0:00

Hello and welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast, the listening resource for intermediate to advanced-level English learners. My name is Anna. And today I have a fascinating conversation lined up for you with my special guest Michele. Michele is an online language teacher and an expert in teaching Italian. You may know her from her online presence as Intrepid Italian, that you'll find on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. Now, despite being Australian, Michele has a unique journey that led her to embrace and to teach the Italian language. She shares her incredible story of cultural connection, learning Italian as an adult and the motivations behind her passion for the language. Let's get started.

Michele Interview 0:55

Hi Michele, how are you? Hey Anna, I'm good, thanks. How are you? I'm very well, thank you. So, Michele, I have met you once before and I'm really intrigued to learn more about what you do because you're a fellow language teacher online, but you don't teach English, you teach Italian. Yeah, I teach Italian, and if you can tell from my accent, I am Australian, so there's a little bit of a backstory. Should I go into it or? Yes, I'm intrigued. What led you to teaching Italian? So, I guess the hint is in my name. So, the spelling of my name, typically it would have two Ls for Michelle, but I only have one L. Now that is because my dad is Italian, or his family is Italian, and as tradition goes, you name your children after your parents. Ah. So, I'm the youngest of three girls. So, my eldest sister, she got the name of my nonna, which is grandmother in Italian. My middle sister got my dad's nickname when he was a young boy. His name is Leonardo, and a nickname of that in Italian is Nardine, something along those lines, so her name is Nadine. And then they were hoping to have a boy, their next child, they were hoping to have a boy. They went to the doctor."Doctor how do we have a boy?" You know, this was back in the 80s when they thought they knew how. Turns out they had another girl, so they had me. And I thought,"Oh, dad was like, oh, doesn't matter. I'm just going to call her, you know, I'll give her the name of my dad, which is Michele." But they'll just pronounce it Michelle because, you know, we're in Australia. Michele is the Italian pronunciation for the name Michael that we would use in English. So, Michael, Michele, Michele for Michael and Michela with an A for Michelle. So, because I was named after my nonno, which is grandfather in Italian, it created a special bond between the two of us. Now, I grew up not speaking Italian at home. It was a decision that I made to learn the language as an adult. And, to give you a little bit more context, when I would go to visit my nonno, because my grandmother had already passed away when I was three, we would communicate without talking, because he spoke a dialect of Italian, which I didn't understand, and he didn't speak any English, so my dad would play translator every so often. My nonno would play games with me, he'd be affectionate, nonverbal communication was basically how we interacted with each other. When he passed away, I was about 16-17 years old, and it was like a flick of a switch. I feel like I've wasted that opportunity to connect with him and to learn Italian or his dialect. And I wanted to continue his legacy, get to know him a bit better because my dad just sort of worshipped him. He thought he was just, you know, a really wonderful guy; he went through the war, immigrated to Australia with the whole family. And it was just so many things that my dad was really proud of, you know, his dad. And that sort of rubbed off on me and I thought, you know what? I really, I want to do him justice. You know, I've got his name when I don't have any brothers. And that was when I decided that I wanted to learn Italian. 16, 17 years old. I went to the bookstore and I went to the travel section and there was a travel phrase guide. So I picked up this little book and just, started reading some phrases and like,"Oh, yeah, this is cool." But then it got to a point where I'm like looking at the endings of words, but why does that end in an O, but that ends in an A? And the whole question of like gender in a language came up and there was just no real way for me to understand the language on a deeper level. Mmm hmm. So, you know, as the years, passed, there was a bit of like a plateau, I guess, with the progress I was making, and it wasn't until I was more independent. I was 18 years old, I had a car, I could drive around, I started working, so I had some more money to spend, and that's when I found some, like, night courses, for Italian for adults, but they only happened once a week, then they wouldn't go to the next level, because there weren't enough students. So, it was very much a stop-and-start sort of experience eventually, you know, I found the Italian community in Melbourne where I'm