My Story

I am a dual US/Italian citizen, but born and raised here in the states so I never learned Italian growing up. The love of Italy was passed down though so I always wished I could speak it. Now, here I am, I mom of four, trying to learn Italian and raise my kids in a somewhat tri-lingual home. My husband is a francofile, and 3 of the younglings are taking a French immersion class through their school. It's up to me to provide the exposure to all three languages and make sure they learn Italian along with me. My main source of Italian instruction for myself in Duolingo, and for my kids it's Dino Lingo. I've been studying Italian consistently for 3.5 years now, it's really easy to get discouraged about how far I'm not, but I have to remind myself that last year was really hard on me, so for a majority of that time I wasn't really advancing, just maintaining that low level of understanding. BUT I am so thankful that I did stick with it, because it would be so much more frustrating for me right now if I had just given up and told myself that I'd get back into it when life was easier. Most days I just do a quick 5 minute lesson, listen to my Italian (Annalisa) station on Pandora, put Peppa Pig on for the kids in Italian, and use as many Italian phrases with my kids as I can remember (which isn't a lot at this point). The phrases I use most of the time are "Non toccare!" (don't touch), and "mettiti le scarpe" (put on your shoes). I suppose I'll leave the rest of my story for my regular blog posts. :)

*Bonus points if you understand my t-shirt.