Ciao tutti!

I remember back when I was in high school that I wanted to start learning a new language. I considered Chinese, but I knew this was setting the bar way too high for something that I would have to teach myself. My trip to Venice was determinant in my decision to start learning Italian. It sounds good and did not seem too hard to learn, so I got started. The first thing I did was “Duolingo”. You must have heard about this application if at some point you also tried to learn a new language. Honestly, this was a good start, but it pretty much gets boring after some time, and I realized that I could not really practice my oral skills, which I believe is the most important aspect of learning a language. Thus, my motivation decreased, and I went from using this app a few minutes every day, to a few minutes every week, and without realizing, I had stopped opening Duolingo. Even though I was putting notifications on every day, I was just ignoring them. I did not understand why I could not go on, and I probably just concluded that I must be too lazy to teach myself a new language or that it was too hard.

 

After being admitted to the world bachelor in business, I started to think again about Italian, knowing that this time, I actually had a reason to learn the language: I was going to spend one or probably two years in Milan, but I was not really in a hurry, because I still had two years to learn. After I landed in LA, I quickly became friends with most of the Italian people in my program. This means that we were hanging out together a lot, and many times, I found myself being the only non-Italian guy in the group, so I had to remind them many times to switch to English. However, I also could understand that they were naturally speaking to each other in their own language. After all, if there were other Moroccans with me, I would have probably done the same. This is when I decided that I must do something about this situation.

 

By the beginning of October, I decided to get started seriously. I gave up on Duolingo and grabbed a notebook. I thought: If I could study Italian on my own for one hour every day, by the end of the second year, I would become fluent and be ready for Milan. The beginning was probably the hardest. Building new habits need a lot of self-discipline, which is something that I lacked before. I decided to start with basic verbs in the present, then to go on with some vocabulary using different topics, like nature, home, clothes, the human body… I was going slowly but steadily, and what was great about having a notebook is that I could actually observe my progress, which was helping me to keep going on day after day. I was also blessed to have a suitemate that was Italian that could help me with my mistake or when I had questions to ask.

 

The next step was to get added to the Italian WhatsApp group chat “USC mafia”. This is when I stepped up my game. Not only I could read Italian every day, at any moment, but I could also answer (google translate was a good start), and of course, keep writing new stuff on my notebook. Right now, I try to have short talks with my suitemate from time to time, and I try to read or listen to the news in Italian because the major issue I am facing right now is trying to understand Italians when they talk at a normal pace. After all, I think that our environment really plays a big role when it comes to what we try to achieve in life and that we should take advantage of every opportunity that is presented to us. Teaching myself this language is still not easy, but I am confident that if I keep learning, I might find myself speaking without any difficulty in two years. Let’s see how it goes.

 

Find below a sample of my notebook.

Ghali