3/28/17 · Institutional

"We do not choose a language, rather the language chooses us and we fall under its spell"

Stella Firinu , lawyer and Italian student at the UOC

 

Stella is a 44-year-old Italian from Sardinia in love with the Catalan language. She heard it for the first time six years ago on her first visit to Barcelona. At that time she did not even know it existed, but it was love at “first hearing”, she recalls. So much so that she decided to learn it by teaching herself and listening to Catalunya Ràdio online. Today, she speaks and writes it with a skill that impresses everyone. In fact, she explains that she always writes in Catalan! Stella is very restless: she works for the Government of the Autonomous Region of Sardinia, the equivalent of the Government of Catalonia, follows courses on the Bachelor's Degree in Catalan Language and Literature, has created a football school and has written 650 articles for a digital diary on Catalan politics. She is now working on a novel that she is writing, naturally, in Catalan.

 

Stella is a 44-year-old Italian from Sardinia in love with the Catalan language. She heard it for the first time six years ago on her first visit to Barcelona. At that time she did not even know it existed, but it was love at “first hearing”, she recalls. So much so that she decided to learn it by teaching herself and listening to Catalunya Ràdio online. Today, she speaks and writes it with a skill that impresses everyone. In fact, she explains that she always writes in Catalan! Stella is very restless: she works for the Government of the Autonomous Region of Sardinia, the equivalent of the Government of Catalonia, follows courses on the Bachelor's Degree in Catalan Language and Literature, has created a football school and has written 650 articles for a digital diary on Catalan politics. She is now working on a novel that she is writing, naturally, in Catalan.

How was your first contact with the Catalan language?

If I can speak Catalan now it is thanks to a police officer. During my first trip to Barcelona my bag was stolen, I reported it to the Catalan police and the person who attended me spoke a language that was not Spanish. It was love at first hearing! With Catalan, not the officer. And this was the starting point on a path that has taken me here.

How long did it take you to learn our language?

When I returned from that first trip, already irremediably captivated, I began listening to Catalunya Ràdio online. At first I couldn't understand a word, but gradually I began to grasp whole sentences. A year later I found the online course parla.cat and within six months I had reached level C1. It is easy to learn something you like.

“It is easy to learn
something you like”
 

Every language has its associated melody. What, for you, is Catalan's melody?

As I said, for me Catalan is the language of the heart and cannot have an associated melody as it is melody itself. I was captivated by its musicality and could spend hours listening to someone speaking it. By the way, there is a song I could mention: “Benvolgut”, by the band Manel. When I learnt to sing it without getting muddled up I could also say, “I speak Catalan”.

Italian is the language of work and the day to day, while Catalan is my language... I would venture to say “oneiric”, the language of another part of me, the dreamy and creative me. In this language I only need to let my thoughts flow and my fingers type, and I never know what might emerge, depending on my mood. Last year, for example, I wrote a satirical book about Barcelona municipal politics and now, while awaiting the second volume of this text – I already have a thousand pages of notes stored away – I have a half-written novel and the project for a manual on tax law.

“Last year, I wrote a satirical book about Barcelona
municipal politics” 
 

How did you come to enrol at the UOC?

A friend told me about it when I mentioned I wanted to learn something about journalism. He explained that at the UOC I could take only the courses that interested me. And for the last year I have been taking open courses at the UOC, all related to language and communication. As I got my PhD in Law twenty years ago, I now have the freedom to study only what excites me. I am a great believer in the so-called “usefulness of the useless”.

You are part of the international community of this University. Do you feel welcome?

So welcome that I can say that the UOC has become an addiction. I feel at home in this community. In fact, despite the possibility, as a foreigner, of doing the final tests online, I always take the opportunity to spend a few days in Barcelona and utterly immerse myself in this university environment that is so cosmopolitan and modern.

Do you feel that you learn with this online education model, which has been internationally awarded on several occasions? What would you highlight?

I certainly do. The educational methodology is unique and it makes things seem easy even when they are not. When I studied Law in Italy all I knew was that I had to study thousands of pages for each exam, but without a method. Everyone had to find their own path and many students fell by the wayside. The UOC gives you the method and allows you to apply your knowledge as you learn.

“The educational methodology
is unique and it makes
things seem easy even
when they are not”
 

Why do you choose courses on the Bachelor's Degree in Catalan Language and Literature without having ever lived in Catalonia?

A language belongs to anyone who feels it as their own, who lives it, even from a distance. Following a chain of unpredictable and curious events, I chose Catalan as my language of the heart and still see it that way. After all, we do not choose a language, rather the language chooses us and we fall under its spell.

Do you often come to Catalonia?

Since I have been studying with the UOC, I come two or three times a year. When I do, I avoid the tourist places. I must be the only foreigner who has been to Barcelona and has never seen the Sagrada Família. In contrast, I love going to neighbourhoods where I can speak Catalan and enjoy normal life, go out with friends I have been lucky enough to meet over these years, participate in a political event, etc.

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