from originally and found some Italian schools. And yeah, I was basically going to a formal lesson at different places three times a week. I fell in love with the language, in love with the culture, became even more proud of my heritage. And it basically led me to decide to move to Italy to take my B1 level Italian to the next step. So that was when I decided; I asked my dad,"You know, I really want to move to Italy." He's like, he was all for it. You know, he was so chuffed that I was taking an interest in his culture, in his heritage. I moved to Rome in Italy and I had three wonderful years there jumping around with different visas because I don't have an Italian passport, unfortunately. But it was just a real life-changing opportunity and time in my life where I grew up, I learned more about myself and about the world, I improved my Italian, I learned another culture, I learned to understand and love my home country, Australia, even more. It gave me a different perspective on that as well. And I just became more appreciative of everything really. And it's a big story. So your nonno. Nonno? Mm-hmm. Nonno. He... nonno. Your nonno, did he live in Italy or he moved with you to Australia? Yes. So my dad, he was born in Italy, so the whole family was there. And then in 1951, my grandfather went to Australia to sort of check things out and then sent word back, and then the rest of the family went out there. So. Yeah, it was my nonno and his brothers. So they're all Italian. Yeah. They immigrated to Melbourne. That must have been hard if he never learned any English and like living in Australia, but I guess, and this happens to a lot of people who do emigrate. So with their families, some people then become very kind of insular and like, stay within the little group that they can communicate with and are unable or unwilling to kind of learn the language of the country they've moved to. And that can, for some people, that is absolutely fine, that works, they feel safe, but for other people that can be detrimental in the sense that they can feel isolated and unable to interact. So, he moved everyone over to Australia and your mum and dad, I'm guessing spoke Italian? No. So my mum is Australian and my mum is Irish-Lebanese descent. So I'm a mixture of curly hair from my dad and freckles from my mum. So yeah, English was spoken at home. I feel like if my mother was the one that was Italian, then probably the language would have been passed on. Usually that's sort of how it goes. So you then, your first time going to Italy was once you'd done all this kind of language acquisition? So actually I went to Italy first. That was sort of like the caveat for me being really serious with learning Italian. I went on a holiday there with a friend about three or four years prior. He's also of Italian heritage and we went there, we did like a two week trip around Italy, loved it. I came back and I'm like, right, I'm going to get serious about this. This was my sort of transition from using just travel phrase guides to taking it seriously and joining evening classes for adults. And then after those three years, I said, you know, I'd like to go to Italy and sort of test out my Italian. So I went there for eight weeks. I travelled around, I did a language holiday in Rome and in Florence, I went to visit another teacher of mine from Melbourne that had moved back to Italy, who was then in Venice. And it was after that trip that I'm like, right, I'm going to move. So I quit my job and three months later, I went back to Rome. So, Rome was the first place that I had visited outside of Australia ever. And it was a place that stuck with me and where I wanted to go back to. At the airport before leaving Australia to move I was a mess. I was so emotional. I was crying, but I knew it was the right thing to do because I knew in my heart that I have to go. I know that I wouldn't be happy if I stayed behind, but it was still a difficult decision. When you were looking at making that move in your mind at that time did you have a time in your head of how long you'd be there or was it just open-ended? I'm just gonna go and see what happens. I was going there indefinitely. As long as I could have a visa to live in Italy, I was going to live there. So I basically ran out of visa options after three years, it became really difficult. And that was a decision that I had to make, either go back to Australia or come to London where I live now, because there is an agreement between Australia and the UK. So, I thought, right, I'll come here, get a job, get sponsored, get a European passport, then go back to Italy. So I did all that, but then Brexit happened. So, now I have a British passport, but I'm still no closer. I feel, which is my right, you know, I have Italian blood after all, but I don't have an Italian passport still. When you were younger, when you were little and you were at school and the teacher asks you the question or your family