3 Magnifiche Life Lessons I Learned by Attempting to Learn Italian as a Grown-Up
Your brain will thank you
“A special kind of beauty exists which is born in language, of language, and for language.”
-Gaston Bachelard
I’ve thought a lot about languages since I was a kid.
When I was a little girl, my mom spoke broken English in a thick, Israeli accent (that I adored) and even though she would eventually learn to speak English by watching American TV sitcoms, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeanie and I Love Lucy, she still looked and sounded very much like a foreigner in the San Fernando Valley where I grew up.
I remember watching people treat my mom like she was less than on several occasions.
Sometimes we’d encounter people who happened to speak English as their first language and couldn’t seem to fathom how someone might need them to speak a little slower. Their lack of patience and eye-rolling made me livid. My little body would shake with anger when I saw someone treat my mom like she was stupid.
She’s not stupid! She’s just not from here!
