....how did you guys do it?

I thought I was prettey good at Italian, so decided to take grad studies at University this year. The program was also open to foreigners, so I thought might as well try?

Well, I just started, but I'm having such a hard time with the writing part! The reading comprehension isn't a problem at all, I totally get what I'm reading, but when I try to explain what I read, or write it down in Italian, nothing comes out. I basically feel ridiculous, and am totally embarassed that I'll drag down my group work, or end up sounding like an idiot infront of my class.

Is it just because I'm at the beginning? I mean, will my horrible written Italian improve if I keep writing??

Anyone else out there go through the same thing?

In attempt to become a little more italian savvy, I went out and bought a HUGE dictionary and a grammar book type thing. I'm going to look through and start shaping up my grammar.

I hope I don't fail miserably!!!!!

Emmy, forza e coraggio!

I think it is the same for everyone when you learn a new language. The first times I was afraid to speak English during English classes. I didn't really know how to pronounce or which words to use. Just don't be afraid about what the others might think when you speak. Try to make some Italian friends, get close to him /her and make a language exchange once or twice a week.

Emmy,
Written Italian can very different from written English in terms of structure, so that is probably where you get blocked. It's not like you can think in written English and then translate. It took me about three or four years to be able to write well in Italian (and I'm basically a one-trick pony; writing is what I do for a living so I had to perfect this), but actually the first few years I was really concentrated on actually learning the language - unlike you, I came here without knowing a thing. My suggestion is to read a lot - look at how they structure their sentences and paragraphs. Read especially other documents similar to whatever it is you have to write and use those as a model. Write down key phrases. One thing to keep in mind is that while in written English we tend to try to be very economical with our thoughts and words, in Italian, she who uses the most words, most verbose turns of phrase and most run-on sentences wins (kidding but sometimes it seems that way)! And also keep in mind that Italian can be more formal. Good luck!
Michelle

A couple more suggestions: in first place, check with your uni if they have any Italian for Foreigners courses to help you along. This sounds like one of those specific moments when a more structured language course can do a lot in terms of fluency, confidence and also knowledge of the langauge. Since you are already enrolled in the Uni, the course should be 100% free. if there is none, consider posting an ad in the uni "bacheca" looking for Italian students willing to help you learning the langauge. Port your ad in the board clsest to the Foreign Languages classrooms and institutes: many of the students there aim at a career teaching foreign langauges and maay be more willing to help, or be intersted in a series of Italian-English exchanges. You may make your exchanges witten-based: both write a short essay (it could be a reading, a newspaper article or just about anythin), check each other's essay and correct it in your language, swap.

Seeing as you already know Italian - check whether your university has an academic writing skills class. I'm pretty sure Bologna Uni does.

quote:

Originally posted by mschoen:
...in Italian, she who uses the most words, most verbose turns of phrase and most run-on sentences wins (kidding but sometimes it seems that way)!
Michelle

So true!!! that's what I always think too, Italian have this amazing away of making one sentence into a book with 100 chapters and 10 sequels. That always amazes me.

I started realizing that written Italian and written English differ quite alot as well. In the beginning I thought I could get away with just trying to translate what I had to say, but I was totally wrong!!!

Thanks for all the suggestions, I'm definitely going to try doing some of them. I was actually going to take an Italian class but thought it wouldn't be useful as my only problem is with writing, but I will look into it. They should have some grammar specific classes somewhere.

I've found my ex-coworker who's willing to do a language exhange with me through e-mails, so i'm hoping that should help me out quite abit too.

Now my only hope is to get through the program in one piece!!!!

mschoen - that is soo funny. I have to read legal Italian all day and you can probably imagine how verbose, formal and repetitive that is! Legal English is bad too of course but not as horrible as legal Italian. I've seen sentences which go on (with a bunch of commas) for a half a page.