Sono In Pensione

 Recently I signed up for an online Italian class, because, well, it's time to get serious about beginning to learn Italian.  It's time partially because we'll (if the Italian government and court system play nice, which is probably a big if) be in Italy in a few months, but also because I'm now retired and am more in control of my time from now on (although I have lots of projects lined up, although I guess they're more my personal projects, and I will doubtless prove to be a more harsh tyrant than Champlain). I've tinkered with Duolingo, but I don't think it's really a system that's going to effectively teach you a foreign language, but it's OK for those stretches of five or ten minutes when you have some free time and you want to do something other than doom scroll. Over the last year or so I've also paid for Pimsleur, which I like and don't like. I certainly get more out of it than Duolingo, which may only partially relate to the fact that I'm paying for it, and it has less video game content. What I don't like about it is that you have to listen to a half-hour discussion all the another language before you can begin to get text. I understand that it's just a different way to approach learning a foreign language, but it just doesn't seem to fit with how I learn. Essentially, I need to see the text earlier, which relates to simply not being very good at foreign languages, but also because I'm increasingly hard of hearing. So, if I just listen to it the first time without having access to the text, I simply don't pick up the words. I'm going to keep it, at least through the end of the current term, because it might be useful to hear a different approach, especially during down times in my Italian course. My first course in the online class starts on Monday, and I need to get used to the idea of sitting in a chatroom, and this fills me with dread. It's exactly what I need to do, but I know I'm going to hate it at the beginning because it's going to inspire a ton of embarrassment. That said, I'm not going to survive in Italy by just reading text, I need to be able to chat, so I'll just have to plow ahead. I was watching a video today and how to prepare for our first chatroom discussion, and one of the first important phrases was "sono in pensione" or "I'm retired."