Does Learning Languages Through Relationships Really Work? A Polyglot's Perspective

Hello everyone. I have the pleasure of having Sonia. Sonya. Sonya you are from Rome like me. But we speak English for now. So this is going to be an interesting interview and we're going to do this interview in English but also in our native language the beautiful Italian. Sonia, how are you? Oh my God, we've already changed. Confuse you people. You're going to confuse me. I'm going to confuse myself. Anyway, so Sonya speaks a bunch of languages, right? Kind of. So, what is the first language you learned? Italian. Buuse, it's my native language.

The second English. Yeah. I started in kindergarten. So, really little. Why is it that you have an American accent? Cuuse I like it. So, I've always loved rap music. I love rap music. So even when I was a kid I was like yeah and I was studying that was before the internet you know like I'm 5 but maybe at most 20 24 come on I'm kidding 23 no 23 between 23 and really a lie so even when I was little I sat there with the paper dictionary and studied and then I listened to Eminem and then in the end I took on the American accent because I like it better. Could I do a bit of a British accent too or not?

No, no, to tell the truth I don't try either. But Richard famous pelliglotta beats me up all the time and says "No, your English and British accent, it sucks." Anyway, it's interesting because there's not a lot of Italian to speak English well and on top of that you have a great accent. So let's talk about that bu I think a very interesting topic apart from the fact you speak English really well. What happened that you develop this accent? Like for example, something that happened to me was that when I started speaking well, people were mocking me like at school, right? This happen to Oh, yeah. They were making fun of me like, "Oh, you think you're American?"

I was like trying, right? Like you got to try. I'm I'm a native Italian speaker. My parents are from Rome. They do n't speak English at all. So, I had to try. And my friends are like, I didn't care. I love music in general. I think we're talking about the famous musical ear and if you like music, because languages are music, I love music, I love it too, I started out playing the piano for example, then I gave it up. Shame on me, how would you say it? How do you say? Shame me in Italian. Wait, let me think. Shame on me? No, aren't you ashamed? No, I should be ashamed. I do not know. Shame,

accent the problem is more psychological in my book, right? And but you overcome that in a brilliant way. So that's that 's fantastic. And the reason why we're having this interview is like because we want to talk she's also a polyglot because I think a person who speaks three, four, five languages is a polyglot. But I'm also very interesting in knowing how you approach languages from a psychological point of view but also from a technical point of view. So you said that you like music right so you listening to music. Yeah. But I'm a singer. I was a singer. You know I used to sing with you.

Oh wow. For like years. Fantastic. did n't know that. So, so no I mean this really help did this help you with pronunciation and identity right and then did you go to the United States or you learned most of what you know at home or I'd say mainly I learned in Italy buuse I studied like B here in Rome. Mhm. But then I did spend like an amount of time in the US because my exhusband was American. Okay. You're full of surprises. I know. But this is frustrating because every time I say like, "Oh, I speak English. Why do you speak English?" Because I studied a lot. Because I love music because they like and then I'm like, "Oh, so my exhusband was American." They're like, "Oh, that's why you speak English." And I'm like, "Well, no."

Colorado Tampa. Okay, so it helped, but it's not the main reason why he speaks English, I mean, I always say yes, I had an American teacher, I talked to a lot of friends, but it 's the time, it's the commitment, it's how much you like it. Then when I was little I used to do the translations of films, of the subtitled films, there were like crews, those who did the subtitles when Netflix didn't exist yet and I used to get involved. That is, you do a lot and then you learn a lot by teaching. M because you arrive knowing you're Italian and you have a giant, enormous, gigantic, gigantic impostor syndrome, so you want to be as perfect as possible. So, but I still give English lessons now, I mean, no, it's true, it's true. Same thing too

true when you teach a lotay attention details pronunciation, intonation et but other languages. English, you're Italian what other languages do you speak well and what does it mean for you to speak a language well? I speak Spanish very well. Gran Canaria pensa che darme un mes, però despagnos very well because italian Spanish canario. Espol canario, Argentine. A mí me gusta argentino. Argentine. I like the pure flavor because I was born in Italy but I've always talked about many cases only with Spanish words, if I've been asked about this strong flavor and I've lost my head anyway ok. Theos modos that's enough. So, eh so, as we were saying, so eh you speak Spanish very well spag because

people don't know it, because I studied it at university both in the undergraduate and graduate degrees, so actually I also have a degree in Spanish and then I was in the Canary Islands for almost 4 years, three decades, that is, I had two ex-boyfriends, one Canarian, one Argentinian, so the language is learned in the cuna or in the cama se Sper. No, we played with dolls. Let's see, let's see if we can play with the children and see what to cut and what not to cut. Okay, that's funny. The Romans say throw it in caciara, so and so in reality yes, with Spanish it was both study, a lot of study, then I had abandoned it a little because I didn't find the motivation for so much I was in the United States, I worked with

