Introductions

(28-12-2010, 16:54)Farseer Ha scritto:  One thing I have discovered about people who don't have English as their first language is that they tend to be far more talented with it than those of us who do have it as our native tongue...and I am sure you will all prove to be the same. In fact, from what I have seen already, I think your written skills are amazing and easily surpass my own !

You're very kind with us, really! Thanks! I don't believe this is true, but it's a good motivation to improve our skills

Where are you from exactly? What's your name?




marco

(28-12-2010, 16:54)Farseer Ha scritto:  Many thanks too, to all of you, for your kind and warm welcomes! One thing I have discovered about people who don't have English as their first language is that they tend to be far more talented with it than those of us who do have it as our native tongue...

and we italians complain us because we doesn't know the foreign languages...

Welcome on board!

The man From the boiler room give you the welcome, Farseer, hoping to see (read) you often.

(28-12-2010, 21:40)Umbra Ha scritto:  

(28-12-2010, 16:54)Farseer Ha scritto:  In fact, from what I have seen already, I think your written skills are amazing and easily surpass my own !

You're very kind with us, really! Thanks! I don't believe this is true, but it's a good motivation to improve our skills

It's true ! I think those of us with English as our native tongue tend to get somewhat lazy with following correct writing conventions and use of grammar etc. Others who are still learning seem to adhere more closely to them, obviously out of need, so their written skills come across as superior at times.

(28-12-2010, 21:40)Umbra Ha scritto:  Where are you from exactly? What's your name?

My name is Annette (though I am considering changing it to Farseer !) and I live on a 135 000 acre cattle station in Outback Queensland. If you have a look on a map of Australia and find Queensland, I am about midway between Mount Isa and Townsville. The closest town is approximately seventy kilometres away and it has a population of about eight hundred, and this includes all people in the town as well as the surrounding stations and properties (most commonly, and incorrectly, termed as "farms") within the shire. While I am geographically isolated, there are many others to the far north and far west who are much more isolated.

Still, living in such isolation makes going to school difficult so I have spent the last thirteen years teaching and supervising my three children's educations through a School of Distance Education/School of the Air. This entails doing lessons at home and only speaking to a teacher situated 400kms away via a HF radio for about thirty minutes each day, or via telephone/computer lessons as we do these days.

Where do you all live within Italy? Are you all native Italians?

I have never been outside of Australia previously but I will be travelling overseas to Europe in April next year. Sadly, it will not be to Italy, nor at any convenient time that will coincide with Robin's visits to France, Belguim etc !

(29-12-2010, 02:49)Farseer Ha scritto:  Where do you all live within Italy? Are you all native Italians?

Wow, Australia! I was born 29 years ago in Rome, the capital of Italy, and I still live here!

P.S.: I'm sorry for my bad english!

Hello and welcome back, Annette!

I must confess I have immediately opened Google Maps to look at Queensland and find where you live... I was burning with curiosity! Well, it seems really isolated but nevertheless it must be a fascinating place. Since I was a child I have been intrigued by the immense and wild and beautiful lands of Australia, so much so that I spontaneously wrote a 150-pages essay on your country when I was 13 :-)

Things like schools of distance education sound strange to Italian people. Distances between our villages are not big as yours, but in Southern Italy road links are so much bad that sometimes distance learning would be really welcome! I was born in Southern Italy, indeed, and exactly in Calabria on the Ionian Sea, but I had to move to a northern city, Bologna, to attend the university and I still live there.
Like you I have never go abroad... too much cats at home to take care of!

It's a pity that you won't visit Italy next year! Where will you go, instead?
We had the pleasure to meet Robin in June, what a wonderful experience! If you like to watch some videos and photos of the book tour, you can click on "Album" in the upper grey bar. I myself often open the Album because I still can't believe it was not a collective dream! :-)))

(29-12-2010, 02:49)Farseer Ha scritto:  I live on a 135 000 acre cattle station in Outback Queensland. If you have a look on a map of Australia and find Queensland, I am about midway between Mount Isa and Townsville. The closest town is approximately seventy kilometres away and it has a population of about eight hundred, and this includes all people in the town as well as the surrounding stations and properties (most commonly, and incorrectly, termed as "farms") within the shire. While I am geographically isolated, there are many others to the far north and far west who are much more isolated.

*_* ... wow
Sorry for my bad and poor english.
I have born and live in Palermo, Sicily
My mother have been three times in Australia and she always talk about the places she visited as the most amazing naturalistic places where she have gone.
I hope to make me able to say the same one day.
I'm vary happy to know someone living so far sharing our same passion for Hobb's books.

Annette, your post is amazing! Distances and spaces like those you are writing about are very strange for us! Strange and appealing. I'm sure your lifestyle is very different from mine, less spoiled by pollution and technology.

I'm from Sicily too, but my city is Messina. It isn't a small city (it has a population of about 245,000 inhabitants) and I live in front of the sea.

I've been outside of Italy several times, mostly to Europe. I've many friends who visited Australia (near Messina there are some islands, Eolian Islands, from where many workers had left to Australia in the past - so they have cousins and other relatives in your country) and I hope to visit it in the future.




marco

What a beautiful place should be where you live!
I'm very fascinated by Australia, every time I hear about it, I'd like to visit the places. I hope to travel there one day
I'm thinking about our lifestyle should be different! It seems incredible.

I'm native Italian too, I was born and still live in Rimini, a town in the Center-North of Italy, on the East Coast. So I live near the sea but anything like the beautiful beaches in Australia


PS: I'm sorry for my bad English. It's just good that I can understand what you are meaning