would say to you, what do you want to be when you grow up? Was language teacher or teacher of any sort something that you thought about? No, to be honest, I always thought that, you know, you had to be a superhero, or you had to be really smart to learn another language, because it just felt so foreign to me, like there was just no concept of that really. It just felt really difficult, really challenging. So yeah, I had my ambition or my goal when I was little. I was to be a marine biologist because I'm obsessed with whales and dolphins. That was my life when I was really young. And then as an adult, I just became in love with Italy and all things Italian, so things changed. Are you teaching adults or children? Adults. Yeah, so that transition happened into teaching when I left Italy, moved to the UK, and I was missing that daily challenge of, you know, practising my Italian, learning a new culture, you know, the pros and cons of living in a foreign country. And that's when I started my website, The Intrepid Guide, which was basically just focusing on learning a language for travel purposes. So not needing to be fluent or perfect, but just knowing the basics enough to be respectful and to have fun with the language and to connect with the locals, and then over time that evolved. And that's when I started just to focus on Italian. And, yeah, travelling around Italy, so most of my content now that I post is educating adult learners who maybe feel that, you know, I'm too old to learn a language. Well no, you know, I learned Italian as an adult, you know, anything is possible. You just need time and the passion to do it and you can achieve it. So hopefully that message comes across. That not all hope is lost. You don't need to be born into a home that speaks a language in order to learn it. You talk a lot on your site and in your content about the 80/20 method. Can you talk to me a little bit more about that? Yeah, so it's quite nice. This actually ties back to Vilfredo Pareto, who was an Italian. So the 80/20 rule principle, was coined by a management consultant called Joseph M. Duran. And he named this after an Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto. And it was in 1896 that he discovered that approximately 80 per cent of the land in Italy was owned by 20 per cent of the population. And Joseph M. Duran thought this was quite interesting. And he could see that this ratio applied to different areas of our lives. So, say for example, you open up Netflix. And there's usually, 20 per cent of the shows on Netflix are getting 80 per cent of the attention. You know, we're all talking about Bridgerton, we're all talking about certain films that come out and everyone's buzzing, but there's, you know, thousands of shows and movies. So the same sort of principle can be applied to language learning. And especially with, you know, if you think about travelling to a country like Italy, you can learn about 20 per cent of the language that you'll use repeatedly, in 80 per cent of the situations that you'll find yourself in. So, you know, what do you do most of the time when you're meeting people who are you introducing yourself? You're saying what your name is, where you're from, what your job is. Maybe you're introducing your friend or your partner. You go out and you order food. You need to know how to ask for vegetarian options or book a table. You get lost. You need to ask directions somewhere and understand those directions. You want to order a gelato. How do you say,"I want a cone or I want a cup." This reusable, recyclable language, vocabulary, grammar, is the stuff that I like to encourage people to learn first, because then you can sort of hit the ground running with the language, build up that confidence, because you're going to be reusing the same words, verbs, nouns, adjectives, over and over again. So, it's nice to start there as opposed to starting with vocabulary that you're never going to use. For example, certain language apps will teach you things like, you know, when I was learning Norwegian, there was one,"I'm sitting on the bathroom floor crying eating bread." Or something. I can't remember exactly. It's just like the combination of things. I don't need to learn this. I need to know, how do I order something? Yeah. How do I do the everyday stuff? So, this is the 80/20 as it is in terms of how I like to teach Italian. It makes sense. I was listening to a linguist talking about acquisition, language acquisition, as opposed to kind of conscious learning of language and talking about how adult learners can learn in the same way that children learn. And that once you've got your kind of basic functional language, most vocabulary is just acquired by context. We'll be hearing something and maybe only actually know 95 per cent of it, but the 5 per cent that you hear dotted around the 95 per cent that you know, your brain will just make the connection. It will understand that the word you