Hello, Steve Kaufmann here and I'm very excited to have today as a guest Francesco
uh, and he's going to explain a little bit about his background because he is
one of the sort of expanding number of people on the internet who are creating
marvelous content in different languages.
And very often at that sort of intermediate level, which
is exactly where in so many languages we are missing content.
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Bongiorno.
Bongiorno Francesco.
Bongiorno.
Ciao Steve.
We're going to speak in English because I think it's easier
uh, more people understand.
And I think because I want more people to be aware of what FRansesco is doing and
how much fun it can be to learn Italian.
Francesco, could you begin by giving us a little background about who you
are and how you got interested in the work that you're doing and some
description of what you're doing?
Sure.
Uh, first of all, thank you, Steve, for having me here.
It's an honor for me.
And as you said I have a YouTube channel called Vaporetto Italiano where I
teach the Italian language and culture.
And actually, uh, my background is a bit complicated because
I didn't start as a teacher.
And sorry for my English I need to brush it up a little bit, but I'll try.
I'll do my best.
I promise.
Um, I didn't start as a teacher cause I studied economy, uh, at university and
I started working as an export manager in companies here in Italy, but I've
always had a big passion for languages.
I've always studied foreign languages, in school, but also on my own at home.
So that was my big passion.
And after 10 years working as an export manager and having a lot of
relationships with foreign subsidiaries and with people abroad, I said, well,
maybe there's another path for me.
Foreign languages have always been in my life.
Even if I was doing a different job, foreign languages were
there, so that was a sign fpr me.
And one day, my girlfriend, she is a teacher as well in a school uh, she
said, why don't you start teaching?
I mean, you're, you're so good at explaining things.
You have a passion for foreign languages.
Is it something that could interest you, interest you?
And I said, well, why not?
I should give it a try.
So, uh, I found a platform and I applied and they accepted me and
I started teaching as a tutor.
So only conversation because I wasn't qualified at the time.
And after a few months I realized that I liked it.
The number of students started growing.
And then I decided to study and get a few qualifications because I qualified...
I got a qualification as a Italian teacher and as an oral language coach.
And so I said, that's about time.
I need to change something.
So I started my YouTube channel in 2019.
The first year was pretty difficult.
No, I was making a lot of videos, a lot of content, but the channel was not growing.
And then after one year, It exploded.
Like a lot of people arrived, people were enjoying my content.
And so I started improving my...
the quality of my content, the quality of my videos.
I started offering different content like liturature, blogs, um, also
listening comprehension readers, because I realized that people really enjoy it.
And so...
Sorry to interrupt...people always accuse me of jumping in and not letting
my guests speak but I have to say that, first of all, you would say you
were apologizing for your English.
I just finished speaking with you in Italian, and I can tell you that
your English an awful lot better than my Italian, and we will leave
a link to, um, Francesco's channel so that you can see some of his
material also see our interview.
Second of all, I think the greatest qualification that you have as
a teacher is your enthusiasm.
And I was, um, I visited your channel and when you talk about the
cuisine and, uh, Emilia-Romagna.
You talked about this very old tavern, you know, dating back to the 14th century,
uh, you make my mouth water for not only the food, but for Italian culture
and everything that surrounds Italian.
And I think the best teachers are the ones that can motivate and generate enthusiasm,
curiosity in their, in their students.
And you not only generate that enthusiasm, but you provide them with content
that you, that they can learn from.
So I just wanted to mention that.
Phenomenal what you're doing.
Sorry to interrupt.
Thank you, Steve.
And actually I think that studying a foreign language is not just
about language itself, but it's connected to everything.
The culture leads you to the history and also the food.
Why not?
So that's why everything is included in my videos.
And maybe you heard my, you listen to my last podcast maybe where,
where I mentioned, you know, the, the oldest Osteria in Italy,
which is in my town Ferrara.
And I think I have the privilege of living in a, in an amazing country where
people really can find everything, a beautiful language, beautiful culture,
a love of history uh, good food.
So I need it.
I need to include it in my videos, in what I'm telling people.
So everything is culture.
Everything is part of the learning process of the student.
Absolutely.
I mean, I think back to when I was 17 years old, I was, we had French at school.
I wasn't very interested.
We had a French teacher again in Montreal, all the French teachers were
Anglophones until I got to university.
We had a real live Frenchman and he just turned me on to French culture.
And as a result of that, then I proceeded to learn other languages,
but the role of a teacher primarily to me is someone who can inspire
an interest in the subject, uh, and then, and then feed that, feed that.
And that's exactly, exactly what you're doing.
Uh, so tell me a little bit about the different parts of your, you know, offer.
What are the things...
describe in some detail, your vlogs here, your or vlogs or your, your,
your podcast, your, all the different things that offer your subscribers.
Uh, so when I started my channel, I focused a lot on grammar.
And then, um, I started teaching grammar, but in context, I mean, I
don't start the video saying, okay, let's start with the subjunctive,
the conjugation is blah, blah, blah.
I usually start with like an, like a theme, sometimes a theatrical
theme, like a very fun a fun scene in context where I introduce the
grammatical aspect or whatever.
So the student can start from, uh, authentic or semi-authentic, uh, material.
And from there he can understand the grammatical aspect that
I'm, uh, that I'm explaining.
Right.
But then I said, well, the grammar...
I mean, it's just part of the language.
I mean, it's like an accessory now of the language.
So I said, I need more context.
I need more authentic materials.
