Throughout my life, I have experienced two other languages besides English—Italian and American Sign Language. Growing up in an Italian family, I was exposed to this dialect early, unfortunately, English was the main language spoken in the house with a few Italian words thrown in here and there to make a statement. When I first started college, I took two semesters of Italian, hoping things would come easier to me since I lived in a household of Italians, but this was entirely untrue. Trying to have a conversation in class using this language was the most challenging thing for me because the placement of words were different and I could not grasp how to use them in the proper form. I do hope to pick up this language again on my own time where I am not graded.

After barely passing Italian, I took American Sign Language, not only because it was needed for my major, but a friend of mine was going for interpreting in ASL and I was interested by how her hands flowed so flawlessly while signing. I took four semesters of ASL and enjoyed it when I signed to others at my own level. Signing with individuals who were more advanced than me was just as difficult as Italian. I did like it more than Italian because I was able to fingerspell a word when I did not know how to sign it, and I still use it to this day every now and then. From taking two languages, I learned that I definitely need to work on my conversational skills. I can have a great conversation in English, since it is my native language, and am able to sustain it for as long as needed. Other forms of languages however, not so much. In the near future I hope to learn about these two languages more in depth (especially Italian), because I find them both beautiful and fascinating.