Plymouth State Adjunct Conversational Italian instructor, Gabriel Del Rossi has a lot of cultural and language experience in his back pocket. He’s an almost-five language polyglot, or multi-lingual. Our interview was conducted in English, though modern Italian music was playing from his computer in his office on the second floor of Hyde Hall when we caught up with him on Thursday, February 16. Del Rossi was wearing fitted blue jeans and sneakers. His medium-length brown hair rested neatly on the collar of his ‘Italia’ track jacket.
Del Rossi has always been motivated to learn each new language to the best of his ability. He was eager to share his Italian heritage and journey with language learning, as well as his insights and suggestions to help other language learners.
Clock: So what have you studied?
Gabriel Del Rossi: Let’s see. I did my BA in Chemistry and Italian Studies back in the early ’90s at Boston University.
Clock: Chemistry? Wow.
Del Rossi: Yeah. Double major. Well, I was supposed to be a doctor and/or an engineer, believe it or not. But I just got more interested with Italian. And I switched to the liberal arts school and I was forced to take a language requirement.
We spoke Italian at home and so for me taking Italian was kind of a no-brainer. So I did that and I got really wrapped up into it. In fact, I did more than just language class. I did literature, film classes, all kinds of cultural classes, and so I wound up majoring in both and then eventually moved to Italy. I worked as a manager there at a bicycle tour company for a long time.
Clock: How long?
Del Rossi: For about three years. And then I decided I wanted to go back to school, so I went to Boston College and graduated with a Master’s in Italian Literature in 2007. Then I was interested in pursuing Ph.D. studies and in order to do that I needed another foreign language. I wanted to learn French because it was really complex for me to understand, and I didn’t want to stay here in the States, so I moved to France.
Clock: How long did you stay there?
Del Rossi: For about eight years. I’m technically still there. I go back all the time. I got a Master’s Degree in Comparative Literature from the Université de Savoir. But at the same time I’ve always been working in these languages. So I organize bicycle or adventure travel trips and I’ve been doing that for almost twenty years. So mainly biking, or kayaking, or hiking, or food related stuff so it’s either in one country or the other.
Clock: But Italian was your first “foreign” language?
Del Rossi: Yeah, pretty much.
Clock: Was English your first language, or did you grow up with both?
Del Rossi: We had a pretty much bilingual household for the most part. My grandmother’s side of the family came from Formia, just south of Rome. And there’s also Montorotondo, a small village about 50 kilometers east of Rome, where my grandfather’s family is from. They immigrated to Philadelphia, where my parents met, had children, and then my dad moved just outside of Worcester.
Clock: What was it like growing up bilingual? Did you always appreciate it?
Del Rossi: I always did because I noticed it as this code that other people didn’t pick up on and I really kind of liked that. But my brother and sister didn’t really pursue it at all and kind of found it as more of an annoyance, as the following generation usually does. My parents speak English, obviously, and we were kind of phasing out of that, but I loved it. I’ve always had an ear for that kind of thing. I like codes, the way people speak, trying to mimic their speech, dialects.
Clock: So have you always been interested in languages and linguistics?
Del Rossi: Absolutely. From Spanish to Brazilian Portuguese-
Clock: Hold on a second. How many languages do you know?
Del Rossi: I speak Spanish, French, Italian, English, and now I’m studying Portuguese.
Clock: Just for fun?
Del Rossi: Well, for a project. Tourism. I’ve been asked by a resort to deal with their Brazilian tourists that come up.
Clock: So do you think you’re still able to speak Italian because of your interest in it? Are your siblings still able to speak it?
Del Rossi: They were able to understand bits and pieces but I don’t think so now. Well, it all comes down to identity in the end.
Clock: What do you mean by identity?
Del Rossi: Well, let’s take Italy for example. It never had a real codified language until about 1860 more or less, when Garibaldi was trying to unify the country. People don’t realize that Italy-it’s not just Italian spoken everywhere.
Clock: Right, because of Italy’s regionalization?
Del Rossi: Yeah, you have French-Italian, Germanic-Italian, and you had Sicily, which had its completely own language for a very long time. Even during the Renaissance-Medici reign for example, through Tuscany-I mean, they all spoke a type of Italian-but the identifying factor for people was if they spoke Tuscan. Tuscan was a language unto its own. Venetian, and certain areas of Piedmont you have piedmonetese, both languages unto their own. If you break off into the different sections, they all have distinguishing characteristics to them. That’s what I mean by it’s a form of identity.
Around here, if I hang out in a coffee shop at Plymouth State, and someone comes up and says [intentional Boston accent], “Hey, see the Sox play?” then I have an idea that he’s probably from the Boston area, which kind of makes me, “Ah, so you’re from the Boston area?” So it’s even a little more of a connection. So I think this helped me identify more with Italian that my brother and sister did. I think they identify more with their professions or other means than Italian. So yeah, Italian is still very much so who I am.
Clock: What made you decide to teach Italian? Is this your first semester at Plymouth State?
Del Rossi: This is my first semester here at PSU. But I’ve taught Italian before in France and at Boston University and Boston College. So yeah, I’ve always been teaching Italian. It’s even what’s happened here. It’s something that I really love. And it’s kind of a shame for other languages I find. Sure, you have people who have taken Spanish or French in high school so they continue in college because they need it to graduate or whatever. I’d say that ninety percent of the people in my Italian class are there because they want to sing it, or have some other personal connection to it. Italian is one of those languages where it is spoken in a small geographic location in the world, but it is one of the richest languages and so many people want to be able to speak it. It sounds cool and Italy is a really nice place to visit. I also believe speaking Italian opens so many more doors than, in my experience, French does. If you go to a village in Italy and don’t speak Italian, people will still try to connect with you. It’s a very connecting society. If you try to speak that language, if you come towards them, they will come twenty-fold in your direction. I like teaching the language because I have people who are interested in learning it, die-hard interest. And it’s a fun language.
Clock: In your Italian class, you use a lot of English for explanation. What’s your opinion to exposure to language and how do your experiences play out in your teaching?
Del Rossi: Since this is an introductory class, basic conversation, I realize a lot of what I say doesn’t register. But that’s not the point. The concepts in the text and online are important. I’m more interested in exposing people to the living language. I’m only meeting them two days a week. You’re being bombarded with English elsewhere. So my take is that just talking for the first half hour or so is exposure and will hopefully get the brain started again on Italian. Then when I dive into concepts, verb conjugations, I want to make sure that’s clear so I will switch back to English. I just don’t want to freak people out by speaking Italian for the full hour and fifteen minutes.
Clock: So you’re interested in reducing anxiety in the class?
Del Rossi: Yeah. Reducing anxiety. But you know, we only have two and a half hours per week and I really want people to-I mean, already people are saying buongiorno instead of hi when they walk in the door, so it’s already getting them to train that brain when they walk in the door, they know it’s going to be Italian.
Clock: So it seems like you believe this class can get a lot of this intensive one-semester course that covers a full semesters of Italian. But back to you for a second-what has your experience been with classroom learning of other languages? Or have you always taken the language in its country of origin?
Del Rossi: It was always in the country. I’m a bit nerdy when it comes to languages. I don’t like speaking a language half-way. But ultimately, it’s up to you. If you’re really motivated enough, you’ll seek out the language and be able to learn it.
Clock: Okay, last question. You’ve gone to so many places, been immersed in these languages. What is one piece of advice you have to students who want to really comprehend, learn, be proficient and then fluent at a language?
Del Rossi: Don’t be afraid. Make mistakes. It’s the best way to learn. It goes for a ton of things. If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not learning. Once you make mistakes, you see things more clearly. Open your mind and your heart to language.