In this learning Italian series on ItalyChronicles.com you will find a tips on how to learn Italian and on how to improve your Italian.
To get the most out of Italy it helps enormously if you know how to speak Italian. Knowing conversational Italian can help your vacation in Italy go smoothly, help you avoid being ripped off in restaurants and even help you find a job. And, of course, you will be able to make Italian friends, meet new people and get the most out of Italy.
The trouble is that learning Italian is not that easy and can be a slow process. While I can speak and read Italian reasonably well, my written Italian is still no great shakes. For the vast majority of those who want to learn Italian, being able to form a few sentences and understand replies is the first big step – learning to write in Italian is something to focus on later, if you want to, although many may never need to.
Here is tip one:
Learning Italian Tip Number One
1. Be patient with yourself.
Learning Italian can be a slow process, especially if you are not as young as you once were. Unless you are very lucky, you will hit a wall of frustration from time to time.
Maybe Italian pronunciation trips you up, of you cannot remember the Italian word for ‘x’,’y’ or whatever. Or those complex Italian verbs have you tying yourself in knots – this happened to me until someone pointed out that most Italian verbs are not as complex as they seem at first sight – provided you know a little something. What? I’m not going to tell you in this how to tip, but will reveal it in a future post on how to learn Italian.
In the meantime, be gentle with yourself. Don’t worry if your progress seems very slow. Don’t go around saying,’I’ll never be able to learn Italian’!
As a general rule, frustration can be a good sign that your Italian is improving. While I am not certain why this is, at a guess I’d say it was because as you knowledge of Italian grows, you try to use more complex expressions often without realizing it. If you get these more advanced new phrases and words wrong, you become frustrated and annoyed. Really it is your progress which leads to yout frustration.
If you make a mess of some Italian phrase or another, don’t get frustrated and angry. Sit back and tell yourself to be patient and remember that ‘frustration equals progress‘!
Patience is a virtue and is a great asset for those trying to learn Italian.
See also:
And Italian language learners should find these articles interesting too:
How about doing an Italian course in Tuscany? Try here:
Give a Learning Italian Tip and Get a Link!
What’s your favorite tip for learning Italian? Leave a comment and the best tips will become new posts – along with credit to the person who suggested the tip and a link to the person’s blog or website.
Suggest away!
Looking for an Italian Course?
The Pimsleaur approach to learning Italianis widely appreciated and may well help you learn Italian.
Find out more on Pimsleaur Italian courses, and read the comments on this Italian course by going to Amazon.com here:
If you do buy a course, do not give up – the more frustrated you feel, the more progress you are making!
S. E. says
I really like the idea of listening to Italian Radio online. Does anyone have a suggestion of specific station to listen to?
I found the following clip of “Tototruffa 62” on Youtube. It has English subtitles, and I thought I would share this just in case it is helpful to others.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FbT7-TZAcI
Phoenix Language School says
Hi, everyone if you want learn Italian. Please visit http://www.letutor.com.
Here you can learn Italian as well as other foreign languages.
Thanks
(Give me feedback on this service, if you like – had to edit comment to make the English more respectable – Alex Roe – BlogfromItaly.com)
Marina says
Hello everyone,
I am glad to see all of you interested in learning Italian! I would like to invite to have a look at this:http://learnonholiday.blogspot.com/
It might be an opportunity for a few of you who are very committed to the aim….while enjoying holiday!
Good luck with your studies!
Marina
LindyLouMac says
It looks like this going to be a popular and useful feature on your blog during 2011, thanks Alex.
I certainly agree with listening to Italian in the background. I nearly always have an Italian radio station playing when I am on the computer. I also need to keep up to date to get ideas for my Sunday Song!
Alex Roe says
Hi LindyLouMac,
I hope this series is going to help a few people get to grips with learning Italian – and, for that matter, other languages, even if the focus is on Italian.
Listening to Italian in the background is all part of the exposure thing – it helps surround you with the language and functions as a form of passive learning which reinforces the more active approaches. It’s logical too when you think about how children learn to speak.
Good luck with that Sunday song!”
Ciao,
Alex
Lee says
Hi Alex,
Excellent tip! You’ve really identified a key point in learning a language that’s often overlooked. Language learners definitely hit a plateau in seeing progress and it can be so frustrating, once you’ve gone beyond the basics.
