Amici ed amiche di penna

Penpals.  I have several, including a couple of Italians.  I always feel quite humbled when they write me back with my attempt at Italian vigorously corrected and amended, and the expression 'you learn from your mistakes' is really made evident in these situations.  It's very helpful to compare what I wrote with the way it should have been written.  It helps solidify the knowledge by giving me a negative set of rules as well as the positive one:  One must not use di in such and such expression; da is more appropriate.  But what is also very helpful is the reverse.  When I correct their English I can see that they often make precisely the same mistakes that I do.  What this tells me is that the fine-tuning of a language, when one gets to the point that she no longer makes these important mistakes using prepositions or a specific sentence construction that differs radically from English, comes much later, after years of constant exposure and being corrected. 

In the meantime, though, it's important to proceed, even though my Italian is riddled with errors.  The fact is that, even with all the mistakes, most of my correspondents have very little trouble getting the gist of my message, so we are therefore communicating.  And it's rare that I can't decipher most of the messages that Italians have written to me in English, though there have been a few cases in which the meaning was not at all clear and I could only guess.  But the main thing is that it is crucial not to demand perfection and to continue to make regular attempts to communicate with natives--even if it's embarrassing at times.  I'm always proud and amazed at how brave and hardworking my Italian penpals are.  They know they're probably making mistakes, but they try anyhow.  E questo è bene.

One of the best things a language penpal can do is encourage her writing partner.  Learning a language can be a very frustrating endeavor and it always gives me impetus and courage when someone tells me my Italian is pretty good--even if they are just being kind.  It's very easy to just throw in the towel (asciugamano) when you feel your progress is slow, so it's important to look for positive feedback whenever you can. So, I'm encouraging all you Italian learners now.  È possibile farlo! You can do it.  If I can, then you can too.