How to Learn to Speak Italian
If you’re planning to visit Italy, learning to speak Italian is wise. It will help you get around and to meet the natives. Italians appreciate it when someone makes a good faith effort at learning their language. They appreciate being able to communicate with you even more. Learning to speak another language is hard, and there is no way around the work. But your dedication and effort will be rewarded when an actual Italian responds to you in Italian, rather than interrupting you in English. There could be no higher compliment to your Italian language skills.
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Things You'll Need
- Italian films
- Access to the Internet
- Italian-English/English-Italian dictionary
- Italian phrasebook
- Audio recording device
- Materials for note taking
Instructions
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Listen to Italians speaking. If you want to learn to speak Italian, it is essential to hear Italian voices. Listening carefully is the best Italian lesson of all. Do this even before you know what the words mean. Watch Italian movies to hear how the language sounds, and try it with the subtitles turned off. You may not be able to follow the story exactly, but you will learn what the cadence and rhythm of Italian are like. You also might be able to see how the mouth forms some Italian sounds differently from English sounds. Keep listening to Italian voices throughout the time you’re learning, and your Italian will be immeasurably better for it.
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Find an online guide. Even if your interest lies in speaking rather than in reading Italian, familiarity with the written language will help you in conversation. Many Italian teaching websites have audio files that allow you to hear the phrases as you read them. The Italian lessons can also provide you with at least the fundamentals of syntax and grammar. Some sites concentrate on Italian as an academic class, others are more similar to phrase books for travelers. Find the one that best suits your needs, and visit it regularly.
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Get a dictionary or a phrasebook. Italian is a phonetic language, so once you’ve learned how the letters and letter combinations sound, you can pronounce most anything correctly. A good Italian-English/English-Italian dictionary will provide you with verb conjugations, the correct prepositions to use with certain verbs, and will give you the words you need to speak your thoughts. Though less complete, a phrasebook is handier to use. Italian phrase books narrow the vocabulary down to that needed by travelers, and they include useful conversational phrases not found in dictionaries. Keep your book by you, and read it daily.
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Write it out. Writing helps language learning by reinforcing a newly acquired word or phrase. As you work with the Italian on your language website, write down the terms and sentences it presents to you. Discipline yourself with an Italian journal: a short daily account of anything at all, in Italian. Use your dictionary or phrasebook to translate ordinary, or out of the ordinary, phrases you hear. Write down lines you like from the Italian movies you’re watching. Having these on paper makes them a useful reference, but more importantly, the act of writing them down impresses them in your memory.
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Practice speaking. Make it a daily habit to speak the Italian you’re learning. The finest Italian vocabulary is of no use if it can’t be understood. Repeat the words you read, mimic the actors’ lines from the Italian films you watch, translate your English extemporaneously into Italian. If there is anyone around you who won’t be irritated by your speaking in Italian, talk to him. Record yourself, and listen critically. Work on placing emphasis in the correct places, and strive for accuracy. Go slowly at first. Speed and fluency will come with practice.
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Tips & Warnings
For best results, expect to devote no less than an hour a day to learning Italian. Think of it as an enjoyable part time job rather than a pastime, and you will reap the benefits.
