Parliamo Italiano!
Today was my first Italian lesson here in Japan. "Italian?!?" you might ask. Well I studied it for a few semesters about five years ago or so. I now work with many people at the Multimedia Center who speak Italian, French, German, Spanish, and Chinese. They mostly keep to their own group, but I did meet Elena, an Italian woman who agreed to give me lessons once every three weeks.
It was great. After the initial 3o minutes or so, I was able to tell stories about my trips to Italy. I surprised both of us, I think. I remember much more than I had realized. I also forgot some extremely simple words and grammar points. Ahh balance. So this will be good for me in more than one way.
Many people have asked if it would get confusing learning two languages at once. Studies (and my experience years ago) have shown that it's actually better for your retention rate to learn more than one at a time. If you learn one language, stop those classes, and then learn another, your brain tends to overwrite the old one with the new, so to speak. It's not that you forget everything; it's more that you have one area of your brain for foreign languages and they sort of duke it out for space.
If you learn more than one at a time, it forces your brain to expand how much it uses at a time, thus allowing both new languages to coexist. I have done this before, and the confusion of words only lasts for the initial few weeks. In the beginning, if you don't know a word, it comes to you in another language, but not usually your native one...usually another foreign language you've learned. This was evident to me today as I filled in missing Italian vocabulary with French, Japanese, and even Spanish at times (which I barely know), proving that part of my brain is activated.
Anyway, I'm excited to have Italian back in my life and for it to enhance that learning center in my brain so that I start thinking from there more often for Japanese's sake as well.
Now if I could only find someone willing to teach me Arabic...
It was great. After the initial 3o minutes or so, I was able to tell stories about my trips to Italy. I surprised both of us, I think. I remember much more than I had realized. I also forgot some extremely simple words and grammar points. Ahh balance. So this will be good for me in more than one way.
Many people have asked if it would get confusing learning two languages at once. Studies (and my experience years ago) have shown that it's actually better for your retention rate to learn more than one at a time. If you learn one language, stop those classes, and then learn another, your brain tends to overwrite the old one with the new, so to speak. It's not that you forget everything; it's more that you have one area of your brain for foreign languages and they sort of duke it out for space.
If you learn more than one at a time, it forces your brain to expand how much it uses at a time, thus allowing both new languages to coexist. I have done this before, and the confusion of words only lasts for the initial few weeks. In the beginning, if you don't know a word, it comes to you in another language, but not usually your native one...usually another foreign language you've learned. This was evident to me today as I filled in missing Italian vocabulary with French, Japanese, and even Spanish at times (which I barely know), proving that part of my brain is activated.
Anyway, I'm excited to have Italian back in my life and for it to enhance that learning center in my brain so that I start thinking from there more often for Japanese's sake as well.
Now if I could only find someone willing to teach me Arabic...
posted by Spencer Douglas at
1:45 PM
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