With my semester abroad in Seville, Spain, coming to a close, I’m pleased to say that my Spanish has improved to the point where I’m finally able to express myself without wildly gesticulating at things. So, now that I’ve cleared the low bar of successfully maintaining conversations in Spain, I’m going to be spending the summer in — wait for it — Italy.

As of now, I can easily count the total number of Italian words I know. And I can count the number of Italian words I am actually capable of pronouncing on two hands. The idea of starting over, transplanting to a new place and learning a language from scratch is daunting, but when I was presented with the tremendous opportunity, it seemed just too good to pass up, even though I almost did.

When a friend told me about a family who was looking for an English-speaking au pair to spend two months with them in Marsala, a town on the coast of Sicily, I initially dismissed the offer completely. After all, I had internships to pursue, classes to take, plans to follow. But, after finding myself sighing over pictures of Marsala’s beaches on Google images and after receiving three internship rejection emails in one day (there should be an inbox filter to guard against such things), I started to picture what my life could be like as an au pair in Sicily, and I liked what I saw. After that, I let the inertia of my excitement make the decision for me. Within a few weeks, I had spoken with the family, turned down a couple of unpaid internships and booked my flight to Sicily.

So, next up: learn Italian. A challenge, it would be fair to say, I probably underestimated.

One of my Italian friends who lives in Seville, Carmelina, asked me if I would be interested in doing a language exchange with her. Though we had previously only spoken in Spanish to each other, I eagerly accepted. Admittedly, the arrangement is a little unwieldy at times, what with me teaching English pronouns in my broken Spanish and Carmelina explaining Italian verb conjugations in her very good Spanish, but on the whole it has turned out to be a helpful exercise for us both.

In our first session, for example, I learned how to avoid a common pitfall.

In Italian, anni pronounced with a heavy emphasis on the “n” sound, means “years.” “As in, “I have 21 anni.” However, ani, which is pronounced with a slightly shorter “n” sound, means “a–h—.” There are countless such peculiarities in all languages, but in Italian especially, the pronunciation can make or break the meaning of a phrase, and the impression you make.

This summer, my job in Sicily will involve watching the family’s three children and speaking English with them to help them improve, so technically I’m not required to learn Italian. However, my personal goal is to improve to the point so that when I do have the chance to introduce myself, I can at least avoid telling people that I have 21 a–h—-. A low bar indeed.

Laura Wagner is a rising senior in the College and a former sports editor of The Hoya. The Au Pair Diaries appears every other Monday at thehoya.com.