English, then when I came back I went to the Canary Islands, I found the motivation again. Sure, I can imagine that. Okay, so look, first talk about the Swedes he brought home to party with. I mean now I know Spanish English, Spanish language well not well. Not well so English, Spanish, Italian, I'd say like I can talk about pretty much anything. Japanese I'd say it's intermediate. I cannot talk about just anything. I mov and I know Japanese at all I knew like just like basic Japanese so I studied it for months but at the same time I was working part and I didn't know really much about the grammar so then I started working full time and I learned Japanese

with my roommates I had Japanese to speak. I was new to me. I was like I'm so good English, Spanish, French. I studied a little bit of French in school. I was like and in Japan I was like, "Oh my god, I'm terrible." God. The same thing happened to me when it comes to Japanese. It's such a difficult language because it's different, right? It's different the syntax like words all over the place and that's why I dropped Japanese back in the day 14 years ago. Now I'm back with the arrival. However, I understand that

it's difficult. And this is an important thing to say that a lot of people think that if you're a polyglut and you have a lot of languages under your belt, so it's going to be like a breeze just to learn yet another language. And that is not necessarily true because if you learn a language that is not, you know, doesn't belong to the language families that you know you're already gone through then you we got a problem as they say and then it's it's a little bit more difficult but you made it. Now you speak at an intermediate level and then you know once you have an intermediate level you can already communicate I think it's going to be relatively easy to bring it to the next level if you have a chance

of using it. Yeah. You have a chance of using it maybe also online. I Japan likes three months a year usually. Months three months in a row. Yeah. That's fantastic. Yeah. And also like I'd like to start my company in Japan. Oh, so you want to go back to Japan? I want to go back to Japan. I want to go there too, but not come back, but I want to go there for at least a couple of months. I mean, I really want to go there. Ah, you want to move, leave this very world and say, "Bye, see you in Japan." Well, I want to do something interesting, that is, I want to open my own company, so I don't have to ask anyone for vacation, so when I want to return to Italy, if I want to spend 34 months in Italy I can,

but I live in Japan, so I would like to do this thing, because to work for a Japanese company I will no longer do it. Ok, so I also had some work experience in Japan. No, well, especially for us Italians, I mean Italians live, Italians don't live to work, Americans maybe live to work, sorry, Americans, it's a crazy cliché, but if you think about it, many people in the world have maybe 10 days of vacation, we have two a month, two months, I do n't remember now. I mean, in Italy there are many things that aren't right, but the thing that is right is that we enjoy life, right? Then there was no flexibility. One thing I noticed is that I was very

flexible in my job in Japan because I had a lot of overtime, unpaid obviously, but I said okay, like I give out des then you'll pay me back. There's the time when I asked my boss for 20 minutes to catch the train once, 20, he thought about it for half a day and then m eh m he thought about it and then he told me that on Monday I should arrive half an hour early, since I always arrived half an hour early anyway, but the request really made me feel bad. I can't imagine that I can imagine the whole thing because Japanese in Japan no you have to circumvent matte anyway so these are the languages in which you had a lot of experiences you speak well what about languages is there any other language that you try to

learn and maybe yeah I well I had to learn French I studied it in school high school five hours a standard language schye. Ok, so the spark hadn't flown with the Frenchman. the spark was ignited and he did Chinese when I was 14 2 years at school there was a school in via dei Mille, the only school that the famous school in via de Mille did Chinese. It was interesting because it was the first tonal language for me, so it was a new world and at the time I went out, my group was all Chinese, that is, they were Italians, but with Chinese parents, so when I went to their house my mother then and

what do I say? I do not understand. And so I spent these two years doing really well and then I lost almost everything. I only remember a few sentences. I say but why? Eh, it happens, come on. No, no, not all donuts come out with a hole, they say, right? So 20 years ago. Eh, but are you going back to Chinese or not? Sooner or later I went back there during Covid because it had come back to me like wait come on let's do it again. But during Covid I do n't know about you. I was working so hard, so hard, that I couldn't keep up with him, so I abandoned him again. I am abandoned twice my poor Chinese, poinese language

isarve Japanese because have very good so good. yeah ok. Well, I'd say that's all for now. Thank you Sonia, thank you for the interview. I hope you enjoyed it.