Luca Mandotti

Musician, Student, Writer/Editor

Currently in my Senior Year, I have been attending "Liceo Classico S. Weil" (high school/grammar school) in Treviglio since September 2019, reading Classics (Latin and Ancient Greek) at GCSE and GCE level. Since August 2020, I have been working on various podcasting projects ("Battibecco: il podcast", "Green Heroes Podcast") as a composer, audio-technician, and, since June 2022, as a director. Driven by my deep curiosity for languages, I started to learn English at 6 and I got my CAE (C1 Advanced Certificate) in 2022. Moreover, I took French classes in middle school and I am still studying it by myself. When I began high school, I cultivated an interest in ancient Greek, which allowed me to learn also Modern Greek.

Culture, Languages, Linguistics, Music, Arts, Politics

It is essential, in my opinion, that languages, whether ancient or modern, should not be taught as mere systems of grammar rules, but rather as a way of sharing concepts, ideas and feelings. Young students, who obviously don't know anything about linguistics and all its related fields, are often told to follow so-called linguistic principles, which are actually rules that teachers have been learning for almost a century and that are of course out of any scientific concept in linguistics. A clear example of this can be found in Latin and ancient Greek classes, where students deal with grammar and translation as if they were to spot any single rule or pattern rather than as if they were to understand why the message was shaped in that way and how it can be conveyed in another language. Which is not clearly the aim of learning a language.

Classics, Languages, Music, Podcasting