I Met An Italian The Other Day Living in not such a large city, I don't get the chance to meet tourists very often and not many foreigners either. In fact, the only foreigners I've met in person were

Mihaela

I Met An Italian The Other Day Living in not such a large city, I don't get the chance to meet tourists very often and not many foreigners either. In fact, the only foreigners I've met in person were at the volunteer club I used to go to last summer. So this was a bit unusual. Yesterday, my friends and I went to the beach and nothing really special happened there. We swam, got some tan and had fun together. When we packed our things and got back to the tram station, I've heard someone asking me if the way we were going to led to the city (because this place we went to is somewhat outside the city). I suddenly noticed the different accent, but only answered with 'yes' in Romanian. It turned out that wasn't the actual way home (shame on us) and we had to get off and take the tram from the opposite direction. So this is how I started the conversation with the Italian guy, trying to explain him why we didn't stay in that tram. The whole experience was nice, as I could talk about different things in about one hour. I remembered the good times from my last summer. Things weren't much different this time, but it was the spontaneity that kind of scared me. Well, I can't say that it scared me, but I just didn't feel ready for it. My friends didn't speak English very well, so I had to speak most of the time. At some point I felt bad for not being able to speak any Italian and also felt sad because he didn't speak French. English was, like always, the Lingua Franca. But even with English, which I know better than French, it was a little uncomfortable. I had the impression that I had known it better and I still think I do. It was just the moment of speaking which was hard, after some time of only practicing writing and sometimes listening or reading (so lazy). Even though my friends complemented my English, they didn't know I used to speak it better. It's really frustrating when learning languages. At some point you feel good and confident with them and then you lose them all of a sudden. All in all, I'm glad I met Filippo. He was a nice Italian.

Jul 29, 2014 7:17 PM

Corrections · 4

I Met An Italian The Other Day

Living in not such a large city, I don't get the chance to meet tourists very often and not many foreigners at all for that matter. In fact, the only foreigners I've met in person were at the volunteer club I used to go to last summer. So this was a bit unusual.
Yesterday, my friends and I went to the beach and nothing really special happened there. We swam, topped up our tans and had fun together. When we packed our things and got back to the tram station, I heard someone asking me if the way we were going in the direction of to led to the city (because in fact we were heading somewhat away from the city). I suddenly noticed the different accent, but only answered with 'yes' in Romanian. It turned out that we weren't going the right way home (shame on us) and we had to get off and take the tram going in the opposite direction.
So this is how I started the conversation with an Italian guy, trying to explain to him why we hadn't stayed on that tram. The whole experience was nice, and I could talked about different things for about one hour. I remembered the good times from /I reminisced about my last summer. Things weren't much different this time, but it was the spontaneity that kind of scared me. Well, I can't say that it scared me, but I just didn't feel ready for it. My friends don't speak English very well, so I had to speak most of the time.
At some point I felt bad for not being able to speak any Italian and also felt sad because he didn't speak French. English was, as always, the <em>lingua franca.</em> But even with English, which I know better than French, it was still a little uncomfortable. I thought I knew it better than I did, and I still think I do. It was just the pressure of speaking on the spot which was hard, after some time of only practicing writing and sometimes listening or reading (I'm so lazy). Even though my friends complimented me on my English, they didn't know I used to speak it better. It's really frustrating when learning languages. At some point you feel good and confident using them and then you lose fluency all of a sudden.
All in all, I'm glad I met Filippo. He was a nice Italian. [<em>Most of the suggested changes are only to make the text sound better. Very few mistakes, though. When you use a Latin phrase, use lower case and italics. Be a bit careful because Latin expressions are used less often now, especially in informal writing. I like them though! Lingua franca = common language. Well done and keep up the good work. Michael]</em>

July 29, 2014

It was nice, indeed, speaking with a foreigner in person.

July 29, 2014

Mihaela How a interesting event Meet an Italian You know ,all of us like speaking with foreigners Because talking can present us good feeling Be success ,young lady :-)

July 29, 2014

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