Learn To Speak Italian Fluently

I’ve learned Esperanto, Spanish, and German from books & tapes. Here are some things I’ve learned:

Immersion in the language, living in another culture is, hands-down, the best way to learn a language. It’s also the most disruptive to your life, and few can do it.

I used to know a couple (they moved away and we haven’t kept in touch) who helped each other learn languages through immersion in their home. One knew Spanish and wanted to learn Esperanto, the other knew Esperanto, and wanted to improve their Spanish. They divided the week in half, and for half the week would only speak Spanish at home, and for the other half the week would only speak Esperanto at home. They both improved rapidly.

If you can’t go to Italy, and you don’t have friends, fluent in Italian to room with, see if your library has a course called “Muzzy in Gandoland” (the Italian version). It’s a great video course intended for children, but it is an immersion style course on video.

If you’re learning on your own, some general tips for learning languages:

1. Look at people’s reviews on Amazon to determine what are some of the best courses. Go to the library and check out (audition) different types of courses, and see what works for you best. The correct answer for you may not be one course, but a combination.

3. Put aside 30 - 60 minutes per day and study some each day.

4. If you get discouraged, take a couple of days off, but set your next time to study and stick to it. If you go too long (say a week) between study sessions, you’ll start forgetting.

5. Go into the experience realizing that you’ll make lots of mistakes, everybody makes mistakes, don’t worry about them and keep going. In other words, don’t let your mistakes discourage you, everyone makes them, you’re no different.

6. Try to find someone better than you in the language to speak with. You can’t learn to speak a language without speaking it. If you’re trying to learn with someone else who is also learning, you’ll lead each other into learning errors.

Good luck with Italian!

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