My Italian friend!

by Ami Komo
(Suginami, Tokyo, Japan)

When I went to Canada to join an ESL course, I met a man from Italy. He also came to Canada to study English. I spoke with him several times. At that time, I was really into politics because I had taken a political class before I went to Canada. (but now I'm more interested in economics than politics. :-))

So I asked him to tell me the political system in Italy. I asked a lot of things, so he seemed confused. I felt sorry for him.

But the next day, surprisingly, he told me about politics in Italy eagerly. Maybe he examined about it in his dormitory. I was very happy to know his consideration. Since this thing happened, I began to have an image that Italians were very kind!

But, unfortunately, I couldn't hardly understand his talk. I couldn't catch his English. The English that Italians speak is kind of difficult to catch for Japanese. Although I had thought it was attributed to my insufficient ability to listen to English, all my other Japanese friends said it was difficult to catch Italian English.

This incident made me recognize that there are lot of different kinds of English in the world. To communicate with people all over the world, I have to obtain ears which can catch various kinds of English!

My dream is to make friends all over the world. It is essential to catch not only American, Canadian, British, & Australian English (Their English is always used in listening tests.), but also European, African, Asian English, and so on.

Anyway, I should improve my ability to catch English spoken by native people first. :-) I will try hard!