Should Halloween be celebrated in Italy?

Hello there all!

Only just ten years ago Italian people knew little about the Halloween holiday; for most, it was just a strange American feast, something like an Anglo-Saxon carnival. Nowadays, through the influence of movies and marketing, it is popular in Italy as well. Quite a few Italian kids go trick-or-treating from door to door, even if they are still met with mixed reactions; some are not fully updated on the new tradition and do not know what to do with the group of masked kids standing on their doorstep, while others are abreast with the times and are on standby with various treats.

We don’t really understand the tradition, but nobody complains too much about it. Although it does not have any strong meaning for us, it is an excuse to have fun. We don’t yet take it seriously, but slowly, as there are a lot of masked parties and great fun, I think its popularity will continue to grow and this holiday might become a bigger part of Italian culture.

But what is Halloween actually a celebration of? It seems to be a holiday that was invented in America, but it has far deeper roots. Halloween was actually originally born in Europe. Only in the 19th century, immigrants from Ireland and Scotland brought their customs with them from their homelands, and kept them alive in America.

http://www.blogger.com/www.warwickshire.police.uk

On Monday we’re going to debate whether Halloween should be imported to and celebrated in Italy. As member of group G I would be supposed to have arguments for the Halloween celebration in our country. I must admit it, it took me quite a lot of time to find by myself some good motives for the introduction of this holiday; so I decided to search the Internet for more reliable information and I came up with some interesting statistics for the economy.
In the Italian on-line newspaper Il Messaggero the Coldiretti farmers’ union said that the growing popularity in Italy of the American Halloween celebration has proved to be a boon for Italian farmers, who increased their pumpkin production and variety to meet demand; they have actually seen a significant increase in the production of ornamental pumpkins and those for size competition. I found out Italy produces some 60 million kg of pumpkins a year, especially in the northern regions of Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna and Veneto, as well as in Campania in the south. What is more, according to the consumer group Codacons some 8 million Italians celebrated Halloween this year, spending around 255 million euros, while according to the agency of Telefono Blu 190 million euros were spent on masks and fancy dress and 140 million euros on organized parties.
Without a doubt, there are a lot of commercial interests, and corporations didn’t think twice about trying to graft an American tradition onto a society already extremely americanized. Halloween could be really important to the economic growth of Italy.

As you’ve probably understood, my point of view is different from what I should defend in class on Monday. Personally, I believe Halloween has been artificially imported into Italy, and I don’t like artificially imported traditions. I think we don’t have the cultural backbone to support it. I might sound narrow-minded, but I think traditions should be created the way they should be, by doing something because it has existed for a long time among a particular community.

Nevertheless.....

Happy Halloween!

My first two weeks of blogging

Hi guys!

Well, I must admit it, I didn’t know anything about blogs before I started attending this English course. Actually, I heard about Beppe Grillo’s blog and I remember I had a look at it once, but it was truly beyond me what blogs really were and what a huge and complex world the blogosphere was! Only just three weeks have gone and I’ve already created my own blog! It sounds a little bit strange to me, but I’m really excited!

At the beginning I had some difficulties because I was not familiar with these technological tools, but then everything became easier! Exploring blogs on Technorati I was astonished that I had so much fun. I’ve become aware of the importance blogs have as form of communication. I’ve realized that bloggers blog for any number of reasons, from promoting a business to merely discussing an interest or reporting their feelings and emotions, and that blogs can be about anything! I love blogs especially for the sense of community they offer thanks to the comment feature. I’ve found it amazing to have the possibility to take part in discussions regarding the contents of blogs and to communicate directly with the person who creates the blog. I also like observing the way bloggers reflect in their blog pages their personalities. Generally speaking, I feel that blogs are an enjoyable way to learn about the world around us!

The Blogosphere from discovermagazine.com

I’m surprised that in so little time not only I’ve learned a great amount of things about blogging but also, and above all, I’ve made a lot of improvements in English! I’ve realized blogging has enormously influenced my language learning.
Personally, I believe there are some problems with the old traditional methods of teaching English. Sitting in a class listening to boring lectures might really be a waste of time because you don’t feel compelled to use your brain. I’ve always tended to study hard for some months and then take a few months off, and, using traditional studying methods, after the break I often forgot most of what I had studied and I lost a lot of vocabulary. Contributing to the course blog and continually updating my personal blog I feel that once I learn something, I don’t forget it.

· First of all I think motivation is very important to learn a language, and this way it’s difficult to lose your enthusiasm because responding encourages you to partecipate actively, and it’s also something more interesting, as you share ideas and opinions.

· I believe in the use of blogs as language learning tools because, when you have to comment a blog’s posts, firstly, you must understand what you are reading, secondly, you must think of an answer in English, and that encourages your brain to think in English. It is an active method because it teaches you something that exactly happens in real conversations. On the contrary, when I only used the old method I didn’t feel ready for real conversations.

· Moreover, I think that, instead of trying to remember rules and translations, blogging offers you the possibility to read so much and about everything without a lot of effort that, over time, you’ll have a feel for English grammar and may easily and naturally improve your vocabulary.

