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Advice on learning Italian

  Tags: Beginner | Italian
 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center Post Reply
19 messages over 3 pages: 13  Next >>
RogerK
Triglot
Groupie
Austria
Joined 5021 days ago

92 posts - 181 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Italian
Studies: Portuguese

 
 Message 9 of 19
14 November 2013 at 1:42pm | IP Logged 
You should check out 'conversationexchange.com' there you can pick up an Italian who wishes to improve their English. Once you can put a few sentences together you need to practice and there is nothing better than a living breathing Italian who is keen to help you and improve their English at the same time. You may need to speak with a couple of language partners before you find the right one or two for you, but once you have a partner you'll be amazed at the progress you can make.

If you like music there is a fantastic bargin at the moment. There was a concert last year for the victims of an earthquake in Emilia in May 2012. They recorded the concert and you can purchase 4 cd's and 2 dvd's for the price of EUR10,00 from the Italian Amazon Website. The concert is called 'Italy Loves Emilia'. I bought the packet for the full price last year and still think that was a bargin at EUR30.00. See the link below.

http://www.amazon.it/Italia-Loves-Emilia-Concerto-2DVD/dp/B0 09YSSI26/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1384432550&sr=8-1&keywords=i talia+loves+emilia
1 person has voted this message useful



stevesayskanpai
Diglot
Newbie
United Kingdom
Joined 4436 days ago

16 posts - 16 votes
Speaks: English*, Japanese
Studies: Italian

 
 Message 10 of 19
14 November 2013 at 9:41pm | IP Logged 
Wow, thanks everyone, these are really useful suggestions. I'm particularly keen to find
Assimil's Italian with Ease.

Molto grazie! :)
1 person has voted this message useful



garyb
Triglot
Senior Member
ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5153 days ago

1468 posts - 2413 votes 
Speaks: English*, Italian, French
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 11 of 19
15 November 2013 at 10:39am | IP Logged 
I second Assimil, although after that you still need a hell of a lot of practice and exposure to reach a decent level. Fortunately there are a lot of Italians learning English, so finding people to practise with on language exchange sites like Conversation Exchange isn't too difficult. And there's no shortage of Italian films and media.

Scorpicus: thanks for the Radio Italia recommendation, I had been looking for a radio station that plays Italian music but also has some talk. I tend to listen to a lot of RAI 1/2 but they play mostly English music.

I also used Perfectionnement Italien. The first half is great but after that it gets a bit too specialised and becomes less useful.

Edited by garyb on 15 November 2013 at 10:41am

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Donaldshimoda
Diglot
Groupie
Italy
Joined 4036 days ago

47 posts - 72 votes 
Speaks: Italian*, English
Studies: German, Russian

 
 Message 12 of 19
16 November 2013 at 1:12am | IP Logged 
catullus_roar wrote:
Italian songs - you'll find that the music is (at least in my
opinion) greatly exciting compared to the rest of Europe, and the songs from Sanremo
are especially good for learners. They're sung in a sort of soft-rap way, and have
many English translations of their lyrics online, but the clear way they're sung should
help you understand them. The following songs are a bit old but very classic of
Sanremo!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnddCs7-zqE Pensa by Fabrizio Moro, which is about the
Mafia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgExJlYONxY Luca era gay, Povia, very controversial.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhvB734jnbg Ti regalero una rosa, Simone Cristicchi,
about mental illness.

Sanremo tends to exhibit many more songs, often by the above artists as well but I
chose these as they're more 'young' compared to some of the songs and yet follow the
same comprehensible style as opposed to slang-heavy pop or rock music...


Just be aware (as in every language)that lots of that soft pop songs have "weird"
lyrics in order to match metrically with the music. That could be a little bit
confusing for a learner....

For instance, a very simple sentence like YOUR EYES

spoken Italian -----> I TUOI OCCHI
within a song you could find --------> GLI OCCHI TUOI (and nobody talks like that)
1 person has voted this message useful



Sarnek
Diglot
Senior Member
Italy
Joined 4161 days ago

308 posts - 414 votes 
Speaks: Italian*, English
Studies: German, Swedish

 
 Message 13 of 19
17 November 2013 at 5:32pm | IP Logged 
Donaldshimoda wrote:
catullus_roar wrote:
Italian songs - you'll find that the
music is (at least in my
opinion) greatly exciting compared to the rest of Europe, and the songs from Sanremo
are especially good for learners. They're sung in a sort of soft-rap way, and have
many English translations of their lyrics online, but the clear way they're sung should
help you understand them. The following songs are a bit old but very classic of
Sanremo!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnddCs7-zqE Pensa by Fabrizio Moro, which is about the
Mafia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgExJlYONxY Luca era gay, Povia, very controversial.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhvB734jnbg Ti regalero una rosa, Simone Cristicchi,
about mental illness.

Sanremo tends to exhibit many more songs, often by the above artists as well but I
chose these as they're more 'young' compared to some of the songs and yet follow the
same comprehensible style as opposed to slang-heavy pop or rock music...


Just be aware (as in every language)that lots of that soft pop songs have "weird"
lyrics in order to match metrically with the music. That could be a little bit
confusing for a learner....

For instance, a very simple sentence like YOUR EYES

spoken Italian -----> I TUOI OCCHI
within a song you could find --------> GLI OCCHI TUOI (and nobody talks like that)


That is important as well. Sometimes you might hear "gli occhi tuoi" even in spoken
language, but you need to understand that it's done to emphasise a particular part of
the sentence, like German does.

Anyway here's my piece of humble advice: you need to listen a lot to Italian and try to
speak it everytime you can. Italian uses lots of idioms and references to culture,
dialects and whatnot, things that you may not find in a "traditional" textbook. So you
might want to disregard the written language (at least in the initial phases, as
written Italian is quite easy to write and read), and focus on listening and speaking.
1 person has voted this message useful



Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6543 days ago

9753 posts - 15779 votes 
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Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
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 Message 14 of 19
17 November 2013 at 6:01pm | IP Logged 
Sarnek wrote:
So you might want to disregard the written language (at least in the initial phases, as written Italian is quite easy to write and read), and focus on listening and speaking.
Uh no. For a newbie it's much easier to get the cultural information from written sources. I agree that listening is important, though.

As for music, try lyricstraining.
1 person has voted this message useful



tarvos
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
China
likeapolyglot.wordpr
Joined 4653 days ago

5310 posts - 9399 votes 
Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans
Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish

 
 Message 15 of 19
17 November 2013 at 6:55pm | IP Logged 
Actually cultural knowledge is assimilated best in situ. If that is what you are after, a
trip to la bella Italia is in order.
2 persons have voted this message useful



Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6543 days ago

9753 posts - 15779 votes 
4 sounds
Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish

 
 Message 16 of 19
17 November 2013 at 8:36pm | IP Logged 
True but you'll get the most out of a trip if you can understand the cultural explanations in Italian.


2 persons have voted this message useful



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