Please, don't learn Italian fast. Or perfectly. Here's why.

We're constantly told we can learn languages faster and better and we're made to feel flawed and imperfect. What if the exact opposite were true?

I’ve just got back from hosting the Gaeta retreat and I wanted to jot down a quick post to share some thoughts that came to me during this magical event that allows me to connect with my readers from around the world.

For those of you who don’t know me, every year, I host language immersion retreats in my hometown, Gaeta in Lazio where I help Italian learners experience the pace of life in a small town while improving their Italian.

Five days is a lot of time. Learners get to practice Italian for an average of twelve hours a day. 

So many things come up. So many topics of conversation. We connect as a small group of people at many levels.

Many different kinds of people come to Gaeta on my retreats.

But the questions don’t change and some themes are recurring.

My Italian isn’t good enough

The first thing that comes up a lot is, my Italian isn’t good enough. My verbs, my tenses, argh, I should be better. 

The online language world is magical and gives us incredible opportunities and resources.

Unfortunately, it has also given us some toxic ideas, that is that languages can and should be learned fast. And to perfection.

We CAN speak Italian fast.  It is POSSIBLE.

Should we all do it? Is it natural? Is it something I  wish on anyone? 

No.

I’ve seen it happen. I know at what price it comes at. It’s not something I’d recommend. 

We can become truly confident and automatize some verb patterns only after a long time. 

After many many years. 

That is not bad.

Repeat after me. It isn’t bad for things to take time. 

Our brains know what they’re doing.

We don’t know better than our brains.

Why slowing down is important

Our Western culture, hyped up by productivity culture, is doing us a terrible disservice.

It’s making us feel like ALL our natural processes are lacking somehow and that we should be better, faster. Improved, somehow. 

Faster than what? And most importantly, WHY should we be faster? 

This line of reasoning is so pervasive in our society and flawed that it makes me so furious. Because it harms us all in so many ways and makes us miserable.

With the idea of constant improvement, which in and of itself isn’t wrong, we’re made to feel flawed and always lacking in something or other.

That’s why I’m here to tell you this. Which is what I tell my retreat participants through actions and words. 

Today, give yourself a big gift, something that the online world will never give you. 

Give yourself and your Italian journey the gift of time. 

In a world that tells you to rush, tell yourself that you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.

At a time, where everything has a price but nothing seems to have value, give yourself  pride in what you have done so far. 

Accept that your brain KNOWS what it’s doing ( it does)  and has processes that shouldn’t be forced. 

I mean, what is the rush? 

Most of my students have a very good knowledge of Italian. The flaws they still have don’t trigger any big misunderstandings or international accidents.

There’s just that rush, that pull to be better, to be faster.

Which just breeds dissatisfaction, constant discontent. That’s a marketing ploy, by the way. Nothing else. 

The gift of time, and it’s truly a wonderful present, allows us to see the big picture.

It allows us to breathe in and enjoy the journey. 

It gives us space.

Our brains are already overstimulated and pushed to extremes.

Being ambitious is wonderful. 

But you’re learning Italian. 

You crave to stop and have a cup of coffee and enjoy the view not to bring further anxiety to your life.

So bring that dolcezza, see your Italian as that cup of coffee that you’re stopping to sip during a busy day. 

You, me, all of us. We give ourselves too few gifts.

And time is something we waste so freely and have so little of. 

That’s why I have something else to say to you.

Come to Italy. Come soon.

Give yourself that gift of time. Datevi del tempo.

And if you want some help in giving time the proper value, you might want to join me in Gaeta, Lazio in September where I host my Italian immersion retreats and where we learn Italian dolcemente. We learn Italian softly and sweetly and we reclaim all the time we’ve lost and that we so badly need.

In small-town Italy, time has a different taste to it and we can finally slow down and immerse in an Italian pace of life. 

The gift of time is something you can give yourself now.

✨Time well spent building connections and community

✨Time spent watching paranze ( fish boats) come back to town and unload the fish and sell it right there on the spot. 

✨Time spent chatting with newly found friends over coffee hearing the clinking of cups and the muttering of the coffee machine. 

✨Time devoted to cooking meals and choosing the right ingredient carefully and discussing how to make carbonara just right, come lo faceva mia mamma.

Time to wander the farmer's market and pick the best pomodorini, the juicy ones that yield the sweetest taste in your mouth.

That’s it for today.

What relationship do you have with time? 

Is it a gift you’re able to give yourself or do you feel like you’re fighting to reclaim your life back? Let me know in the comments.