just heard, that you've heard a few times before, you'll understand that maybe it's a verb or it's a noun and it has a positive thing and it's related to that thing that you can see with your eyes. And so we just make those connections naturally and start to understand without consciously learning it. We're learning it. And so it does make sense to, especially as a beginner, take on the most functional and usable language, rather than random stuff, like words for cauliflower or things maybe that you don't have an interest in. Yeah, there's a time and a place for learning certain jargon, you know, certain vocabulary. Like, if you're learning English or learning Italian for professional reasons, of course you're going to need to learn how to talk about, you know, things like that, uploading, downloading, presentations and all those sorts of, you know, things. But if you're travelling, you don't need to know that, you don't need to talk about body parts, unless you have a condition where you feel like you might need to go to the doctor and you want to know how to say shoulder or leg or ankle. So, it's just about prioritising, you know, learning the stuff that you actually know that you're going to need. It's funny, you mentioned the doctor. I'm quite connected to my students that take my courses. We're connected on Telegram and WhatsApp and the time I hear from them most is usually when they're headed to the doctor and they're like,"Anna, I need to explain how I'm feeling and this is what's going on. Can I use this word and that word?" And I'm like,"Oh no, don't use that word. That's not the right word." And so I'm usually coaching them on how to talk to the doctor about their ailments. I dabble in kind of trying to learn basic language for wherever it is I'm travelling. So I'm probably your ideal client, your ideal customer. I also love Italy and as and when I go to Italy, then I try to refresh my memory on some of the basic phrases so that I can cope because I hate to be that English person who expects everybody else to speak English to me. I don't want to be that person. I want to make an effort. One thing that scares me about Italian, besides some of the very long words, is the roll of the R. So I'm not, I can't roll my R. I am slightly tongue tied. So I can roll my R kind of at the back of my throat, but I can't do a forward R roll. Is that necessary? And is pronunciation a tricky thing for many of your learners trying to learn Italian, is it something that people seem to struggle with? So, the good news is that even many Italians can't roll their R's, and that's not seen as a negative thing, so you can relax. You don't have to feel insecure that you can't roll your Rs. I realise that not everyone can do that. I am fortunate that I can. But a lot of Italians, and it's sort of part of their pronunciation in certain regions of Italy. And it's called an erre moscia. It's like a soft R. And it's not so much like a French R, but it is different. It's not like, you know, Roberto. It's not like a rolling... it's more, it's a bit different. So, however you would pronounce or you can pronounce your letter R in Italian, to make it clear that you're trying to pronounce an R, you just... I mean, I'm Australian, so we don't even pronounce Rs, so think about that. Like, you know, for me it was a bit of a hurdle like I still have to really focus when I speak Italian and I need to pronounce my Rs, but you just sort of have to linger on that letter a little bit more just so you are understood. So yeah, it's by no means a hindrance to being an effective communicator in Italian. You know, I can't speak for all languages, but Italians, they appreciate the effort that you make. You might say one phrase that you've mastered and they'll be like,"Oh wow, you speak Italian. That's so amazing!" And you'd be like, if you don't know any more than that, then you don't know where to go with it. But you know, you can just having a few greetings, a few pleasantries, you know, please, thank you. Goodbye. Where is, may I have, all those things, they just soften the interaction that you have and the other person in this case, an Italian, would really warm up to the fact that you're making an effort. Especially because not everyone wants to or needs to learn Italian. You know, it's only generally in just one country that it's spoken. It's not like Spanish or French where there are multiple countries. So yeah, just a little effort can go a long way. For sure. Yeah. It's just showing that you want to connect, isn't it? I do think though that that situation where you know really confidently a couple of phrases and I always try to, I test myself to see if I can pass myself off as a local. Like I was in France last week. And I know a few French words. And before I went, I watched a few French lessons to try and add a few extra phrases and throughout the week, you know, I was trying to teach my sons as well, to always say like, bonjour