Photo by Tara Monastesse ’25.
By Tara Monastesse ’25
Contributing Writer
When I took Elementary Italian I with Professor Morena Svaldi during the fall of my sophomore year, it was a purely strategic scheduling move to meet Mount Holyoke’s foreign language requirement for graduation — or so I thought.
I figured that I would stop taking Italian immediately after and never think about the language again, similar to how the lessons from my high school Spanish classes have been unceremoniously erased from my memory.
I didn’t expect to fall in love with learning Italian, or to continue taking Italian classes at the College, which eventually led me to where I am now: pursuing a junior spring semester with the Institute for the International Education of Students Abroad in Rome, Italy under the Language & Area Studies program. Alongside over 200 other students, I attend weekly classes at the IES Abroad Rome Center to study Italian and a variety of other subjects. I’m currently taking a course on Italian politics, as well as courses dedicated to ethical journalism and Italy’s relationship with the European Union.
While I am still a long way away from speaking Italian fluently, I’ve come to regard the language as sort of an old friend: I smile when I hear snatches of it on the street or when I try to puzzle out the words on street signs and advertisements. In my everyday commute, I hear suit-clad businessmen on the street speaking Italian on the phone while smoking their morning cigarettes, or mothers speaking gently to their children on the bus. I feel incredibly lucky to experience Italian as it is used in the everyday world, rather than just through a textbook.
Learning a new language is an exercise in humility. You cannot learn if you have an ego that holds you back from making mistakes or if you cannot stomach being corrected when your speech or writing has errors. Thus, the challenge of learning Italian has benefited my growth as a person. I am the type of person who will fume privately for hours if I’m so much as told that there’s something stuck in my teeth, an immature trait of which I’ve been trying to rid myself of. I’ve come to regard receiving corrections as an act of charity rather than criticism; an opportunity to better myself is being extended to me.
I am endlessly grateful for the kindness shown by native speakers of the language, who have lent their time and patience to my learning. From the waiters and shopkeepers I’ve encountered in my travels to the Italian teachers at the IES Rome center, the willingness to allow me to practice and ask questions has continuously awed me.
I know language learning while abroad can be rather hit-or-miss. I’ve heard horror stories about French people who deny any acknowledgment, even eye contact, to foreigners who attempt to speak French but are imperfect in their pronunciation. Whether or not that perception is true, Italy couldn’t be farther from it: Locals who speak Italian as their first language seem honored that a foreigner is interested in learning it too, and are usually willing to indulge my desire for language practice if they have the time.
Italy is also a comically beautiful country. Comical in the sense that the landscapes and architecture seem so exaggerated in their glory that I always half-expect to blink and find that my eyes are playing tricks on me — the waters and skies are too blue, the architecture too impossible in its lofty extravagance. Somewhere along the way I gave up trying to properly frame the landscapes with my iPhone camera, feeling that the images I created were merely counterfeits of the sight itself. I try to squirrel away each beautiful view in my memory so that I can return to it later, appreciating it as fully as I can.
Thanks to the financial support from Mount Holyoke’s own Laurel Fellowship and my annual scholarship from the Rhode Island Foundation, I have been able to pursue this study abroad opportunity without placing a financial burden on myself or my family. It is an immense privilege to be able to travel abroad and experience a different way of life at such a young age, and I am endlessly grateful for the chance to be able to immerse myself in another language and culture. Additionally, with the support of the College’s Lynk funding program, I will remain in Italy this summer to pursue an internship in Florence.
While I will remember the dramatic standouts of my time in Rome, like touring the Quirinale Palace or walking around the Villa Borghese gardens, I will hold the tiny details of my everyday routine just as close to my heart. On good days, I have enough time after my classes to rent an electric bike, weaving between the tourists who have gathered on the bridge outside Castel Sant’Angelo to visit Piazza Cavour in the city’s Prati neighborhood. I prop myself against one of the palm trees in the squares and read, either devouring a book I bought at the La Feltrinelli bookstore chain or trying to puzzle out an Italian-language newspaper with a dictionary and a pen. Usually, I stay until the sun fades and it gets too cold, at which point I retire to my apartment to prepare carbonara or lasagna and do my homework: Another quiet end to an adventurous day.