Studying is better than learning
Thanks to the years I spent in Warsaw, many of the people who study with me come from Poland, which means we often end up reflecting on the differences between Italian and Polish. This week, for example, I was talking with Piotr about the difference between uczyć się and nauczyć się.
If you don’t speak Polish, don’t worry: I’ll explain everything. The first verb translates roughly as to study — it focuses on the process. The second I would translate as to learn — it focuses on the result.
In Italian, studiare (to study) tends to be associated with formal or theoretical knowledge. Someone who says studio chitarra (I study guitar) is probably doing so at a conservatoire, with a professional teacher and the goal of becoming a musician. Someone who says imparo a suonare la chitarra (I’m learning to play the guitar) is probably doing it in their free time, to sing with friends on the beach in August. For the same reason we say ho imparato a nuotare (I learned to swim), Anna ha imparato a cucinare (Anna learned to cook), dove hai imparato a disegnare? (where did you learn to draw?) because practical skills aren’t studied from textbooks, they’re learned through life. And even if there’s always room to improve, it’s usually easy to identify the moment when we learned to do something. There’s a before and an after.
But does that work the same way with languages? In my opinion, no.
Here’s an example from my own life. I started studying Polish from scratch in my first year of university, about eighteen years ago. For years I did exercises, attended classes, listened to the radio and watched films. All with the goal of learning. After three and a half years of that, I went to Warsaw for the first time. And for the first few days I felt completely lost. Today, Polish has become my second language: I use it every day, at work, I read books and listen to podcasts in Polish regularly. But… have I learned it?
In a sense, yes. Well enough to use it comfortably in many situations. But well enough to write an article like this one in Polish? I don’t think so. It’s a bit like cooking: I can do it, I do it every day, but would I go on a television cooking show? Not a chance.
So what’s the point? Thinking that you need to learn Italian is an abstract idea and one that can easily lead to frustration. When someone who studies with me needs reassurance on this, my answer always comes in two parts.
The first: we decide for ourselves when we’ve learned something, when what we know is enough for our own goals. If for someone it’s enough to order pizza and coffee on holiday, that person has learned Italian. If for someone else learning means reading Dante in the original, the journey will be longer. Neither answer is wrong.
The second part, and to me it’s the most important, is this: studying is better than learning.
Especially with Italian, especially when you study as an adult, the process is so much more beautiful than the result. When we were at school, studying had a clear purpose: grades, exams, qualifications. Studying as an adult is something we do for ourselves to improve, to feel good, for the simple pleasure of it. Does it really matter whether we ever arrive?
Studying a language as an adult, without obligation and without pressure, is like getting on a train and setting off somewhere just for the joy of it. It doesn’t matter where you end up. What matters is the fact of going. And enjoying the journey.
If you want to study Italian for the pleasure of it without the pressure of having to learn it write to me or directly book a free meeting. That’s exactly what we do together.