Italiano for beginners

Today was quite exciting because I signed up for Italian classes!

I'm really very excited because I just LOVE languages; also, I think it will be super easy for me to learn Italian - not to brag, but languages are my thing. I have a real passion for grammar and words and all that stuff. Plus, there is just this ultimate rush when you understand stuff - like that time I went to Moscow a few years ago and I learned the entire Russian alphabet in a few hours, though this is more of a necessity than anything else, since all the subway stops are in Russian only, so you have to be able to read Russian if you want to get anywhere.

At first I was quite wary of taking a language class in anything but French while in France. I hate to point this out, but the French are not very gifted in languages. There are really very few of my French friends who are actually GOOD at languages (there are 3 of them, to be exact). A majority of Frenchies I know always tell me that they took English and/or German in school for a total of 9 years...and yet not a single one of them is capable of actually completing a sentence! I personally think this has something to do with the teaching of foreign languages in this country, but my Frenchies say that it has nothing to do with that - they say that everyone knows it is really hard to learn a foreign language and I am only good at it because I happened to have been born with bilingual parents and so I was born with a brain that is able to dissect sentence structures. (I think that sounds like one of those excuses that French people like to come up with, but whatever).

Anyway, I discovered the Centre Culturel Italien, which is located on the rue de Varenne. I thought of it because I know that in New York, there is the Italian Cultural Center that also offeres Italian classes - I remember several years ago when I was researching places to learn Italian in NYC. Anyway, I googled "centre culturel italien" and found that there is one in Paris, where all the teachers are native Italian speakers!

So when I went to sign up, the nice lady informed me that the classes would be conducted entirely in Italian, even at the beginner levels. I think I must have had a very wide grin on my face because I think this is the best way to learn a language - I took German classes in Vienna for 2 months and this was also how they taught.

Classes start October 1st, but I'm only signed up for a once a week class. Even more exciting, though, is that I can totally bike from my apartment to my Italian classes (though I fear it might take more than 30 minutes).