CCarnivale@aol.com wrote: > Cicero, > Your English is very good! I could come and live there for years and > never speak Italian as well as you speak English. You are kind :) >We Americans do > have languages classes in school, but most of the time it is just for > credits. You don't need foreign languages. English is what latin was in ancient times. More : latin was the language of culture and law, of elites. Nowadays english is not only the language of science and business, but the only way to speak with people of every land and social status of the world and above all it pervades local languages with an astonishing velocity, not comparable with propagation velocity of ancient languages. Italian television programs and journalists use english words even when there is an italian translation, and people use english words in their ordinary life instead of italian ones. This is an irreversible process. True, the pronounce is distorted, and we have more english languages, dialects. We'll have not only american english, autralian english, etc, but also italian and french english. I like this process, even if in europe it is growing a new deep antiamericanism gathering together the worst leftist and fascist tradition. A tradition incapable to recognize the pragmatic superiority of democratic and liberal way of life that saved europeans and italians in particualr from right dictatorship before and real socialism later (the nightmare of utopia). I think the imperfect american way of life (imperfect as every human system) is better than every idealised and deceitful idea of political and social perfection. I think the great majority of europeans is aware of this, although our mass media and our governments sometimes show a shady and ambiguous behavior. >I am not sure, but it may even be a requirement for college. > Most people can't go and speak the language they studied. My son was > a French student, and a very good one. He was given 2 semesters > credit when he started college because he was able to pass oral > tests. He later dropped out, because his counselor told him he would > never make a living with his French. Now, lo these many years later, > anyone who has more than one language is in great demand. But you > have to speak it with others, often, to get really fluent, I think. I > wish all my Spanish speaking friends would speak it at home with > their children. My husband spoke Italian as a child, but can only > remember a little of it now. Too bad! Teach your children! > True, the only way to learn a foreign language is to use it every day in real life..... ciao Carlina Paolo