Frustration with not being fluent in Italian

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This week has been particularly frustrating for me with not being fluent in the Italian language. It affected me this week even more because I encountered so many instances where I couldn’t say or express myself the way I wanted to in Italian. I get so frustrated sometimes because I feel like I have missed out on so many friendships or opportunities to have a genuine conversation due to my lack of Italian language skills.

There’s been plenty of times where the natives tell me that my Italian is good, but I know it’s not good enough. Not good enough to show my true personality and say everything that I want to say. Not only that, but many times I get nervous because I don’t want to say the wrong words, and instead I end up forgetting words that I actually do know. I just second-guess myself a lot and end up being worse at speaking than my true potential. I overthink a lot instead of just letting the words flow out naturally.

Anyway, I say this week has been particularly frustrating because during my Italian classes, there have been many times where I wanted to raise my hand and speak up, but I was scared to say the wrong thing. This has happened many times and to this day, I still haven’t spoken up in class on my own. In order to address this, I signed up for a partner language exchange program at my university where I can practice Italian with someone and they can practice English with me. I have only met up with this person once because I have been super busy, but I have learned a lot more words.

Also, I have made some other Italian friends and I write to them in only Italian to improve my vocabulary. If I don’t know something, I google translate it and that has been the best way to learn new words. Additionally, I challenged myself by going to get a hair cut at a hair salon and only speaking to them in Italian. I got complimented on how well I knew the language so that was nice.

Anyway, I just wanted to express how I feel about not being fluent in Italian because it affects me a lot and I need to make big changes if I want to take advantage of all the opportunities in this country. My goal is to be almost fluent by the time I leave Italy.

Monica Curiel

<i>Hello in your host country language</i>: Ciao <i> University</i>: San Diego State University <i>Expected graduation year</i>: 2018 <i>Destination</i>: Milan, Italy <i>Program Provider</i>: SOSU Exchange <i>Major / Minor</i>: International Business <i>Language of Study</i>: Italian <i>Demographic background</i>: First-generation, Hispanic-American <i>Future career aspirations</i>: Liaison Officer or Protocol Officer <i>Top 3 goals for study abroad</i>: To learn Italian; To network with locals; To become more open-minded.