That’s certainly been the case for me. One of my Italian friends meets me with regularly to help me practice and learn more advance grammar points (subjective – when the heck do I use that?) Anyway, she pointed out recently that now, when I’m complaining about my lack of progress with the grammar and how slow it’s going, I’m at least speaking in Italian while complaining about it. Cute. And that’s your point, right – the progress is always happening, it’s just harder to see it for yourself when you’re used to having those little victories, that are easier to spot, at the early stages of learning a language ( (e.g. I was able to order my coffee *and* talk to the barrista about the weather today, all in Italian – woohoo!)
–Lee
Alex Roe says
Hi Lee,
Glad you found the tip useful.
Sounds as if you are experiencing the frustration equals progress thing – as your Italian friend has noticed.
And yes, that is my point – progress is always happening – provided you do something. Stop being proactive and you’ll experience frustration too – but it won’t have anything to do with progress, it’ll be the result of having to cover the same old ground again.
“I was able to order my coffee *and* talk to the barrista about the weather today, all in Italian – woohoo!” – a good example of progress – you are well on the way.
As for the ‘subjunctive’, I think you mean, try this: http://italian.about.com/od/verbs/a/italian-verbs-present-subjunctive-tense.htm – the use is common in Italian, even if Italians don’t always both with it. Actually, it’s not the most logical of grammatical structures, and the meaning does not change if you use the present tense, as Italians often do, instead of the subjunctive form: ‘Credo che tu abbia ragione’ – ‘I believe you are right’ – with subjunctive ‘abbia’ after ‘che’ and ‘Credo che tu hai ragione’ – exactly the same meaning, but grammatically wrong in Italian.
Keep on chipping away – you’ll get there!
Ciao,
Alex
Lee says
Hi Alex,
Thanks for the link for the subjunctive – I have been doing drills with a friend of mine (with grammar explanations all in Italian on the sheets she gives me). I long for those days when I could judge my progress by those “barista moments, though” – then, it was just a matter of successfully remembering the right vocabulary and pronunciation, not whether or not the verb form is subjunctive after “spero che” based on the subject of the following clause. Aack. Ah well – I used to teach English grammar, so I should be used to grammar issues, but it’s different when you’re trying to master it in another language. 😉 You’re right, though – as long as you keep trying in a language, you’re always making progress.
Thanks again for the posts with these language learning tips – great fun!
Lee
Laurel says
Alex:
I have been studying for almost two years, and while I am still not anywhere near fluent, I can get along in Italy and did so quite well during a recent trip. I combine classes (good dose of grammar and writing) with podcasts (My Daily Phrase Italian is excellent), watched movies, had imaginary conversations like Alan (I thought I was mad but so glad to have company in that), and now I am also listening to Pimsleur in the car. I find the combination of techniques useful, and I don’t beat myself up. Just try to spend 10 or 15 minutes a day, plus take some classes. Learning pronunciation is key, and if you can master the few rules in Italian — there are fewer odd rules than in English — you will make a good impression. I used to think I’d never get numbers or time, and now that is almost second nature to myself.
After that ramble, here’s my real tip: practice saying numbers to yourself as you drive and see signs. 45 mile per hour is “quarantacinque”; 21st Street is “ventuno,” and so on. Learn a few key dates (like your birthday including year) so those more complicated numbers becoem familiar. Same with time. Start telling time to yourself in Italian. Very useful when consulting locals on train schedules in Italy!
Ciao! Laurel
Alex Roe says
Hi Laurel,
Sounds as if you are doing the right things! I wish my Italian students who are studying English put the same amount of effort into their studies, but that’s another story!
Anyway, you seem to live by the little and often rule – which is good. Getting pronunciation right does help – both in terms of being understood and understanding – if you know the pronunciation you can understand the same word when it is spoken to you.
Again, like Alan above, your numerical tip is good – it’s another thing which conditions the brain into thinking spontaneously in Italian and helping you throw off the tendency to translate. The more repetition the better and driving, as long as you don’t forget to concentrate on the road, is as good a time as any to get some practice in.
