Italian is not a practical language, like English, but it is a language in which it is possible to find or discover the roots of the world around us.
Seven tips
ONE As I have already written in the article "Learning Italian is easier than you think". The most appropriate approach is to attend a language course in Italy.
Objections:
- I have no time.
- I have a family.
- I do not have money.
Surely our life leaves us little free time. It seems a paradox, but it is reality. We already try to cut off moments from our daily commitments for our psychophysical balance: a little bit of gymnastics, reading, a walk in the park, a hop downtown or cultivating a hobby, ... good! These are wellness pills.
But blowing off some steam is another thing.
A small test. Read the three questions below and do not answer right away! Read them and think about them for a while, even a few days. There is no hurry.
Often the real causes are not those declared. At the root of all is the fact that most of us are connected to a mechanism from which we cannot detach ourselves. It is a form of addiction, basically, with a little touch of laziness.
Why don’t you get out of the cycle?
Let's do ourselves some good and have a study trip. Come to Rome to visit the eternal city and learn while having fun at our school. You will go home re-energized, much more serene and more Italian, because you will know the Italian language and culture better.
TWO "Lessons of Italian on Skype" is an interesting opportunity for those who are far away, but want to start or continue to study Italian with professional mother tongue teachers.
They are 45 minute lessons via Skype. You can choose a schedule between 13.30 and 17.00, Italian time, from Monday to Friday. For other requests, contact one of our secretaries. Lessons must be booked at least one week in advance and can be canceled 24 hours in advance.
THREE After you have decided when to come, you can start working from home by yourself. There are books, grammar, etc. But, more simply, a computer is enough. I wrote what to do to learn Italian on the Internet in several articles that you can find on this site, but the first thing to listen a lot. Careful, the aim is not understanding, but listening. If you are a beginner, listen in the same way as you listen to a piece of music, feel "the music" of Italian. Slowly, while you are listening, scattered words will pop up, then you will understand small sentences and then you will understand more and more. But this progress can only be achieved if you listen a lot.
In particular I suggest that beginners start reading the article "Alphabet, numbers, clock" and continue with "Listen to Italian songs". In these articles I show you what to listen to and how. For those who are more advanced there is the article "Audiobooks".
The usual objections are: learning in this way is difficult, we do not understand at all or only in part, grammar is more important, ...
Keep calm, and try to expose yourself to a lot of spontaneous language spoken by the Italians.
It is very important to know and understand that:
Regarding lack of time, you can download songs and/or audiobooks and listen to them on your phone, with a headset in “downtime”, i.e. on the train or on the bus or in the car or riding your bike going to work, while jogging in a park, walking your dog, or while cooking…
FOUR Obviously the same is true for reading. Look at the articles "Major Italian online newspapers" and "Read an online story", which tell you where to find material and how to deal with it. And then you can read the articles which talk about culture, history, cuisine, etymology, traditions and curiosities about Italy.
For both reading and listening, it is useful to read the article "Quotidiani.net", which will guide you through this interesting website where you can access a large number of newspapers, radio and TV channels.
FIVE Writing is also very important. The article "Diary" , based on experiments carried out by our teachers, explains what, how and to whom to write. It gives excellent results if you have the patience and perseverance to follow the instructions necessary to do the activity. As I said before, learning a language is an exercise with patience.
SIX Cultivate a hobby in Italian. We all have some kind of interest or passion, for example stamps, animals, sport, cooking, do-it-yourself, embroidery, fabric cutting, sewing, horticulture and gardening, motorcycles and cars, bottle caps ... we can look for websites in Italian that deal with what we are interested in. Surely you will find a great deal of videos or written material for any topic.
SEVEN Sometimes in the evening after a day of work, or on a rainy Sunday, or curled up on the couch with the flu, the only thing we feel like doing is watching a movie. Well, on YouTube there are several films with subtitles. We can start with movies in the original language with subtitles in Italian and then Italian ones with subtitles in Italian. The same thing can be done with rented or purchased videos, but make sure they include subtitling in Italian. They are an interesting and pleasant way to approach the Italian language.
These are seven possibilities to learn Italian, all widely tested. The key for a successful outcome are: a lot of practice and a lot of patience.
Aristotle said: "We are what we do repeatedly. Therefore excellence is not an action, but a habit"
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