I'd promised myself in first grade that, as soon as possible, I'd take German again. What could take precedence over a childhood promise? "Just Around the Riverbend" from Pocahontas. Yes, I admit it--YouTube and Disney finalized the decision for me.
A stupid decision? Maybe, maybe not. But I ended up loving Italian, and I haven't regretted it at all. Well, that's not really the truth. Sometimes I do have regrets.
Take the fake Italian accent, for example. A lot of people expect Italians to go up and down and up and down when they're speaking English, which some do. But a lot don't, as well. It's just really annoying when you tell people you're speaking Italian and that's what they end up saying.
And it's frustrating when you figure out that the proper term is one panino, and multiple panini. So now I can't order a panini without thinking that I'm ordering a single when in actuality I mean the plural, or vice versa. (It's quite confusing, as you can tell).
I now have problems with cafe vs. caffe (put the accents on yourself), and I finally understand what latte means. Okay, so maybe I didn't need to take Italian for that, but you can never be sure.
Never mind the practicality issues. I get the whole "Why not take Spanish? It sounds so similar" spiel all the time. Which it does, in some cases. But I really love how Italian both looks and sounds--and the fact that the language is considered (snobby) "fashionista" and (snooty) "classy" doesn't hurt either.
I've never really "fallen" for a language before--French was just too hard to pronounce--and I'm actually interested in taking as much as I can. Provided my schedule allows it, of course.
IMAGE REFERENCES:
http://taioo.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/dz5ox.jpg
http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/291400/291400,1238418424,2/stock-vector-illustration-of-an-italian-cartoon-chef-with-a-freshly-baked-pizza-27610309.jpg
http://www.chicagomag.com/images/2007/October%202007/table_panini.jpg
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