One thing that really interested me was the topic about
learning languages. I have always had a tough time trying to learn Spanish, French
and German. However, when I went to Italy this summer for a study abroad
program I actually took away some Italian once I came home. I am a more kinetic
learner unlike my sister-in-laws parents who picked up the language fairly
fast. I found it interesting about if you learn a language at a younger age you
won’t have as much trouble and have less of an accent. I have a friend in the Netherlands
who is taught English in school and therefore can speak both languages. This is
a common thing for other countries to learn our languages. However, we don’t do
the same. We start learning languages a lot older so it takes us longer to
learn because of the fact that is doesn’t come natural to us as it would the
others. I would love to learn Italian fluently and I know that it will take a
long time but I think that actually being in the country is a lot easier to
learn because if you don’t figure out key words you won’t be able to do common
things such as going out to eat or grabbing a taxi.
Kaitlin, I agree with your thoughts here. I took four years of spanish when I was in high school, but I learned the most in my one week trip to Central Mexico during my second year, where the people didn't know hardly, if any, English. Then two years after I graduated high school, I took a trip to Bolivia for two weeks and everything I learned came back so quickly and I learned so much more about the language while I was there for that short period of time.
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