· Until now, at university, I’ve mostly learned formal English because textbooks and teachers have always taught me a written style of English, and unconsciously I’ve learned to speak “written English”. Using blogs I’ve realized the difference, especially in vocabulary choice, between everyday English and formal English is really big. I think before writing complicated essays and translating difficult articles we should improve colloquial English.

I’m a firm believer that, even if we only read and write, blogging might be a successful way to learn English!

That’s all for now, I look forward to reading what you think about!

Selena

Exploring the blogosphere

Hi everyone!

After hours and hours on Technorati, I decided to suggest these two blogs to you. Hope you like them!

As I like planning cheap journeys in Europe, I put in the tags the word “travelling Europe”, and I came up with a blog called Europe String, which I found particularly interesting. The author is a girl who lives now in Frankfurt, but in her life she lived in the USA, Hong Kong, China and Korea. She has been travelling around the world for business and leisure, and for this reason she feels qualified to give tips about travelling on a budget! She shares information about cheap restaurants in our continent, cheap ways of getting around -weather by land, sea or air- and where to sleep -from hostels to sleeping at airports. She also focuses on particular cities giving a combination of info.
I like this blog because it has a lot of links -both in and out the written text- to other blogs or websites on the same or related topics.

As I love tasting new dishes, I wanted to look for a blog that might give me some ideas for new recipes. I chose a blog called A Slice of Cherry Pie, which is simply something appetizing!In my opinion this blog is much more interesting than others about food because it shows you many recipes you can come up with using seasonal ingredients. The author is an English girl who posts her specialities and photos. She is a self-taught cook who is passionate about good food and home cooking. I like this blog because it is full of images which catch the reader’s eye.
I would recommend it to you because it communicates the pleasure of cooking and teaches you genuine recipes for your body. Personally, I believe cooking makes you feel relaxed.

The style used in the blogs I chose is very similar as in both the language is almost informal. That can be seen for example by the use of the contracted forms of auxiliary verbs, the negative contraction, the negation with “any”, “going to” for future prediction, the relative pronoun “that”, abbreviations and exclamation marks. I think the language it’s not very informal because there aren’t any slangs, dots and swear words.

Searching for blogs, I’ve noticed that I was mostly attracted by those that have an original and readable title, so I can say blogs’ titles are extremely important to catch the reader’s attention. The layout is very important, too. It shouldn’t be too much complicated because it could create confusion in the reader’s mind, and so on first sight the reader could prefer to visit other blogs. As regards links I’ve noticed that most of them aren’t the url but just a clickable word which is part of the text. Visiting blogs I’ve also realized that the language can vary from specialized to everyday according to the topic and the audiance. It can be also spontaneous, just like a real conversation, or a little bit more planned when it describes something. Of course, the formality of the language used might be influenced by the relationship between bloggers and readers.

That’s all for now. I look forward to reading your comments!

See you,
Selena

Welcome to my blog!

Photo by reesie

Hi everyone!

I chose this photo to introduce myself because I like exploring culinary habits of other cultures and I’m particularly a fan of oriental cuisine! Sushi dishes are so colourful that they remind me of world multiculturalism. I love new experiences, and this is why journeys are my absolute passion. I’m very curious about other cultures and, when I travel, it is important for me to meet locals, spend time with them and get an idea how they live their lives. I’m interested in exploring their own way of communicating, arguing, showing affection and eating! Two years ago I studied in Germany, at the University of Mainz, for ten months, and it was a fantastic experience from the personal point of view because it allowed me not only to know full well German culture but also to meet people coming from all over the world. I was especially intrigued by their food culture, and I loved organizing international dinner parties! As you’ve probably understood by looking at the image, I’m very fond of fish, but I would like to taste as many traditional dishes of the globe as possible. When I’m not travelling, I like spending my free time planning my future journeys. The most impressive culture I’ve experienced was Chinese culture with its strange manners. I think that this way of travelling can help you to be more open-minded because, if you are able to listen to people who are different from you and try to understand them, that makes life much easier especially when -at the university or at work- you have to deal with a lot of people.

Here are the three websites I use most frequently:

http://www.lettere.unipd.it/

This website is known by each of us as it is truly part of our life. In the last weeks I often consulted the timetable and the courses’ schedule as you’ve also probably done but almost every day I have a look at the section about international relations to check if there are new interesting opportunities to have a study or work experience abroad.

http://www.ryanair.com/site/IT/

I know this website very well because I’ve almost always travelled with Ryanair. It offers cheap flights to Europe’s most important destinations and, since we are students with meagre earnings, I think it gives us the opportunity to travel more or to save some money. Another important thing is that, fortunately, the flights are usually on time!

http://www.wikipedia.org/

I always visit this site when I have to do some research on a particular subject, to check the meaning of specialized terms or simply to satisfy my curiosity. It is very useful because in the texts there are many links to other related topics, so that you can form at first sight an exhaustive view of what you are interested in. An advantage of this online encyclopaedia is that you might look up anything in many different languages.

I’m looking forward to reading your comments!

Bye,

Selena