I have lived with my grandparents since I was born, and they are both fluent in Spanish. When I was little, they would speak Spanish to each other when they did not want me to understand what they were talking about. However, I soon understood what they were saying, so they started just speaking in English again. They would occassionally talk to me in Spanish so that I could retain the language, but they eventually stopped when I got to middle school. I started taking Spanish in high school, and I finished the AP track. I was never as fluent as I was when I was younger, but I could read almost anything in Spanish. Speaking and listening were harder for me.
I am now taking Italian at Stanford, and I am in first year-third quarter. I originally took Italian because I wanted to learn a new language after so many years of Spanish, and I also wanted to study abroad in Florence. I also felt that I knew enough Spanish to get by in a foreign country, so I thought it would be a good idea to learn another language. However, I soon found out that Italian and Spanish are much more similar than I thought, and I confuse the two languages constantly. In order to learn Italian, I have had to intentionally forget my Spanish. Now, when I am spoken to in Spanish or I try to read Spanish, I can only understand by listening for or looking at the words that are similar to Italian. I plan on continuing Italian throughout my years at Stanford, and I hope to become fluent and maintain the language because I have not been able to do that in the past.
I am interested in this class because of the vast amount of information the topic has to offer. One thing that I am very intrigued by is the relationship between language and identity. I wonder why the language a person or community speaks has such strong implications on who that person or group is. I would like to further discover how certain languages suggest superiority or inferiority. I am also interested in how language affects people's views of each other. For example, how does a politician's language influence how he is perceived by the public? Overall, I find the general topic of this class open to a variety of interesting topics and discussions, which I hope to learn more about.
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