Question time: Why do you like English?
That’s a toughie. When I was a kid I had an English teacher who despised me and tried to give me a hard time, so my mother decided to let me have some private lessons.
And so I became better at it than people my age living in Italy: that gave birth to a virtuous cycle. I felt gratified by my teachers, so I loved the subject more, to the extent that I studied it on my own. When Internet wasn’t for everybody, it wasn’t easy, but it could be done all the same, despite the difficulties.
During my teen years, I visited several times the United Kingdom and finally put to practice what I had learned, and it felt wonderful.
Then, when I first got online, a new world of possibilities opened to me, even more when my old dial-up connection was replaced by ADSL. At last I could listen to how the language was used by real people without budging from home, and that’s when websites like YouTube or Ted.com came in handy. But, before that, I appreciated the genuinity of blogs, which made me feel connected to the world and let me broaden my horizons. Plus, I started an English website and got positive feedback. I remember many delightful emails and particularly one in which an American invited me to his ranch in Texas.
Then, when I stopped smoking in 2009, there was no quality material available in Italian and knowing English indeed saved my life. That miracle has repeated itself every time I looked up for specialized information.
Now this language has just become something that I like to do and a never-ending personal challenge. When you intimately know something, you actually grow fond of it, and that’s what has happened to me. That’s why I get saddened by the fact that I’ll never be proficient at it like a native. The best tradeoff I could get for not giving up my Italian identity would be to be born as a bilingual, and I strongly envy those who have received that stroke of luck.
Of course knowing my limitations doesn’t prevent me from keeping my nose to the grindstone. After gaining my Certificate in Advanced English by University of Cambridge with a good mark (for example I got 210 out of 210 in the Use of English paper, and that’s C2 level, the highest) I’m getting prepared for the Certificate of Proficiency in English.
Keep your fingers crossed and bring me luck. And possibly a foreign boyfriend :)