and merci, and all that kind of stuff which everyone loves when a three-year-old is saying merci, like everyone's like, that's so cute. But I always try and get the manner and the pronunciation spot on with the few words and phrases. But the danger sometimes is you say something quite convincingly and then they just start talking to you and you're like, that's all I have. That's all I have. Don't speak to me anymore. I don't know anymore. But I am proud to say that when I went to a supermarket and very confidently went to the checkout. The checkout girl was just chatting away to me in French and I had no idea. And I was kind of like nodding along and going, oui, oui. She had no idea, I didn't seem to be that case. So if someone was visiting Italy for the first time, I've been a few times, so I've got some of my own ideas. You also do a few like travel tips and things like that. So let's say, I say to you, look, I've done Cinque Terre, I've done Lake Como and the kind of Dolomite area, and I've done quite a lot of Venice, but I want to spend a bit more time in Rome. I've only been to Rome once, maybe twice, on like a fleeting visit. What would you recommend to me? That I should do if I'm spending a week in Rome? Well, obviously you need to go to certain places, which are on the tourist trail, but you can experience it a little bit differently. So for example, if you want to visit the Colosseum, which I highly recommend, there are certain tours that give you access to go to the third tier. So the very top tier of the Colosseum, which is usually closed to the public and also to the underground area where the gladiators would be before coming out into the arena area. So I would definitely book a tour that does that. It takes you away from the crowds and it gives you a different perspective. And, you know, seeing a place like the Colosseum, any place in Rome or Italy, it's so much better with a guide who can bring it to life. I prefer to listen to the audio guide or to have someone that I can, you know, listen to and ask questions to. So I feel like that's a really valuable experience that you can do, especially for the Colosseum. Another place to visit is Via Appia Antica, which is the old Roman road, which would connect Rome down to Bari. I think it is. It's either Bari or Brindisi, I can't remember which one. It's on the South East coast of Italy on the way towards Croatia and that trading route. So, this is like an opportunity for you to see the old Roman roads as they were, and along the Via Appia Antica are temples and catacombs. So there are a couple of ways that you can do it. You can go to specific catacombs and have guided tours there, or at the beginning of the Via Appia Antica, you can hire an electric bike or a standard bike. And you can ride your bike down the Via Appia Antica. Now it doesn't go all the way down, like it stops at a certain point where it's not so scenic and it turns into like a normal road. But there are lots of beautiful Roman monuments there and it's a chance for you to get out of the city, into the countryside and imagine what life was like during ancient Rome, during the ancient Roman Empire. And there's also the aqueducts there. So you can see the ancient Roman aqueducts that are still in use today, that bring water and provide water to many of the fountains in Rome. So the Trevi Fountain, you know, at the end of every aqueduct, there'd be a major water feature, and that is usually a big fountain. Trevi or tre vie literally means three roads because it is at an intersection of three roads, so Trevi, tre vie, three roads. So that's a way to remember it. But yeah, I think there are so many things. Okay. Okay. That's fantastic. One last thing that we have to mention when talking about Italy is food. I'm a huge fan of Italian food and I think most Brits, if you were to say to them if you could only eat one type of food, you know, whether it be like Italian food, Thai food, Indian food, what would it be? What food type would you choose? And many people would go for Italian because we're big fans of pasta and pizza and, you know, nice salads and things that at least in my house, we're a big fan of salads. And for me, like lasagna is one of my favourite, like dishes, vegetarian lasagna, even better for me. In the UK, we also have lots of"Italian" chains and"Italian" restaurants. I've got some Italian students who I've met up with for food over here and I try and take them to nice places when they come and visit. And I always say,"I was going to take you to an Italian restaurant, but then I thought better of it." And they say,"Oh, thank you."'Cause you know, most of them think that the Italian food here is kind of faux Italian, it's not real Italian. It's kind of how the Brits like their Italian food to taste. Yeah, there are certain chains that definitely I would never go near. Like I've tried it and like,"Oh, what was I thinking?" And then there are certain ones that are