I agree with Villa . FOund that my knowledge of Spanish helped me greatly while in italy. I also concur about Babbel. I find my greatest problem is the panic I feel when addressed in Italian. My old brain takes a while to form the answer but I understand. Any ideas about audio practice ?

Suzan

Grazie Suzan.

Have you tried oral outloud reading in Italian? You practice your speaking that way and never run out of something to say.

Also make those Italian vocabulary flash cards. Read them outloud. Take them with you everywhere you go. Take them out while
waiting in the line at the supermarket, waiting for the bus/subway etc. etc. Flash cards work like magic. When you see or
hear one of those Italian words you have on your flash cards it's like seeing an old friend. Try and you'll see. You do have
my basic Italian words for flash cards non e vero? Let me know if you don't and I'll send it to you.

In all fairness to you non-Spanish speakers that are trying to learn Italian it's nice to know that I learned Italian without knowing Spanish. Si, e vero.
So you can do it. And after you know Italian then you can learn Spanish piu facile. After all even though Italian and Spanish are brothers Italian and
Englsih are cousins. Why you ask. Well Spanish and Italian come from the same mother which is Latin and English has some 60% of it's vocabulary coming
from Latin therefore making English a cousin of Italian. So even though you missed the boat on learning Spanish you can still caught the next
boat and learn Italian anyway.

I never learnt spanish, but I learnt some french which helped when learning Italian aswell! Although, to be honest, I'm pretty motivated in learning italian, always have been, so Im sure I can learn more/improve on my Italian without learning Spanish.
But yeah, I heard it deffinantly does help, I brought my friend to italy this year, shes never spoken Italian in her life, but she speaks fluent spanish, being half spanish and she managed to work out quite a few italian sentences through that.

[QUOTE=Girasole;27114]I never learnt spanish, but I learnt some french which helped when learning
Italian aswell! Although, to be honest, I'm pretty motivated in learning italian, always have been,
so Im sure I can learn more/improve on my Italian without learning Spanish.
But yeah, I heard it deffinantly does help, I brought my friend to italy this year,
shes never spoken Italian in her life, but she speaks fluent spanish, being half spanish and
she managed to work out quite a few italian sentences through that.[/QUOTE]

L'italiano e lo spagnolo sono fratelli. Il latino e la mamma.

From another thread:
Originally Posted by Giacomo
"A note to anyone learning Italian for the first time: When you learn one romance language (French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese) then it becomes so much easier when you want to learn a second romance languuage."

Hopefully Giacomo when come on this thread. He teaches both Italian and Spanish.

Ah here goes Villa starting trouble again!! Love it! lol

There seems to be so many differing opinions on this topic. I know that I learned French before I learned Spanish and Italian. Learning Italian was so much easier because of my knowledge of both French and Spanish. The three languages are very similar because they all are Latin based. I would have never been able to succeed in Italian as well as I did if I hadn't learned Spanish and French first. I know many people who speak Italian to Spanish Speakers. The Spanish Speakers understand the Italian. They respond in Spanish and the Italian Speaker understands the Spanish They can go back and forth for hours. I could go on and on about the grammatical similarities between the three languages but I don't want to bore you.

Learning a language is like anything else: You have to put out the effort! You must make your flashcards. You must immerse yourself in the language via TV and radio. Talk to yourself in the target language. Study Study Study!! But above all do NOT say that this is too hard. Do NOT be afraid to talk to native speakers in the target language. You will be amazed at how they warm up to you once they see that you are trying to learn their language.

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Dimmi con chi vai e ti dirò chi sei.

Sono totalmente d'accordo con te amico Giacomo. Que haria sin ti amigo mio.

Mi piace molto anche your advise on learning a second language. Would just like to add sin embargo/ma che hopefully we can enjoy and have fun doing all those great things that you mention to learn our second/third language. Our goal is to learn Italian but the process we go through to learn è piu importante che il goal. The journey è piu importante che the destination.

Also even if you don't know Spanish/French/Portuguese you can still learn Italian. I did. And what's great is that once you know Italian you can then learn piu facile Spanish/French/Portuguese. I did. You can too!

I agree with those who say it's easier to learn a second Romance language if you have some knowledge of the first. I learnt Italian first, then did a bit of Spanish and French and found both easier because of my previous knowledge of Italian - the conjugations would have floored me otherwise!

And Spanish sounds nice!

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avatar by kelli

Fantastico! Grazie Kitten.