yesterday my boyfriend mid-conversation was like, hey have you noticed you only use hand gestures when you speak italian? I never see you use them when you speak english it& #39;s adorable. and i was like uh yeah i know i& #39;ve put loads of effort into studying how they& #39;re seen as (1/4)

a natural and significant component of spoken communication in italy and it& #39;s taken me years of silently watching and memorising how certain gestures are used with specific phrases in particular situations by different people to get to the point where i can now incorporate (2/4)

them into my own speech. and he was like oh … i assumed you’d just sort of … picked it up without realising. and in my head i thought wow this is a great example of how a fluent speaker might be totally unaware of aspects of their language that constitute significant (3/4)

challenge to the learner and might therefore require explicit teaching and learning. totally unaware, even when the speaker and learner have been in a close relationship for over three years and regularly have in-depth conversations about language learning. so there& #39;s that. (4/4)