HALF Italian | A Brother and Sister’s Journey of Reconnecting to their Italian Heritage. Born on each other’s half birthday - (Leo and Aquarius are polar opposites of each other) and half Italian by heritage - (full Italian mother). Our Italian heritage is half from the North of Italy and half from the South. This is our story of exploring our heritage and our journey towards dual citizenship. For the first half of our life - we took our Italian heritage for granted. Though we thoroughly enjoyed our mom's wonderful food, and thought her maiden name was funny, it wasn't until we were older that we began to connect with what it meant to be half Italian by blood. Are you half Italian? Join us!
Those pizzas looked amazing! If that's your first time then what will they look like when you're 50-60 pizzas in? I've built a few of these for friends over the years, a great tip I picked up from another video on these was to rotate the oven opening 90 degrees from the fire so that you're not reaching over it when loading / turning / unloading pizza - might save you from a few singed hairs on your forearms.
I would like to ask you a question as I,too, have been working on my dual citizenship. Is there a way I can email or message you-could not figure it out how to do that.
Hello! I put in a contact request on the National Archives website, asking for naturalization records for my great grandfather. You select 'ordering copies of records' and then in the 'please tell us more' box, I wrote all of his details - name, birth and death dates, etc. www.archives.gov/contact Hope that helps! Sarah
We are still in the process of reviewing our file - and each case (depending on the number of people in your family) is different. We paid them $500 to do a full review of all of our documents. So far, it has been worth it - there were discrepancies which we wouldn't have seen! I'd recommend a free consult call with them if you are interested. They've been very helpful.
I have been trying for an appointment in Chicago for months. And I am hoping to get the CONE from USCIS soon as I submitted it last August. I have seen where it has taken people 5 years to get everything done. Don't give up and keep working. Some companies can be scams in some ways. Research in groups on FB. FB has groups about applying in Italy and the Dual Citizenship process here in the US. I hope everything works out for you both.
I've been watching your story and following along and hoping to hear you get your Italian citizenship recognition soon! We started collecting my husband's ancestors viral records in Feb and still waiting for the CONE. We also have adult children and are considering moving to Italy to get this done quicker. It is a huge gift for our kids to be able to live, work & go to school anywhere in the EU. Please keep sharing your journey!
Duolingo is the worst way to "learn" a language. Pure waste of time. Buy a textbook instead. Believe me, if you keep using duolingo for one or two more years, you still won't be able to talk.
I find it helpful to keep the Italian words fresh in my mind each day. It is not the only way that I study - and certainly doesn't take the place of a textbook or formal grammar lesson. My latest interest is translating Italian songs, memorizing them and then pulling apart the grammar. Ognuno ha i suoi gusti! - Sarah
Congratulations on a full year learning Italian! Not easy to stay consistent, bravo. I'm know I'm late to the this vid, but I was going to suggest for this next year learning Italian, try doing a full year of Busuu instead of Duolingo. I recommend Busuu 1000% over Duolingo any day. I'm currently using it to learn Italian, French, Japanese, Arabic and Chinese and I love every minute of it. You'll be able to stick to your 5-10 minute lesson plan per day as the lessons are all broken up into tiny chunks, so you can easily hop on and off in small bites. I also find the over structure of the program far superior to Duolingo, and actually feel like I'm learning usable vocabulary and sentences, whereas with Duolingo, the overall structure seemed extremely haphazard and the sentences and subject matter in the lessons a bit childish(?). Busuu is very fun and gives you a sense of accomplishment, Duolingo was a grind with no sense of accomplishment and not enjoyable for me at all. Busuu uses native Italian speakers in the lessons and the grammar is sprinkled in at just the right pace where its digestable and not overwhelming all at once. Also, being that you already have some knowledge of Italian, when you hop on for the first time you can take a placement test, so you don't need to start at Day 1. It will place you at the appropriate lesson for your level, and you can always go back and do the ones that were skipped as a review. I've tried many different language learning apps on this journey, but once I found Busuu I haven't used anything else. I never hear anyone else talk about it, its not nearly as known as Duolingo, so I took this as a sign to give it its props. Try it out, I think you'll dig it. Buona fortuna, ciao!
I used a company outside Chicago for document gathering and it cost about $750 (I think). But the Italian attorney and court costs added $6K or so. (I am a 1948-er so I couldn't do it this route; but, I didn't have to wait years for a consulate appointment, either.)
If anyone here wants to learn italian definitely dont do what this guys doing, i'd reccomend watching xiaomanyc, hes a language expert and has learned alot of languages including italien. p.s i did italian on duolingo for a week and did 50% of what this guy did so dont do 5-10 minutes a day
I do agree a lot with your mindset, focusing on what you know today compared to what you knew a year ago, but I do feel like you didn't put enough effort into the app. Learning only 651 words in a year is a very low number. I'm not saying this to be rude at all! I've also been learning Italian for about two and a half months (832 words (sharing my words so you can understand my comparsion)), but if I had watched this video before starting, I would have considered not using Duolingo due to the low number of words you have learned. If someone wants to learn Italian on Duolingo, I 100% recommend it, but they need to put in the effort!
