Ivan Bertolozzi

A short story about a Brazilian

This year I made the decision to come to Italy to request Italian citizenship as I had this right, thanks to having an Italian father who was born in Tuscany. For the first time in my life, I wanted to learn the language, because I didn’t feel it was right to have citizenship without knowing the language, the culture, the people and Italian history.

Looking for information on the internet, I found the Leonardo da Vinci School for foreigners and immediately emailed them to ask about the set-up and how to go about enrolling on the Elementary I standard Italian course, the most basic of all, given that I had never learnt Italian and only knew “good morning” and “good night”. For me, the word “pomeriggio” was some kind of cheese!

The school helped me with everything, even to find an apartment to rent in Florence that was a decent price. After just fifteen days, I arrived in Florence on 6th May 2013 and started learning the language. What fear that you can have about something that is unknown, soon vanished, because the school was exactly how it presented itself on the website.

The teachers were all professionals who did their job with passion and dedication and gave all the support that the students needed, so as to teach you how to really speak Italian.

Today, after four months studying in Florence, I can speak Italian with anyone. I certainly still get things wrong, but for someone who didn’t speak or understand anything, I think I got on really well. If I could recommend a good school to someone, I would have no doubts about recommending the Leonardo da Vinci School.

I will always remember the teachers and students who I met during this period at the Leonardo da Vinci School.