Florence being so diverse has brought many different languages into circulation. Tourists are always a bigger number and students from abroad opting for Florence for their exchange experience is not very uncommon. This calls for some need for tips.
There have been some difficulties for people here on exchange, in learning Italian and this comes firstly because of not being able to interact and mix up with the people of the place. On the other hand English is becoming ever more important for the Italians to find a job. This has finally brought out a common necessity for both sides. Plus of course this will help to finally bring Americans, English and the Italians more closer to each other and understand one another.
As a first suggestion to improve your language I suggest you to add the Group Language Exchange – Pepperdine University Program on Facebook. Each semester the Pepperdine University, a prestigious part of the U.S. University based in Malibu, organizes Language Exchange nights. This is a weekly organized event that helps people to communicate with each other and make new friends. Here a person gets to have several conversations in English or Italian. Every Monday night at Via Landoni 15 there will be a wonderful experience waiting for you.
This time a Speed date has been organized by the staff that will give a number to each table and after every 20 minutes they will have to change tables. At the entrance the Italians will get a list with three or 4 starting numbers and one must visit these people once they change tables. At the end of each conversation a humorous list of questions of things to discover about the other must be filled to give a vote on whether the person could be accepted as a friend.
With the help of these meetings free of cost, one can exercise and improve their English and learn about boys and girls from the US who have come to learn about the Italian culture and to make new friends!
Each event is held on Monday evenings from 20:50 / 21:00. For confirmation of participation, please write to iacopo.braschi@gmail.com or directly call on 3282432980.
There are even some very useful websites where people register themselves and can have meetings, or chat conversations in any language they want. All you need to do is register yourself and mention the languages you know and what you would like
to learn! Here are two such sites: http://www.conversationexchange.com/ and http://www.mylanguageexchange.com/city/Florence__Italy.asp
It seems very easy to think of learning a lnguage while travelling, but if you do not make an effort it won’t work out. So don’t always stick to your own group of people, just try these experiences that will turn out really useful! Have a blast! Cheers