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Surviving in Sicily. Before moving to a new country, it's normal that one has many prospects.
I will become rich; I will make loads of friends; and I'll really enjoy life. In reality, it
doesn't really happen like that. There is a long period of adaptation when you don't
know anyone, you don't have work, and you don't know how to enjoy life. I came to Italy
for different reasons. The most important of which for me is to learn once and for all
Italian to a very high level. Today I met a guy who told me "you speak Italian really
well; you understand and reply fluently". Well, it's not exactly what he said, but something
similar. For me, though, this isn't enough. Yes, I can get by to a point, I manage to
have a dialogue and it's not too difficult to understand. But it's just a start. I already
speak Spanish very well, and I want to speak Italian even better. The problem is that to
learn a language isn't just a question of knowing words, nor even knowing phrases, but
rather it's a process of mingling with the society, to know how to express yourself in
such a society. I don't know if I'll ever be able to think like an Italian; to be able
to express myself in the same way. Of course I've lived for a very long time in Mexico,
so I've had more time for Spanish to sink into my mind. Hopefully with a bit of time,
the same thing will happen with Spanish too. I had to write an email to a prospective student
today. She had written to me to ask for further information about the English lessons that
I'm offering. Then I asked a guy whom I'd met a few days ago to check the email for
me. And he changed almost everything. Looking at his corrections, I could easily see how
much better the email was. And it wasn't just a question of style, but also of content.
What I had said was sometimes too brief, disrespectful, and sometimes superfluous. That is, in Italian.
In English it would have been a perfectly good response; concise and respectful. Tonight
I wrote another letter to a fencing club, asking for more information about the courses
that they offer. When I had my friend check it for me, again a whole load of things got
changed. "It's understandable", he said, "but we don't say it like that". Oh well, at least
I tried. I bought a book in Italian which I'm trying to read. It's really satisfying
to read it because it's a work of fantasy, and I've always liked books like that. Apart
from this book, I bought myself a newspaper and I try to read an article every day. Unfortunately
it's not so easy as one might think, since it's about news, politics and other stuff
which I'm not really clued into. Even though I don't know many of the terms, or understand
all of what's being said, I hope it will be useful. I'm thinking about starting to watch
television. We have one in the living room which I discovered today. Even though the
television doesn't interest me much, it could be an efficient way to acquire new terms and
idioms. For the moment, though, I just watch videos on youtube; and listen to a few songs.
I've realised that there are a lot of things that I need to learn and I hope to be able
to. Ultimately if I stay here for a year, and seriously apply myself, I should be able
to see serious improvement . We'll see!