of us. It just takes time, dedication and effort. I'm grateful that after all these years I'm finally in a place where this is something I'm interested in achieving and I'm willing to do the hard work.
Depending on how far back into the archives you go, you'll learn that I did two deployments to Iraq with the Army Corps of Engineers. This blog started with the second deployment as a way to keep my family and friends apprised of how I was doing. For me, this was pre-Facebook, Instagram and smart phone. The great technological advancement of that deployment was using Skpe to video chat with Tom. The blog was called "Pilgrim in the Cradle."
Then the blog morphed into "Pilgrim in the Unions" when we moved to Germany. The name was a salute to the fact that we were living within the European Union and my job focused on the nations that comprise the African Union.
And then, with our move back to the States, the blog became "Casa de Gato Gordo" -- House of the Fat Cats -- which was no longer applicable once we got Colt, our first Australian Cattle Dog. If you want to see Colt back when he was REALLY cute, click here to read my blog about getting our first dog.
As an adult, I have had the privilege of living and working overseas several times. Nearly a year total in Iraq with both of my deployments, three years in Germany, and now nearly one year in Italy.
Aside from a trip through Canada as a child, I had never been to a foreign country until I was 27 years old. I have since visited 35 countries. I consider these opportunities to live and travel overseas amazing, incredible blessings. I do NOT take it for granted. I know it is a rare gift to be able to visit other countries and experience different cultures and languages.
I feel like I was raised in a culture, a school system, and a society that did NOT encourage learning other languages. It frankly wasn't a necessity. Sure, I was required to take the perfunctory two years of foreign language in high school but learning a foreign language seemed to have no actual applicability to my life and was something I was not interested in. I nearly flunked my first and only year of French and then went on to take two years of Latin. I got through college with a Bachelors in Science, never taking another language class. Little did I know what the future held.
God willing, and unless anything changes for us with our families, we hope to be in Italy for another four years. It's hard to believe the first year is already almost over. The time is flying by.
It became very clear to me as 2017 was wrapping up that unless I really started putting some time and effort into learning Italian, I was going to leave Italy in five years and have never developed more than a basic understanding of the language. Essentially knowing enough to order food in a restaurant, which is about all I left Germany knowing.
In Germany, I took a couple basic introductory language courses offered through the local USO but that was about the extent of my effort to learn some German. I do not want to repeat that here in Italy.
All through last year, after the move, I found myself telling people I want to learn Italian; I'm going to learn Italian. And yet, I was not dedicating any actual time to achieving that goal. Early on, the sister of our wonderful landlord, who speaks great English, came to our house on a regular basis and answered questions for us and helped introduce us to life in Italy. But I wasn't learning yet.
Which brings me to the real reason I thought about writing this post. Sorry it took me so long to finally get to the point!
I shared back in January that it was time to stop "pretending" that I wanted to learn Italian and actually start doing something about it. Here is a link to that blog post if you want to go back and read it. Scroll all the way to the bottom where I write about reading Jhumpa Lahiri's book In Other Words. As I wrote in that blog post, I really feel like this is my moment...my best opportunity to finally learn a foreign language.
As you get older, I think a question you contemplate, or might occasionally get asked, is what advice would you give your younger self or young people? I've thought about that question since moving to Italy and I've come up with my answer: Learn a foreign language.
I've adopted the view that knowing a foreign language is like having a super power. The ability to communicate with another person, in their native language, is an incredible ability. It has to be empowering to be in a foreign land, where a foreign tongue is spoken, and you can understand what people are saying and you can communicate with them. I think it pulls back the veil and allows us to enter into a different culture and society in a whole new way, and connects us to the global community.
In my experiences overseas, there is nothing more humbling than meeting people who speak several different languages and all I speak is English.
Going back to that almost F in French, learning languages has not come naturally to me. I don't feel like I've had a strong aptitude towards learning other languages but I'm not going to allow myself to use that excuse. I'm also not going to use the tried and tired excuse...I'm too old to learn a new language.
I am a LONG ways from the kind of comprehension of the Italian language I want to achieve but I can say that in the past three months I have committed time every week to learning some Italian. I'm building my vocabulary, and I have some elementary understanding of sentence structure and the use of masculine and feminine words.
I took an introductory 6-week-long Italian 101 course offered through my organization. I've also downloaded the Mango language App on my phone and have been going through the Italian modules.
Then there's the picture books and flashcards that Tom bought that I've been using, and probably most importantly, I've started working with an Italian tutor via Verbling. My tutor is Alice and she's been amazing, tailoring each session after the things I'm most interested in learning, starting with proper pronunciation.
The photo below is a staged photo. This is not how I've been studying Italian but I wanted to gather together, into one photo, my different study resources, minus my computer, which is what I use for my Verbling lessons.
The reality of my study is more like flipping through vocabulary cards while we're watching Six Nations Rugby games, doing a Mango language module while dinner is cooking and I'm waiting for Tom to come home, or flipping through one of the picture phrase books before going to bed. But, regardless, I'm doing it and I'm committing some actual time to the effort.
Regardless of whether you are young or old...if you have a desire to learn a foreign language than please do it! It's a super power accessible to all of us. It just takes time, dedication and effort. I'm grateful that after all these years I'm finally in a place where this is something I'm interested in achieving and I'm willing to do the hard work.
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| My Italian language resources. |
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