I was born in Sicily — a land of volcanoes, citrus fruits, the sea, and millennia-old art — and I lived there for many years.

In the small town where I grew up, it was rare to see anyone who wasn’t local. However, destiny revealed my greatest inclination to me very early on.

I was about seven years old when my father came home for lunch one day and brought me one of my very first DVDs, titled "A World of Fairy Tales," which contained twenty stories from around the world, in Italian and Japanese. It was my first real experience with a foreign language, since videotapes — still widely used at that time — were monolingual. Even though I didn’t understand anything, I found it fascinating to listen to other forms of human language, and I was so happy to be able to relive that experience whenever I wanted. Soon came other DVDs, then the computer, and everything that followed.
With curiosity, I explored many languages to hear their sounds and grasp their essence — something that went beyond rational logic — and each time, I was captivated: Japanese, Chinese, English, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Hebrew, Russian, Danish…

At the age of eight, I began to notice the barriers that prevented communication between people, and the discomfort they caused.
One day, our teachers took us to play in the school courtyard. There, I saw a Chinese girl walking arm in arm with two Italian girls. Her face looked sad, almost inconsolable — she seemed alone even though she wasn’t physically alone. The three girls were silent, bound by a silence imposed by the language barrier.
The other children behaved differently toward her: some tried to help but couldn’t, others teased her, and still others looked at her as if she were an alien. I felt very sorry for her.
In that moment, I felt a fire inside me — a strong desire to help her and many others facing the same struggles. I was aware that I couldn’t change the actions of others, but I thought: “One day I’ll do something to help them — I’ll teach them Italian, so they can freely express their needs, thoughts, and feelings.”

But going back to that moment… not long after, I saw the Chinese girl alone in the middle of the courtyard, standing still and looking around in confusion. I went up to her, greeted her two or three times, and with naive insistence kept greeting her, telling her my name and asking for hers — but she didn’t reply, turning her face away each time. Meanwhile, an Italian girl ran up to her and took her away, casting me a wary glance. That was the last time I saw her. She probably stopped attending school, as often happened with other foreign children who rarely stayed long in our area.
Over the years, I saw many people of all ages struggle with the inability to communicate, but the memory of that Chinese girl in the school courtyard remained the most vivid of all. I still had to wait — there was nothing I could do but keep that great desire alive in my heart.

In 2012, by choice, I began studying German, and I fell in love with it. In a rather unfriendly environment that rarely allowed me to interact directly with native speakers (except for a few rare occasions), I managed to reach level B1 in a short time through self-study. I didn’t like English at school at all and was terrible at it — everything felt flat and like a heavy duty. Only later, in 2014, did I discover the joy of learning it, but that’s another story 😉.
In 2015, with my new little smartphone, I joined two language-exchange platforms and opened myself to the world beyond Italy’s borders. During that time, I met many people my age — young people like me who lived in other parts of the world. With some of them, real friendships were born. We mainly shared emotions and personal stories, which became the driving force behind our desire to communicate and overcome the language barrier. This naturally led us to share languages and cultures, to ask questions and satisfy each other’s curiosity.
Among the people I met over the years, I especially remember Nang (from Myanmar), Stephen (from Canada), Niklas (from Germany), and from China: Zhengbai, Shaoxiang, Xingbo, Yilin, Jianxiong, Yujie, and Zeyu — some of whom are still in my life today.

This intense, daily experience of emotional and linguistic-cultural exchange — which lasted about seven years — led me to create, test, and refine a teaching and learning method based on real experience: on what it truly means to come into contact with a language, to get to know it, and to gradually absorb it. These valuable experiences, and everything I’ve shared so far, form the foundation of “La Bussola Italiana” (The Italian Compass) — the name I gave to my way of being, acting, and teaching.
In 2023, I officially began teaching. However, I still continue my study and language-exchange activities, and very often, friendships grow between me and my students — which is truly wonderful!

P.S. Before that, I had also tried other jobs — selling travel packages, smartphones, computers, and accessories 😂 — but no matter what I did, I always ended up acting like some kind of teacher or guide.

Over time, besides working, all I did was dive into language learning and talk with my friends around the world, helping them learn 🤷🏻‍♂️✌🏻️ — simply irresistible! 

A major source of inspiration:
My grandfather, Edoardo, was a master pastry chef (who had passionately learned German when he was young). He often told me: “Learning a new language means gaining a new personality.” He was right! He encouraged me to speak other languages, telling me that doing so would enrich my worth.

Through my personal experience, I’ve come to understand that “a language is much more than a collection of words and grammatical rules; it is the imprint of a culture, shaped by the events that have molded a people over time. Each language is a way of expressing our emotions from a different perspective, based on a unique essence — one we can only grasp by immersing ourselves completely and letting our soul resonate with it.”

There are countless languages and cultures in the world, and nearly eight billion people. We are all equal and part of a single whole connected to nature. It’s a pity to give up on interacting with one another.
Of course, we can’t learn all the languages in the world, but we can add one or two to the one we were born speaking.
Interacting with others is wonderful — it shapes us deeply and enhances our awareness of ourselves and of life itself.
Yes, in recent years we’ve had translators, and now even artificial intelligence, which is amazing — but direct human interaction makes everything beautifully magical and unforgettable!