Italian

Holly_M

Thinking about doing italian next year and was wondering what the standard is like in trinity? Is the course very literature based? Any information on the course, lecturers, work load, pace etc would be appreciated. Thanks

djcervi

Hi! I don't study Italian, but I study French and Spanish, so I am in contact with other language students. I have heard mixed views on Italian. With regard to language, apparently the department has a negative marking policy. I know someone in first year Italian, who is worried about passing the year. She seems to do a lot of study, but has not been shown her progress in the language. Regardless of this, I think negative marking is not a good way to teach language. Of course, you need to tell people when they are making a mistake. At the same time, people need to be aware that they are making progress. Although the above comments are only based on what I have heard. Maybe the way it actually is, could be different.

AND WELL

Hallo

I'm a first year Italian student. I took up the language from scratch in September. Here's a few pointers.


- You have to be a hard worker. Just because you might be good at French, does not mean you will do well in Italian.

- You will be in a class with people who may have done italian before, or in my case, ARE half-Italian.

- The marking is ridiculous. You should not be put off by failing in grammar tests in class. There is no "marking scheme" as such....but if you cannot do well in your pronouns in the exams, more than likely they will fail you because "it is impossible to speak a language without things like this!!"

- One of the lecturers is hilariously mad. She'll scare you at the start, but she's fine...and you WILL work for her. (Giuliana)


COURSE CONTENT

First Semester:
4 grammar classes a week (you do not want to miss these)
1 oral class
1 computer class (practice grammar on a programme)
1 history class

Second Semester
3 grammar classes a week
1 exam preparation class
1 metrics and genres class (poetry)
1 literature class (we do a novel: La Parola Ebreo by Rosetta Loy)
1 theatre class (Dario Fo)
1 reading class
1 aural


It may look like a lot, and you will hear bad things about the department. But I've been there a few months and I can hold decent decent conversations with my Italian cousins (and I'm not even the greatest in the class)


The workload is not that much. It's very optional. You are rrequired to do 2 essays by the end of the year, which is not much at all....and you do grammar exercises all along.


ADVICE: stay on top of your work. it's the key.


any other questions, just give me a shout

hurluberlu

Hello. I don't study Italian in Trinity but I am a native speaker and for what it's worth I can confirm that the standard in Trinity seems to be pretty high. I have spoken to a couple of people with a degree in Italian from Trinity and their Italian was mind blowing. They confirmed that some lecturers are quite tough, but the hard work definitely pays off. Italian is quite hard to get right, lots of native speakers do not speak it properly but theirs was just perfect!

farfalla1

I am native from Italy, if anyone is interested, I would like to do an interchange italian/ english, please let me know, thank you