I never really learned German. When I was younger I knew the basics of the language such as numbers, letters, months… but I was never formally taught the language since my mother didn’t have the time and the patience to, and my school didn’t offer the course. Therefore I left German and started studying French at the age of six years.
French is a melodic and harmonious language, which has the power of charming and involving you in a small matter of time. I had never heard the language until school, therefore I approached the language from the grammatical aspect and at the age of nine, I started to speak it fluently.
I must say, that when you learn a language it is of vital importance to have a teacher or tutor, which loves the subject he is teaching, and most importantly that is able to transfer the language to the student in an effective and vigorous manner. The teacher should make you love what you are learning in order to make you enthusiastic and make sure you have the desire to learn the language.
At home, and outside the school premises I always speak Italian depending with who I am. The only exceptions would be a foreigner or a French or English friend with whom I would speak either English or French.
I have been thorough all of my education in a British environment, at the Sir James Henderson British school of Milan and I have learned and I have slowly got closer to the habits of the English as well as their culture. I feel very close to that culture because I feel as if it is now part of my lifestyle. With the passing of time I have influence the people in my family and my friends with my ‘Bi-culture’. An example could be the fact that my family has adopted the British accent when speaking English.
In my life I have traveled very much for my parents work, but also for leisure. The country, which has remained in my heart, is Vietnam; its culture is phenomenal and it is tremendously fascinating since you can notice an enormous difference between their life and your life. After the first time I visited Vietnam, my family and I have been returning every year in search of that state of peace and harmony that you can only find there.
I am very grateful of having been sent at a British school since childhood because I had the opportunity to be in an international and multicultural atmosphere and to be surrounded by people from all around the globe. When I was five years old, I used to return home every afternoon with my two best friends. One of them was called Aisha and was Indian, and the other one was called Consuelo and was from Chile. We used to sit in the living room of my house, and share a snack that each one of us had taken from home; I loved this ‘ritual’ because every time they brought a different snack which belonged to their home country, and every afternoon became a new exciting discovery.
When I was about thirteen years old, I started to study Italian and English in depth. By this I mean that I explored the literature and the grammar structure of my two main languages. If I have to be sincere, I never found Italian literature very interesting. I thought that the aim of literature was to create confusion and boredom in the pupils’ minds.
At the end of ‘year eleven’ or ‘grade 10’, depending on the systems, I took the choice of going from a British school into an American School. At present it is my second week into a completely new environment, and I feel very relaxed and happy, due to my flexibility. Although it is very hard to understand what American teachers say, due to they’re accent, I am doing my best to adapt though I am keen on maintaining my British accent in order to take with me the part of my life which now belongs to my past.
I am sure that this environment will broaden my experiences even more, and will give me the chance to experiment the approach on ‘study’ of another system. It must be said that I feel immensely closer to Britain than I do to the United States.
In conclusion, I would like to underline that knowing three languages has been an advantage for me in many situations. I think that one of the most important things in life is to be able to mix with other cultures and being able to adapt to other lifestyles. This is why I chose the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme.
