Making mistakes is part if not the biggest part of learning a new language. According to the language experts(and I agree with them)
at first a new language learner should not be corrected or over corrected because that inhibits speaking and learning. It really does.
You'll find this out as you go along learning Italian or anyother new language. This is why people say: Oh, I don't speak Italian or
write Italian on the forum because I'm afraid people will make fun of me e cosi via.

Case in point. After coming back from Italy I started taking Spanish in college. I hit it off with my Spanish teacher and we started
going out togetjer. I would go over to her house, go out to eat with her e cosi via. Well, everytime I would open my mouth to say
something in Spanish she would critically correct me in this not so nice tone.So with her I would speak English when I should have
been speaking Spanish. On the other hand my Spanish speaking girlfriends(had 3 at time for awhile)would almost never correct me
when I spoke Spanish with them and I ended up only speaking Spanish with them.(Samething with my many Spanish speaking friends.)
With time I learned to speak Spanish correctly because I actually spoke it.

When I first started learning Italian in Italy nobody corrected me. I probably sounded terrible and made all kinds of mistakes but
the only thing I ever heard from Italian native speakers was oh, it's great that you speak Italian or Oh, you speak Italian so well.
It was all smiles and encouragement di loro.(them) As a result I was not inhibited to speak Italian. I would speak Italian to anybody
and everybody I saw never thinking oh I might make mistakes so I better not open my mouth. Naturalmente I would ask people about the
correct way to say things and was studying and listening to Italian every day.) And people when they did correct me(which
I don't remember so much)it would do it in a nice way.

So with this in mind unless somebody asks you we should not be correcting English, Italian or anyother language on here.
I know people will disagree somewhat with this and say they want to be corrected but believe you me it's better not to do it
at least all the time and not if people don't ask you. I've not followed this rule myself at times but should a proposito.(by the way)

Think about it. If you're in a class and the teacher corrects your every mistake(especially with a disgusted look on her face)
are you going to feel like talking? No. If you're in a writing class and the teacher corrects your every mistake and critizes
you are you going to feel like writing. On the other hand if the teacher tells you how nice and interesting your writing is
you'll feel like writing. Through writing a lot and reading a lot your writiing will improve.
Samething with speaking Italian or anyother language.

Yes I have made many mistakes,the best one, I eat dogs, no i don't really i just got mixed up with cane and carne, easily done but the look on their faces of sheer horror!

Thanks Villa - very true. There is a big difference between encouragement and helpful prompting and po-faced criticism. The latter only serves to knock your confidence and clam up, never to speak again!

Just got an idea. When alassiolady, Markymark, Mellisa or anybody else writes something in
Italian let's correct them with a personal message. Then they can go back and correct what they said dopo.

Of course(naturalmente)everybody should have an Italian bilingual dictionary with them when they write
on the forum. Look the words up you want to use. It's a good way to learn. Plus everybody
needs a bilingual dictionary anyway.

So let those Italian words flow forth! Mi pardoni padre perche ho peccato. Ho passati anni dalla mia ultima
confessione. Dal mio arrivo in Italia ho fatto l'amore con sei donne. Va bene figlio. Non sono venuto qui per
ricevere delle congratulazioni padre. RDS! LOL! (ME parr-DOH-nee PAH-dray pair-KAY oh peck-KAH-toe.)(Oh pahs-SAH-tee
AHN-nee DAHL-lah ME-ah OOL-tee-mah cone-fess-see-OWN-neh.) (Vah BAY-neh FILL-yoh.) Nonn SO-no veh-NEW-toh kwee pair
ree-chay-vay-reh DELL-lay cone-graht--tull-lah-see-OH-nee.)

Unless it's late and I've had too much vino, I usually get my walking, talking bilingual dictionary to correct my Italian before I post

I quite like this idea but for my personal use it would have to wait until I can put some decent sentences together. It takes me ages to formulate one!

Villa, I will answer your post on the book thread this year ;-) LOL

I like the idea of correcting me in a PM. I will never know if I have the grammar correct if no one tells me. I'm not so sure if Italians would figure out what I'm saying if the grammar is wrong. Grammar is the main reason why I have such a hard time learning a language. For some reason my mind can not grasp the fact that other languages have different grammar.

I have had a few Dutch people who would just let me keep talking. There is a Dutch word that I still can not say to this day. The Dutch word for garden is tuin. To me it sounds like everyone is saying town, however that's not the case. The iu sound in Dutch is not the English ow sound. No matter how many times a Dutch person slowly says that word and no matter how many times they do an iu sound and then an ow sound it always sound like they are saying the ow sound. Well anyway, if I happened to say the word tuin and it came out as town a person would ask me if I meant tuin. A few Dutch people would do that. However, most Dutch people would just switch to English once they heard my accent. In fact they still do. Apparently for most Dutch people it's just easier for them to speak your native language. I think the fact that most Dutch people just switched to my own language is one of the reasons why I still speak on a child's level.

I kind of have a bilingual dictionary. The book I have is common phrases and sentences in Italian.

Another reason why I'm having a hard time learning Italian is because in some cases you don't have full sentences like you do in the English language. For instants Mi chiama Melissa. I always feel like I should add an Italian word for is.

I just looked up in my bilingual dictionary that I was wrong. It's Mi chaiamo Melissa and the question is Come si chiama. I get the statement and the question confused.

If people aren't going to laugh at me for the many mistakes I'll make then I will provero.

Speaking of provero why do you just say provero rather than say a sentence?

Well Melissa, take heart in that you are not alone. Having lessons at the moment with an Italian teacher who explains the grammar in German.. I find myself translating into German and English and writing everything down twice!

[QUOTE=Melissa1982;19204] "I'm not so sure if Italians would figure out what I'm saying if the grammar
is wrong. Grammar is the main reason why I have such a hard time learning a language. For some reason
my mind can not grasp the fact that other languages have different grammar."

Melissa, Non preocuparti.(Nonn pray-oh-coo-PARR-teh)(don't worry) You'll be understood almost no matter how
you say things in Italian as long as you have some Italian vocabualary.Actually we should not concentrate
so much on grammar at first. Vocabulary is more important. We're looking for communication. You spent the
first 5 or 6 or more years of your life without any formal grammar study. Per esempio. If you say io parlare
l'italiano you will be understood perfectly. Io piacere, Io andare and so forth. You'll be understood. In that
case of course you need to know the personal pronouns. io=I, tu=you(informal), Lei=you(formal), lui=he,him,
lei=she,her, noi=we, voi=you plural, loro=they

loro parlare for example=they talk. Of course eventually you have to know that loro parlano(PARR-lah-no) is the correct way to say it.

So stop worryig about being correct and just start writing and talking in Italian.
Remember making mistakes is completamente normale and part of the learning process.

Learning another language in your non native language must be even harder. I can understand why you would be writing everything down twice.

I know I accidently said dank u well (thank you in Dutch, which you probably already knew) over in Sicily sometimes. I'm like oops! Wrong language!

I'm hoping to travel all over the world as I get older so knowing me I'll wind up saying grazie over in Turkey or something. lol