{"id":20747,"date":"2026-07-15T11:37:31","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T15:37:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/?p=20747"},"modified":"2026-07-15T11:41:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T15:41:24","slug":"from-albania-to-italy-how-language-brought-me-closer-to-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/from-albania-to-italy-how-language-brought-me-closer-to-family\/","title":{"rendered":"From Albania to Italy: How Language Brought Me Closer to Family"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tItalian Translation<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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By Angela Pepkolaj<\/strong><\/span><\/p>

My love for Italy and the Italian language began from a family trip when I was about 14\u00a0 in Genova, Italy. My family and I still lived in Albania and we went to visit my aunt in Italy. I\u00a0 couldn\u2019t stop smiling. I was so excited. Our first few days there were incredible. We ate the best\u00a0 food from different kinds of pasta to endless pizzas. There was a small pizza place near our\u00a0 house th<\/span>at we used to eat from every other day. My uncle\u2019s specialty dish was Carbonara pasta.\u00a0 The creamy pasta stole everyone’ s heart and that\u2019s where I knew I loved Italian culture. <\/span><\/p>

It felt so\u00a0 similar to Albanian culture, everyone getting together for meals, watching our favorite <\/span>shows\u00a0 together or cheerin<\/span>g on the same soccer team or watching Formula U<\/span>no felt so warming. I mean,\u00a0 we do the same in Albania but being able to do it with a different culture in a different country\u00a0 was special. The food and the holidays brought us all together. I remember growing up and my\u00a0 younger cousins couldn\u2019t speak Albanian, only Italian. They would talk together and I\u00a0 sometimes felt left out that I couldn\u2019t understand them. Studying Italian at Brandeis has helped\u00a0 me be <\/span>closer to my Italian side of the family and now, we make annual trips to the Liguria and\u00a0 Toscana regions and I am able to understand and speak for myse<\/span>lf<\/span> in a country that feels like a\u00a0 second home. \"\"<\/span><\/p>

Angela Pepkolaj is a student at Brandeis University and received the The Claire Gaudiani Memorial Fellowship<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Italian Translation By Angela Pepkolaj My love for Italy and the Italian language began from a family trip when I was about 14\u00a0 in Genova, Italy. My family and I…Read More <\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20752,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[88],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20747"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20747"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20777,"href":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20747\/revisions\/20777"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/italianlanguagefoundation.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}