Vinicio Coletti's Web Site

The languages I speak
(or I try to speak, I used to speak, I wish to speak, I ...)
Last updated on March 5, 2004

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I like very much to speak, read and write foreign languages. My ideal would be to master all languages of the world, if only this were possibile...
Meanwhile, I wander around looking for something able to attract my curiosity.
This page is meant to be a very superficial index of the resources Internet offers to the people wishing to learn and use one of the languages listed. I will add materials, although at a very slow rate (this activity is multiplexed with many other interests I have).
 

(Almost) known languages

• Italian, my mother's language. I like it very much and if you have even a minimal interest in Italian culture or you are planning a journey to visit the beautiful Italian towns, it is worth studying it.
  It may look complex, with its grammatical rules, but it is also very easy to read and write. Once you know the reading rules, it's done, they never change going from one word to another one.
   
  
• French. I learnt French at school, starting at the age of 11 and up to when I was 19. I liked it immediately and I have a quite good understanding of the spoken language and of book and newspapers. This is perhaps due to my high-school professor, that teached us French perhaps better than the others did with Italian.
  I came back to French some years later, in 1993-1994, when I followed some courses and had my DELF released (Diplôme d'études de langue française).
  French is somewhat similar to Italian: both share the same latin origin, a complex syntax along with steady reading and writing rules. But I find that thinking in French makes you more rational. Well, this is certainly only a feeling...
  Today I use French mainly when speaking to other radio amateurs located in France, Belgium and other countries and when watching French satellite tv channels. By the way I occasionally read books and newspapers.
   
  
• English. Up to my twenties, I had no real knowledge of English, except for the songs broadcast by the radio programs or found on LP and 45 discs (do you remember those strange black things you had to keep clean all the time?). Like others of my age, I kept trying to decode the text of those songs, with uncertain results.
  Another source were the computer languages, interfaces and manuals I begun to deal with in my office, but, as everyone should know, it is very easy to understand a computer manual, once you know a few words, but then you will not understand the real language.
  The first real contact with English came some years later, when my former employer organized (and, most importantly, payed) a course at the British Institute. In a few months a whole new world opened and I started reading English books and magazines, not to lost what I had just learnt.
  In 1995 I installed my first satellite television dish and I begun watching foreign tv channels, both in English and French. This keeps you update and it is a useful comprehension exercise.
  Today English is a mandatory tool in my programmer's activity and also the way to access most of the immense cultural reservoir that is Internet nowadays. By the way it is also the main language used by radio amateurs of different countries, when speaking each other.
  I like English, its literature and even its sound, mainly when spoken by a cultivated person, expecially if it's a woman, I don't know why :-)
   
  
• Spanish. I have never studied Spanish, or more precisely the Castillan language. But listening to radio amateurs, radio and tv speakers, I found that I could understand most of the words and, more importantly, the meaning of the sentences. I tried also to speak it, and it was quite ok, at last the pronunciation.
  Spanish is really very similar to Italian and in some cases, if an Italian and a Spanish meet, they can speak both in their own language and understand each other. By the way this is true only at a very superficial level, so it is better not to make confusion between Italian and Spanish (I've seen pop stars saying Spanish words when in Italy, believing they were speaking the right language...).
  I have never read something in Spanish up to now, but I like to hear people talking Spanish, because usually they are very friendly to Italy, and we Italians are very friendly to them.
   
  
• Russian. I have no real knowledge of Russian, not even at a superficial level, but, believe it or not, I can read it, of course with no idea of what I've just read... In mid 80s, at the time of glasnost I simply bought a Russian language course and what I learnt was the cirillic alphabet and how to pronounce the Russian words. No further development is planned at the moment.
   
  
• Japanese. Until October 2001 I had no idea of what Japanese language is. Perhaps I knew only the words Banzai and Sayonara (from movies, by the way). Then I became very curious about this language and started locating Japanese resources on the net. In about two weeks of self instruction, no more than half hour a day, I learnt the two syllabic writing methods of Hiragana and Katakana and a small number of ideograms (Kanji).
  Yes, as you can understand from this, Japanese is very difficult, but it is a so unique language (a mixture of Chinese ideograms, plus syllabic symbols and more) that I find very exciting learning something about it. At the moment, I am not planning to have a good knowledge of the language, but simply to slowly add other notions to the few I have now.
  The Hiragana writing on the top of this page translate into "irasshaimase" that means "welcome".
   
  
• Latin. I began studying Latin in the last year of scuola media at the age of 13, as an optional course. Then at liceo scientifico (high school) I studied it for 5 years, despite the name of the school. I liked it very much and I remember something of it, although now I couldn't do written translations without refreshing my school learning.
  As everyone knows, Latin was the language of ancient Romans and it exists since VIII century BC. With the expansion of the Roman empire, it became the language of all Europe, Nothern Africa and Middle East, for more than 1200 years. After this it was still the language of the eastern part of the Roman empire, which survived for 1000 more years, and also the cultural lingua franca for the whole western world up to very recent times.
  As a result the official names of stars and constellations, the names of lunar craters and planetary features, the names of animal and vegetal species etc., are all expressed in Latin language.
  Italian, French, Provenzal, Castillan, Catalan, Portuguese, Romanian and Sardinian languages (and others) are all of direct Latin origin, but even germanic languages like German, English, Swedish etc. derive many terms from Latin, expecially those used in science and culture in general. After all, Britannia was a Roman province for many centuries.
  And by the way Latin alphabet, with many variations, is used to write a lot of languages, worldwide, and is also the official language of the Catholic Church.
  I think it could be the perfect unified language for the documents of the European Union, although I don't think the EU actually need a unified language at all. The many different languages and cultures are actually the wealth of Europe and we don't risk to be all thinking the same way :-)
  But if you need a neutral lingua franca, I think the best is Latin, because this was its role already, and for a very long time. Of course we would need an updated Latin, including terms to represent all things and concepts that didn't exist 2000 years ago, such as airplanes, telephones, computers, trains, ecc.
  My proposal about it, not so original, is to build up the NewLatin.