garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5208 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish
| Message 9 of 20 27 May 2015 at 1:19pm | IP Logged |
As a fellow Italian-lover I have to agree with the others :) Seems like it's what interests you the most, it would be quicker to learn, and indeed finding people to practise it with isn't too difficult.
If you didn't enjoy German maybe it's because of the learning methods - "adding 250 words and memorizing them" doesn't sound like the most fun thing, especially for a language that you aren't completely passionate about to begin with.
I've had a similar problem of wanting to learn a few languages; it was less a question of "which should I learn" and more one of ordering/scheduling them. I'd also love to learn German and Japanese, but Italian and Spanish are choices that require less work and I have more immediate utility and passion for, so the obvious decision was to put them first and put the former ones into a "someday" category that I might consider a few years down the line once I reach my goals in the latter ones. Then it's a case of choosing which order to do the "immediate" ones in, and I chose Italian first because again I simply had a bit more passion for it, especially after having visited Italy. My long-term goal is to be fluent in both, so the question was really just which path to take to reach that destination.
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chaotic_thought Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 3543 days ago 129 posts - 274 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, French
| Message 10 of 20 27 May 2015 at 2:38pm | IP Logged |
rdearman wrote:
Finding a job because you speak a language isn't really going to happen unless you are a translator. Most employers who want people who speak another language just hire someone who is a native.
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I see what you are saying with this but it is not quite correct. For example, if you live in Germany, many jobs will be closed off to you if you can't speak German well enough to get through a job interview. You won't be informed that it's to do with your language ability. But if the office/team language is X, and it turns out that you don't/can't speak language X, then they'll mark you off as "no hire" and that's that.
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Lucie Tellier Diglot Newbie France Joined 3471 days ago 21 posts - 27 votes Speaks: French*, English
| Message 11 of 20 27 May 2015 at 2:44pm | IP Logged |
Sadly German will be appreciated at my future job, if not required, though I hope to find some sort of English-French translator position.
I'm going to study Italian over the summer, I'm so stoked, thank you all! :)
Please hit me with your best material suggestion for Italian.
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rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5237 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin
| Message 12 of 20 27 May 2015 at 3:03pm | IP Logged |
Lucie Tellier wrote:
Sadly German will be appreciated at my future job, if not required, though I hope to find some sort of English-French translator position.
I'm going to study Italian over the summer, I'm so stoked, thank you all! :)
Please hit me with your best material suggestion for Italian. |
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You asked for it!
http://www.radiofreestation.com/#!chat/c1krs Italian Radio
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=38575&PN=1 List of free books including Italian ones.
http://www.liberliber.it/online/opere/libri/argomento/epub/ More free books
http://www.e-book.com.au/morefreebooks/freemultilingualbooks .htm More free books
http://www.letteraturaitaliana.net/opere/c.htmMore free books
GLOSS learning material
ANKI Flashcard program for memorisation
Firefox plugin for automatically inserting into ANKI decks
Some Italian TV
Links to Italian Newspapers.
Learn ItalianPod podcasts
http://www.repubblica.it/
http://espresso.repubblica.it/
Links to Italian Radio & TV stations online
SOme Italian workbooks
Italian (only) Native Dictionary
RAI TV
http://www.dimensionesuonodue.it/?/home
More Italian TV
Italian language links for grammar, etc.
ONline Book store
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garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5208 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish
| Message 13 of 20 27 May 2015 at 3:31pm | IP Logged |
For learning materials I found the classic ones of Michel Thomas and Assimil very useful. MT might well be overkill if you already have some familiarity, but Assimil teaches great stuff and is originally designed for French speakers.
Rdearman's list is good, I need to check some of them out myself in fact. I'd add (probably stating the obvious) that there are tons of good films and books from Italy, contemporary and classic. I mentioned a few modern authors who I've read and enjoyed in another recent thread. On the TV front there is certainly some choice although the quality's not the best: mostly comedy/drama/soap type stuff or cheesy detective series.
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rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5237 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin
| Message 14 of 20 27 May 2015 at 3:38pm | IP Logged |
Oh! And please start a logbook. That way we can all assist you with more material and follow your progress.
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Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 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 15 of 20 27 May 2015 at 5:08pm | IP Logged |
GLOSS doesn't offer Italian though :( There's Spanish and German.
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Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5010 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian
| Message 16 of 20 28 May 2015 at 3:19pm | IP Logged |
German will be appreciated by your employer but only if you learn it to high level. In order to do that, you need to be motivated enough to keep going for a long time and everything is easier to learn when you like it and have deeper personal connection to it than "my boss makes me do it". And the experience you'll get from learning Italian will come useful.
You are not giving up German entirely, you might be ready and eager to start in half a year or a year from now. Either that or you'll find something else to do. Many htlalers don't stop at their first or second foreign language in the end ;-)
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