piacere

We had a visit from the Italian Minister of Technology and Innovation today. Mr. Lucio Stanca used to run IBM Italy. Didn't have much chance to talk with him, as our COO Marco hosted the meeting, but it was a good chance to practice my Italian listening comprehension. It's amazing how close to English it truly is. It didn't hurt that I'd given that same presentation before, nor that I'd been asked similar questions in English, but I was able to pick up quite a bit of the exchange.

I think listening to foreign languages, and using context, body language and visual cues (most helpfully powerpoint slides) to try to get the gist of a discussion is a transferrable skill. I practice this all day long with Mandarin and now I find that listening to other languages is easier too. It's actually quite fun.