Everything's going so well!

Parlo italiano.

Mangiamo pizza.

Canti bella.

Uno, due, tre, quattro, cinque, sei.

i bambini = los niños

Learning Italian is proving to be about what I expected, really. It's at times ridiculously similar and at other times unrecognizable when compared to Spanish. Though Spanish is coming in handy because the meanings translate so much better, for example i bambini vs. los niños is a much closer translation than to English, where it could mean "babies" or "kids" or "children."

(The tough part is not using Spanish! I caught myself thinking I was really catching on well to Italian, when really I had just slipped back into Spanish. ¡Maldito sea! Er, I mean... maledizione!)

Unfortunately, I've also come to realize that Italian is really not going to be useful unless/until I go to Italy. Browsing around on a job posting today (just for funsies!) there was a posting for a multilingual something-or-other in Europe of all places (again, just for funsies! (... for now)), and Italian was not listed as a language for which they were hiring. And that's on their home continent!

So, I'm pondering other languages to maybe tack on... something that is maybe useful outside of its country of origin.

However, so long as I have a meaningful conversation with my cousin-from-Italy this summer, I think I'll be able to cross this one off! It really is a very pretty language.

Ciao!