Noa Parisi
University of Turin, Italy

 I’m Noa Parisi and I’m a first-year Italian student from Turin University. I have been studying Japanese for several years and I’m currently studying it. Studying a foreign language at university can provide you with the theoretical basis for learning a language, but putting it into practice is another story. In fact, during this Summer Program I have learned many new things that I could never learn in textbooks! That’s why I decided to attend SU Summer Program and I think it was one of the best experiences of my life! Initially I had a lot of thoughts that made me doubt myself such as “Can I do it? Did I make the right choice? What if I can’t do it? Will it be difficult?” but I believed in myself, so don’t let fear hold you back!

 The Program is a full immersion experience in the Japanese language and in the Japanese lifestyle, thanks to extracurricular activities. Although it was an online course due to Covid-19 pandemic and the lessons were always at 6 A.M. (Europe time zone), the classes were very fun and interesting and the teachers were very kind and caring. I had the chance to learn not only new things about Japan and Japanese, but also about many other countries! In fact, during the classes I had the opportunity to make new friends with other international students from all over the world and with many SU Japanese students too!

 My Japanese skills have improved exponentially since I attended the summer course and today I have the chance not only to speak Japanese every day with students, but this also encouraged me to plan a future trip to Japan, to study Japanese at Saitama University and meet my new friends! I would recommend this Summer Program to anyone!