Last December 12, I attended a conference at Claro M. Recto Hall, Faculty Center as a part of the celebration of the Settimanna della lingua Italiana nel mondo. There were three speakers who are all Italian natives. The first one was Professoressa Adesini. Then, the next one was an Italian architect. The last speaker was my favorite among the three although I forgot his name.

Basically, all the topics were related to Italian culture and language. The first one was about E-Learning. I agree that online learning is pretty effective if used properly. It has its own advantages and disadvantages but as Professoressa Adesini had implied, the former outweighs the latter. In fact, she is currently enrolled for the online course she was talking about. I was actually interested to enroll for it. I really want to further improve my knowledge about the Italian Language as well as the culture. I do not want to end it at Ital 11 even though I’m practically graduating already. I might take extramural classes if I have time and money. Italian is and will be very substantial for me most especially I will be in the hospitality industry soon.

For the next speaker, I got bored since architecture was not exactly my field though I appreciated how he integrates biomimicry to his works. It is always good to know that architects nowadays integrate environment sustainability when designing structures most especially with climate change inevitably plaguing our planet. I personally want to visit their buildings that are already constructed here in the Philippines. I guess the Philippines needs to learn a little bit of Italian architecture, too. I remembered one of my major subjects (Feasibility Study). I could have used some of the things I learned from the architect-speaker.

The third one was my favorite. It was all about food. The speaker was very funny because he talked so fast. As in presto! I learned from him that parmesan is not really an Italian word. They termed it as Italian Sounding. The real term for that is parmigiano reggiano. The same thing with macaroni—the right term is maccheroni. As an HRIM student, it was very important to know that. I was able to relate when he discussed about the labeling of wines. He even mentioned the term DOCG or Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita, the Italian version of Appellation d'Origine Controlee of France. I realized how Italians appreciate their food so much. It is really a part of their culture and it cannot be taken away from them. I hope to go to Italy someday and taste their cuisine firsthand. 

3rd speaker talking about Italian food.

Overall, the conference was informative. It made me love Italian culture andlanguage even more. It was a nice move to hold such an event because I noticed that the promotion of the Italian here in the country is relatively weak and unnoticeable compared to French. Even in my course where it is required to pass the Language Proficiency Exam (LPE), I’m one of the few students who are taking Italian as their language elective but I do not feel out of place. I take it as an advantage because I’m different from them. In that case, you can all me a hipster. I do hope that there would come a time that it would be as in demand as the other prominent foreign languages here in the country. Ce la facciamo! 

Labels: ambassador, claro m. recto, conference, italian, italy, la settimana della lingua italian nel mondo, thoughts