Quote:
Originally Posted by ranola0312  villa, what exactly did you do to learn italian? it seems it worked very good for you so i want to follow your foot steps. |
Ranola, Che bel nome. Complimenti.
"What did you do to learn Italian." Well Ranola, it's a very long
story but I don't mind telling it and I'm glad you asked.
These are the things I have done to learn both Italian and Spanish.
1. Oral out loud reading of Italian from books, text books, magazines, newspaper and all writtten material. My Italian books on tape(CD)are ideal for this. I listen to them in my car and then read the books later and or read along with the tapes/CDs.
2. Reading along with native speakers and having them correct me.
3. Studying Italian and Spanish phonectics and comparing them. Italian and Spanish are highly phonetic languages. This means that each sound is (almost) always graphically represented by the same combination of letters (vowels and/or consonants.) Compare that with English where, as Bernard Shaw once famously said, the word "fish" could be written "ghoti": F as in enough; I as in women; SH as in the ending -tion.
4. While living in Italy I watched only Italian TV and listened to Italian radio for 2 years straight without watching English
TV or listening to the radio in English. Did the samething with Spanish for 2 years when back in the U.S.
5. Listened/and him listening to Italian/Spanish tapes/CDs with walkmen type equipment while working around the house inside and out.
While lifting weights, washing dishes, mowing the lawn, washing the car, sweeping the driveway, writing on the computer etc. etc.
6. I watch 2 Italian movies a week. You can rent them from Nexflicks.
7. I have friends who speak the language and I speak to them.
8. I Read a little Italian every night in bed before going to sleep.
9. Teaching other people is a sure way to learn something better.
10. Flash cards. Use them with a partner or by yourself.
11. Singing in Italian and listening to Italian music. Amazon.com: Singer's Italian: A Manual of Diction and Phonetics ...Amazon.com: Singer's Italian: A Manual of Diction and Phonetics: Evelina ... Webster's New World Italian Dictionary: Italian/English, English/Italian ...
http://www.amazon.com/Singers-Italia.../dp/002870620X - 222k - Cached - Similar pages
Not to mention going to Italy again and studying Italian at the Universita di Perugia.
Years ago I found myself living in Italy at the tender young age of just 19. Had never taken any forgein language classes
let alone Italian. Right away people would come up to me and just start speaking in Italian. Had no idea what they were
saying but they sure were friendly and I just had to find out what it was they were saying. Bought a small Berlitz phrase
dictionary and that thing went everywhere with me. Had never been a good student in school but some how the bug to learn Italian
hit me hard. Every free minute I had I would take that little phrase book out and study it over and over. It was fun for me even
though I had always thought of studing as being tedious. In the meantime people kept coming up to me and speaking to me in Italian.
Started watching Italian TV and listening to Italian radio. Went to watch Italian movies every chance I got. Don't think it was easy
though.I gave up many many times but always came back. At one point I tried for a whole week to learn to count to 10 in Italian and could
not do it. I would say Come si chiama? over and over again and forget it in two seconds. Ma little by little, poco a poco I was learning
even though I didn't realize it. Also joined an Italian gym where everybody spoke only Italian. On Sundays it was church only in Italian.
Would go to soccer games and joined an Italian wrestling team where everybody spoke Italian.
Then one day about 4 or 5 months later after starting to learn Italian I went out on a blind date with an Italian girl who spoke no English.
Era molto bella. It was a double date. My friend spoke no Italian and his date spoke no English. The girls were talking in Italian and I was
understanding and all of sudden like a miracolo(miracle) the words just started flowing out of my mouth. My friend looked at me and said,
"Hey, I didn't know you knew how to speak Italian!" Told him I didn't know it either.
At any rate continued to go out with my Italian girlfriend and we fell in love. That's when I really started to learn Italian.
I noticed that I had gone through a silent period where
I just listened to Italian(along with studying)and then the words just started to flow out. Knowing this I really started watching Italian
TV every day and listening to Italian radio everyday piu che mai(more than ever). Would go everywhere around town and listen to people speak
Italian. When people saw me coming they would say "Oh, eccoti qua!" Come stai Davide? It was Davide this and Davide that. They would hug me,
kiss me on the cheek. It was great! I became Italian. Didn't even want to go back to the U.S. Not only did I learn to speak Italian I became Italian.
Di ogni modo, I found out that certain words in Italian just kept coming up over and over and that I needed to learn them well. Here they are among others:
Put them on flash cards and study them ogni giorno. Every day.
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