smaller but are higher quality and more of what you would get in Italy. Unless they're bringing the produce over from Italy, it doesn't have the same taste. You know, the tomatoes that they grow in Italy, especially in the region around Naples, is very rich. It's what makes the difference really. Like you go to Tesco and the tomatoes don't taste the same as the tomatoes in Italy. So that reflects in when you're having a pizza. For me, I always stick with a margarita, the most basic one. And if they can't do a margarita pizza right, then I'm not even going to look at the rest. And usually a margarita pizza is all I really want anyway. I don't go for any of the other options. Because it's my favourite kind of pizza, and I'm a vegetarian, so that kind of limits my options too. Do they have Hawaiian pizza in Italy? No. You already knew the answer to that. I think there was one pizza maker who experimented with using it, but just like a publicity stunt basically was what it was. But no, it's not an Italian edition. It's not an Italian ingredient. The only fruit that you would find on an Italian pizza is figs. And yeah, that's like the only one that you'll find because, you know, they think about it like scientifically. Like the citrusy flavours, you know, conflicts with the acidity in it. It just conflicts with the other ingredients, it overpowers it. So it's all very much thought through. There's a reason for everything. For those listening who aren't familiar with what a Hawaiian pizza is, it's basically putting ham and pineapple on pizza. And it's really popular here, although it's kind of like the Marmite debate. Some people love it and some people hate it. Some people are like, you don't put pineapple on pizza. That's just wrong. Whereas other people are like, it's amazing. I am a pineapple on pizza kind of girl. I like difference in, I don't like like a one taste dish. I like to get lots of different flavours and I quite like it when you have something that's quite cutting that almost cleanses the palate of what you've tasted. So if you've got something that's quite salty, I like something that maybe is a little bit acidic or, you know, citrusy to clean away that salty taste and to refresh the palate to then enjoy the salt again. So I'm a pineapple kind of girl. You're wearing a pineappley top today. My yellow top, yeah. Do you enjoy pineapple on pizza? I mean, I know you're a margarita girl, but would you go for pineapple or would you just be like, oh, no. Okay. So there's, you know, we learn as we get older, we learn. So, when I was younger, my dad lived very close by to a pizza place, which was owned by an Italian and they would have, you know, Hawaiian pizza. It's very popular in America, in Australia, and also here in the UK. And as a child, I didn't know any better, you know, and I had it and I thought, yeah, pineapple, I love pineapple. And it was a combination that worked. But to be fair, the ham that they had was poor quality. And, you know, we had places like Pizza Hut, but it wasn't until I went to Italy and had like an original proper pizza that I understood the difference. So, now I know how good a real pizza is, I don't need to go back to that, you know, the Hawaiian pizza at Pizza Express or that's the one that I don't like. Oops, that slipped out. Pizza Hut is what I meant to say, Pizza Hut. And, yeah, anyone that's doing that sort of imitation or low quality. It's all in the ingredients, it really is. I remember sitting, I think we were in the Vatican City, and I went to just a little cafe and ordered one of their hot chocolates. It was so different to any hot chocolate experience I've ever had before. They gave it you with a spoon and you could almost tip the drink and it was like gooey and thick, but not in a way that was overbearing and too rich. It was so beautiful. I've never experienced anything like that anywhere else in the world. I know exactly what you mean. Not all places do it, but it's like you're drinking liquid chocolate. Like from one of these chocolate fountains, but it's not rich, it's not overpowering. It's just beautiful. It's so smooth and it's the best. If those people listening are interested in brushing up or starting to learn Italian, maybe my listeners have a trip coming up and would like to fit in and not feel like a tourist, how would they find you? So you can find me on Instagram, at Intrepid Italian. I also have my website, The Intrepid Guide. Because, you know, depending if you want to just sort of follow my Italian content or my content in general, you can find me on social media, on TikTok, on YouTube, Intrepid Italian with Michele is where you will find me basically anywhere. And the Intrepid Guide is my website, intrepidguide.com. Fantastic. Well, I'll leave links to all of that as well in the show notes. So thank you so much. And... My pleasure, thank you so much....should I say, ciao. Ciao, arrivederci, until we see each other again, arrivederci.