Totally agree! I only did the minimum for a year but now I'm spending much more time in the app. It's becoming addicting! 😅 Learning a lot more now. Thanks for the input!
This was so great Giatta Sailer! Are you sure you wanted to give these closely guarded secrets away? So fun to hear Frank’s voice and watch your wonderful family in action!
Would’ve been easier and cheaper to have it done online by a legitimate service site and pay the extra which around 20$ per document needed ( fee for faster delivery ( or maybe not needed since you still need an appointment) . I was fortunate to obtain it through my father who never naturalized. The only issue was what was the proof he was in the USA? Fortunately/unfortunately he was one of the biggest mafiosos thus lots of court cases newspapers etc with that proof and that did the trick haha
Best of luck. I have all my documents and one is out for correction of age and DOB on death certificate. After that I have to get a few apostilled but it is inexpensive in MI. I have been trying to get an appointment for a year with no luck so I am using an attorney to take the case in Italy. No 1948 and no minor issues so I hope it is straight forward denial of justice case and gest approved maybe even this year.
Thank you. Yes, it's quite a process from start to finish! We just posted a new video sharing that we are going that route as well - (submitting our case in Italy)
I’m on day 29 with Duolingo…good app.. I’m also in the process of claiming my Italian citizenship by descent. It’s a long and costly process even if you DIY. All the best to you…love your content…very informative.
Thanks for the video. I never bothered to go through the process because I thought it was too difficult, but now I am starting the process. It seems like a lot of the agencies that handle Italian Citizenship by decent, but they want to make you wait awhile not to lose you as a client.. having to do this stuff seems to be too much for me. Trying to figure out what is the best thing to do.
Yes, it can be overwhelming for sure! I have enjoyed finding bits of information and connection to my family members along the way. Best of luck to you.
Im 4 months in on learning spainsh. Ive been putting in prob avg of 3 hours a day. I use duo, but I haven't lately because im focusing on watching input to build my listening skills. Im also learning a litte italian on the side. In italian I can only say things like "Buongiorno. Buonasera. non parlo italiano. Ciao, Come stai? Come ti chiami? Mi chiamo, piacere di conoscerti. Arrivederci! Scusi, sa dove l'ufficio postale? (Don't ask why I learned the last one lol) I can say a few other random things since its similar to spainsh.
This is the side of Duolingo that never gets much attention on social media, it really does work given enough time. Yeah it isn't great if you want to become fluent as quickly as possible, but for the average person just trying to spend more time learning and less time death scrolling on tiktok, it definitely works. Who cares how long it takes?
Ben fatto! Dovresti essere fiero di te stesso! Ma se il tuo desiderio di imparare l'italiano è davvero serio, ti consiglio di non usare solo Duolingo. Invece, ti consiglio di parlare a te stesso quotidianamente in italiano e scoprirai che impari ancora più velocemente!
Sembra che tu parli bene dato che in teoria Duolingo è abbastanza solo fino al livello A2! In ogni caso - your pronunciation, the A sound needs to be a lot harsher! Not "awh-nkeh" (anche) but rather "AH-nke", or AH-llora. Keep it up mate, it's worth it!
I’m learning French and just passed the 100 day mark a few days ago. I previously spent 3.5 years learning French in school and was still basically at A0.5 level. Now, just 3 months on Duolingo and I’ve completed A1. I spend an absolute minimum of 15 minutes a day doing lessons or practise, but it’s not uncommon to do a lot more than that spread out throughout the day. I have supplemented with the odd google search to clarify something if it was bugging me enough, some RU-vid videos for further explanation, and some French music and movies for a little variety. And I’m at a stage where I should consider some speaking practise lessons (italki maybe?) just to get a bit better at listening comprehension and forming my own sentences on the fly. So overall, I think Duolingo can be very effective as a tool as long as you don’t expect to get fluent from doing that alone. It’s interesting how you do start to pick up grammar rules despite not spending a lot of time being taught them specifically. Even if there are more effective ways of learning, it’s still more fun and easier than a lot of other options so I personally have zero problem recommending it to others.
Ive been learning spainsh for 4 months and a little Italian on the side. I practiced some french for fun, french is hard though. I can only say this so far, it took a while to get it down: Bonjour. Comment ça va? Comment tu t'appelles? Mon nom est (). Parlez-vous français? Je ne parle pas français.
Bravissimo Luke ! Imparare una lingua non è semplice. Anch'io ci provo con l'inglese con l'aiuto di Duolingo che mi avete fatto conoscere l'anno scorso tu e Sarah. Non sono costante come te, purtroppo.
Amazing! I’m on day 558 and I am beginning to understand so much more in conversation. It’s amazing how small incremental learning can build. I definitely think the consistency of building a streak helps. Starting and stopping in years past wasn’t helpful. Daily practice works! 💪🏻
Great for you guys. I'm going thru it right now. Last thing on the list is from USCIS. Could take at least 9 months. Starting the apostille process with BC's and MC's. Can't wait.
I can't wait to see how your citizenship goes. I just started the process with a 1948 case requiring an Italian attorney and a court date in Southern Italy! I hope to get as lucky as you to find family there someday!