You can extend the numbers to naming – in your head, as if you are reading, as many of the objects as you can see around you. Once you can name plenty of objects, start to describe your surroundings – again in your head. You can take this a stage further with that imaginary conversation by asking yourself and answering questions. It’s all grist to the mill and you may well end up surprising yourself in a ‘real’ conversation – as those words flow out without you having to think about them – which as you can imagine will help you become fluent. Being in Italy does help, and classes will help too.
All this does take time – so be patient and remember that frustration may well be a sign of progress!
Happy learning!
A presto,
Alex
Alan Eustace says
I’ll jump in so. This tip is more of a supplementary one to aid learning passively, as opposed to the core active learning activities that we all tend to follow.
The tip: I’ve found it very helpful as part of my overall approach for learning Italian is to listen to Italian radio online, as much as possible.
If you work in a job where you can listen to internet radio, this is perfect. But you can also listen to online radio at home through your computer speakers. Failing that, there are lots of sources of podcasts in Italian which you can transfer to your MP3 player of choice and listen to either in the car or when out and about.
I’ve found that by listening to Italian as much as possible, even just in the background, my aural understanding has developed much more quickly than it would have otherwise. I also find I absorb the pronunciation and rhythm of Italian speech much more readily.
An added bonus is that when you go to Italy, you will feel at home when you hear songs on the radio that you know, or see stores or companies whose advertising you’ve heard online. I had this experience last year, sitting in a bar in Sperlonga when Biagio Antonacci’s ‘Se fosse per sempre’ came on the radio. Earlier that day I saw my first CONAD supermarket- such excitement, having heard umpteen ads for the chain!
Obviously you can supplement this activity with watching Italian TV/movies, online or otherwise, but that requires more active effort. It’s surprising how much you can learn just by having Italian speech in the background all the time, and rewarding to see your understanding steadily grow.
Alex Roe says
Thanks for jumping in, Alan.
They are all great tips – and I’ll expand on them in future posts in this series – mentioning you. And what you say re having Italian on in the background mirrors my own experience.
How long have you been learning Italian, and do you live in Italy?
Ciao,
Alex
Alan Eustace says
Hi Alex
I’ve been learning Italian about a year, and I don’t live in Italy, much as I’d like to, but Dublin. I also speak French and German and some Spanish, so I’ve found learning Italian reasonably easy. I have some extended family in Rome and Umbria which helps with practice. I mentioned the background listening to Italian as it’s not something I’ve seen recommended so often. Ultimately I think one of the most important things is to cultivate a passion for the language and the country- it makes you want to learn. If you can get under the skin of a place, even from afar, it’s much easier. The background listening to Italian really helped me in this regard. I very much like your tip about not getting too frustrated- I’ve had the same experience as I progress 🙂
Another really helfpful tip for me was to start speaking from the very beginning. Don’t wait till you think you’re good enough, just start. There are a few good websites for finding conversation partners, but even without them it’s possible to start speaking, if only in your head, by formulating simple sentences for the things you want to be able to say. Basically having short imaginary conversations. People may give you quizzical looks in the street if you do this in public of course.
Alex Roe says
Hi again Alan,
Living outside of Italy can slow down your progress – unless you do what you do which is to effectively surround yourself with Italian – via films, music and web radio. All of these things will make a difference in terms of the time it takes you to learn.
Knowing other languages seems to help too – probably because your brain is already conditioned to deal with other languages. It is said that once you know two or three languages, learning other languages becomes easier. This seems logical to me.
And yes, frustration does seem to be a sign of progress, odd though it may seem.
Speaking as soon as possible helps – if you can overcome the psychological block many of us have – a fear of appearing stupid, I think. However, if you can make the effort and I know of websites where you can speak too – and these will help too.
Your final point is interesting as what you are doing by forming sentences in your head is teaching yourself to think directly in Italian – this makes a huge difference in that will be able to find the words you need much, much faster once you can switch directly into Italian. Oddly enough this is something I try to teach my English language students to do. Most think I’m mad, but those who give it a try tend to find it works and they start to think directly in English. The same method works in Italian – I know, I did the same as you, and I’ll write more on this subject another time.
It sounds as if you are doing the right things! Keep studying – thinking and speaking.
Ciao for now,
Alex