So I started vlogs.
So when I'm like in Florence or in Trentino or showing people
around and explaining them what I'm doing, what I'm seeing in Italian.
And then I said, I started reading articles and building like
activities around the articles.
So first, first listening comprehension, and then the second listening
comprehension questions, vocabulary.
And so trying to help students understand on their own, the
meaning of words or, or a specific structure, starting from an article.
And then one year ago I started with literature.
Literature is something that I really love and actually it's, I'm
doing it because I like it because I think it's very interesting.
It's a good way to convey the language to people.
And it's something that I do because I want to learn literature.
It's a compromise, you know, I do it for other people, but I do it for myself
as well because I'm obliged, I'm forced to study and to learn to make videos.
You know, it's interesting in literature because obviously
people have different tastes.
Uh, I'm not into science fiction for example, uh, I personally like
literature from the 19th century.
So I listened to I promessi sposi, which the average Italian school child
hates apparently, but to me it's exotic.
It's it's Italy.
It's far away.
The 16th or 17th century.
So, uh, you know, and that, but then I read Alberto Moravia,
I read one of his books.
Uh, I can't remember the name of it now.
So literature now that the, the advantage of 19th century is that
all the e-books are available free of charge, so we can import them into LingQ.
Uh, we'd pay for the audio book and we've got learning material for a month or two.
Modern literature it's more difficult to do that because of copyright issues.
Uh, when you say literature, like what, what period typically do you
introduce and is it short stories?
Is it full length novels?
Is it poetry?
What is it that you introduce to your learners?
Okay.
I made a video on poetry, but usually it's, um, uh, you said that
you said a word that I forgot...
Short stories?
No.
Yeah.
Like short stories or novels, sorry.
Novels.
Yeah.
Novels from, yes.
From last century.
So 20th century.
I started with Pirandello and then now I'm working on Italo Calvino.
Right.
And so il narrotore has a wonderful collection of audiobooks.
Uh, Pirandello, Italo Calvino, et cetera.
I have them at home.
I have a large collection of audio books produced by il narrotore.
Yeah, there's a lot of content around, but I wanted to, I wanted to offer content
accessible to intermediate students.
Right.
Cause, you know, Pirandello is very difficult to understand
for a student of Italian.
It's difficult for me as well.
Yes.
So I wanted, I wanted, I want it to be accessible to intermediate
students and that's what I'm doing now.
So with Pirandello, Calvino, but I made a video on Goldoni as well
who lived in the 18th century.
So that's the oldest.
So...
but now, I'm focusing on the 19th and 20th century.
You know, just as an aside, one thing that I've found extremely
valuable, uh, in my Persian learning.
So I have a collaborator in Iran who did sort of 26
episodes on the history of Iran.
And after every episode, she has these, what we call circling
questions, where she kind of...
the same vocabulary repeats three times, and the same can be done
for literature and Iranian movies.
Because in every...
in every country, it's not just Italy that has wonderful food and wonderful history.
And so every country has their thing, you know, and very often it's not so
easily, uh, understood or accessed.
And if you get a little bit of a, of a commentary, like from you explaining, and
maybe using the vocabulary more than once.
It then becomes easier to go in and, and, and use these authentic
materials to improve not only our understanding of the culture, but
also our ability in the language.
I think that that's a tremendous thing that you're doing for learners of Italian.
]Thank you, Steve.
Yes, I'm really focusing on, uh, my followers needs, students'
needs, so I listen to them.
I read their comments, I read the emails and I, I try to you know, focus on
answering their questions, their needs.
And I see that they really love literature videos.
They love listening comprehension videos.
So I want to do more of that from now on.
You know, I think it's tremendous too that, that, uh, someone can engage with
you at your channel and tell you what they want, what they like, what they
don't like, what they understand, what they don't understand and get a response.
If you buy a textbook, that's all you got, you got the textbook.
You can't ask the textbook anything, or even if you buy a novel, but many of these
language books, there's nothing there.
They're just a lot of exercises.
And...
whereas the kind of service that is increasingly becoming available
via the internet from people like yourselves, yourself, is this
ability to interact with people and, uh, indicates what the needs are.
And then for a person like you then to respond to those needs, I think it's a,
it's a new world of language learning.
So, um, I, can we, is there something we should say at the end
here to summarize this discussion?
Certainly I'm going to leave all the links in the description.
And, uh, Italian is such a beautiful language to learn.
My son, Mark, is very keen on Italian, is learning italian or working on Italian.
He played hockey in Asiago by the way, uh, 20 years ago, uh,
for the, he played professional hockey in Europe for 10 years.
And one of the places he was is Asiagi.
And so he's a great fan of Italian.
Um, but, uh, is there anything that, so we'll leave all those links, but is there
anything you would like to leave our listeners with about, uh, about Italian?
Well, uh, what I'd like to say is that learning Italian, as I said before, it's
not just about learning the language, not only learning the grammar, but
to really immerse in the language in the, in the culture and everything.
So that's why I've created Vaporetto Italiano.
I really want people to watch a video and feel like they are in
Italy or really part of the country.
Sounds like a good idea.
And it's a great name by the way, Vaporetto Italiano.
Very clever name.
I almost feel like I'm in Venice.
Okay.
Well, Francesco, thank you very much for this interview and I hope
we stimulate some people to come to your site and to learn Italian.
Thank you.
Ciao.
Thank you for having me, ciao Steve
I enjoyed it.
Thank you.
B-bye.