28.12.07

E-tivity 2 - "Lost in translation"



Hi there everyone!

Last week, skimming through Il Corriere della Sera newspaper, I found a couple of very interesting articles about Italian adults who are desperately trying to learn English.

Have a look at these!
And read carefully the following English articles taken from the TimesONLINE and the Daily Mail.


Do you think Fabio Capello will be able to speak English in a month as he declared in front of the British media?... Leave your comment here!

And what about you? Share your experience in learning English.

Alice

22.12.07


Warmly wishing you

a MERRY CHRISTMAS and

a HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Alice

Photo taken from Google

8.12.07

Hi! My name is Francesco and I’m 52. I spent a long period working as a veterinarian in several different African countries, in Southern and Central America and also many countries of Far and Near Est, but some years ago I came back in Italy. Since 1995 I have been working here in Villafranca as a farmer. My main activities are cultivating a kiwi plantation, breeding ostriches and working as ostrich production and health consuktant, but I am a journalist, and a writer too.
Two years ago, together with Ali, my Morocco partner, I started working on an ostrich farm near Agadir. Nowadays, people in Morocco are more interested than in Italy to this kind of big birds. Recently we decided to raise also quails and rabbits.

Last winter, Elettra revealed me how Morocco desert is plenty of good marble. In fact, being an architect, she has a great experience about any kind of hard and resistant material. Thanks to her suggestions, last March we bougth some quarries in southern Morocco and together with four marble companies from Verona, we are now extracting and processing marble of five different colors: grey-blue; blue-violet; black; green and red-brown.

Few months ago, I added another activity to the previous ones: energy. I got an idea after seeing how upset was Nadira, (my 22 years old secretary who is really very keen on languages), because of a sudden blackout that happened in my office during an important business meeting. Only ten or twenty years ago I would have never cared about lack of energy, but now, it is time to provide feasible solutions to this problem. In fact, as Nadira says, even the best hardware, without energy it is absolutely useless. Costantino (who has a great experience in energy business) and Antonio, although he is young, are supporting on about the improvement of alternative energy. Unfortunately, my 16 years old son Hadrien, doesn’t care at all about renewable energy. Ah, what unconscious is youth!
So, some weeks ago I started a new company wich has the aim to sell, install and maintain eolic and photovoltaic systems.

In short, after two years of efforts, it seems that everything is going swimmingly: all over Morocco people are interested in the quality of our birds; nice and resistant marbles are exported to Italy and are fullfilling all demands of exigent people such as Elettra. Nadira is quite satisfied too with renewable energy, and now in her office the hardware day and night works very well.

1.12.07

My turn

Hello everybody! My name is Enrico. I am 26 years old. I am a first year PhD student in computer science at the University of Verona. Last September I attended a Summer School about automatic software verification in Elba island. There was a lot of people from all over the world (even China and Argentina) and most of them felt comfortable in speaking English even though it was not their native language. Unfortunately, this was not my case, so I could realize how much I needed to improve my English. Furthermore, next year I will probably be in Arizona (US), to work together with some guys involved in the same topics faced by my Italian research group. Hence, I would like to improve my English. For those who may be interested, like Cristiano perhaps, just let me say that our research field concerns how to embed secret messages within computer programs; in other words, we are trying to create a digital counterpart of the watermarks usually embedded in banknotes. I like my job, even if it is hard. You are free to decide what to do, but then you are also responsible of doing it. So you must be careful! I have learnt that friends and workmates can be of great help in this job.
In my spare time I practice some sports. I am not a great swimmer, but I like water a lot and once a week I go to the swimming pool; my favourite style is breaststroke. When it is hot, I sometimes go jogging early in the morning and I cycle with some friends. I like classical music and the sound of human voice, especially those of some female singers. I sing in a polyphonic choir of Verona, which performs sacred, secular and folkloristic music. I like reading books, although I always do it late in the evening. I like keeping in touch with people, in particular with some good old friends.

Enrico

My Welcome Message


Hi,
I'm cristiano and i'd put here something about me and my life...i'll try to do it in few words. I'm 38 italian boy years old and i want to learn english for my personal pleasure and for work too. I'm married with Marina (a Labor Animi blogger too) and i'm father of two: Giorgia and Matilde. I've a specialist degree on Educational Science and i study for the second degree on cognitive applied psychology. I'm interested to motor learning, sport psychology and cognitive develop. I've studied computer science for tree years in Pisa first, and in Milano last, but my intersting in human thinking was too strong and so i decided to give up that study for psychology. However, computer science is part of my life, in fact i work as system administrator in a local government office. I've many hobbies especially on sport and music field. I practise triathlon and next years i'll try to do my first ironman (3.8 km swim, 180km cycling, 42 km run) in Roth near Norimberga. Many years ago i played a bass on a group but now i've no time and so i limit myself only to listen music. I like jazz very much and instrumental music and when i listen a song i dont' give any attention to lyrics because i want to fly with emotion that music can give. I wish to learn english better because i like to talk with people when i travell.

5.11.07

E-tivity 1 - No English? Non parti !!!

Hello everyone and welcome to Labor Animi!

Photo taken from Google Images

To become familiar with our course blog I invite you to introduce something about yourselves to each other and to say why you've decided to attend the English course. I've already written my welcome message, but I'm sure your posts will be more creative.

Since blogging is an online conversation too... Don't forget to read the introductions of your peers and reply (using the "comment" button) to them if you feel you'd like to share something with them.

Have fun!!!
Alice

Welcome message from Alice

Hi everyone! I'm Alice and I'll try to be your guide on our journey to learn English across Web 2.0. To start this new experience we're all going to introduce ourselves, so let me start.

I'm a 25 year old Italian girl and I’m taking the specialistic degree in Foreign Languages (English and German trying to learn Dutch too!) for International Communication at the University of Padova while I’ve already taken the three-year degree in Languages and Culture for Tourism Management at the University of Verona.

Two summers in a row I worked in a Campsite on Lake Garda where
I got in touch with lots of people coming from all over the world. I’m very interested in how languages are used by native speakers, in how dialects survive within the local communities and in how non-native speakers succeed in learning foreign languages. Every now and then I work for the Consorzio Agrituristico Mantovano which is a consortium of farm tourism operators engaged in creating quality and sustainable farm holidays.

In my spare time I like doing sports: I play volleyball three times a week and whenever I can I cycle nearby. I love going to the cinema while I don’t watch so much TV, I just enjoy myself in watching the TV program Che tempo che fa and I’ve only recently begun to be crazy about the American television drama/comedy Gilmore Girls.

I can't wait to read all of you!!!
Alice

Photo taken from my album