I want to do this because it’s a language my family has lost in my generation. It’s easy to blame the school districts of the 1950’s (my mother was sent home from kindergarten with a note demanding that her parents speak only English with her), but that is really a fruitless effort.
Anyway, I’ve acquired several books and a few cd programs to get me started in the basics before I seek out a class or an Italian-speaking practice group. I definitely want to have some working conversational ability before my husband and I go to Europe next year; we hope to be in Italy for at least 2 weeks, the third will be split between London and Neims. Part of the Italy leg will be visiting the village where my great-grandparents lived, and possibly finding the house they left to their cousins.
