Beginner´s Guide to Learning Italian – Part 2
Methods to Improve Your Italian
When you take a class to learn Italian, you will review definite articles, direct object pronouns, and preposition. Your instructor will probably show you how to pronounce Italian words and there will probably be an Italian audio lab. You will come to a point where you will want to learn some shortcuts and quick pointers, which will give your lessons more power. Here are some things they don’t teach in language lessons that will improve your Italian.
In Italian basically it is “What you see is what you hear”. When you see an Italian speaking native open his mouth wide, it isn’t always to shout as much as it is to proper pronounce the big, round vowels. As an example, if you want to pronounce the letter “a”, you open your mouth wide and say “ahhhhh”.
By remembering the phrase what you see is what you hear you will have no trouble spelling and pronouncing the Italian words. Because Italian is a phonetic language most words are pronounced just as they are written.
Many of the Italian words look like English words and have similar meanings. This makes learning Italian a little easier. There are only minor differences in the spelling between the English and the Italian words called cognates. They are called cognates because of their similarities. In Italian they are called parole simili. Some of the cognates are stazione or station, museo or museum, professore or professor, and intelligente or intelligent.
There are other words in Italian, which are similar to English words, but have a different meaning. These words are known as false cognates or falsi amici. For example parente means relative, not parent, and libreria means bookstore, not library.
Because the endings of conjugated verb forms indicate person and number, Italian subject pronouns can be left out unless they are needed to clarify, when they have been modified by the word “also” or “anche”, or when there is an emphasis or a contrast needed. If you are starting a first-person comment with “io”, such as “I study”, or “I walk”, it sounds as though you are constantly calling attention to yourself, so in most cases the “io” is left off the comment.
Remember to slow down. Being fast only counts in a car race; fast does not make you fluent in the language and easily understood. When many of us speak in English, we are notorious for slurring our words together. When speaking in Italian it is better to allow the Italian vowels and consonants to maintain their particular, unchanging sound. Just relax and take a deep breathe so that you can enjoy the language at a leisurely pace.
When it comes to adjectives, you can only say molto bene so many times before you start becoming bored with yourself. There are times when Italian adjectives, which are the most expressive words, get short-changed because of the usual emphasis on the nouns and the verbs. You can learn alternative ways to express yourself by including the use of prefixes, such as stra and suffixes, such as ino, etto, ello, and accio. You will quickly increase your vocabulary by doing so.
When it comes to formalities, you will see how shopkeepers, neighbors, and guests perceive you when you ingratiate yourself with them. It is good to remember your manners and you’re more likely to be greeted with a smile. Learn the essential survival words and phrases in Italian and chances are they will help you with your language skills.
About the courteous form of address in Italian, there are four ways of saying you in Italian tu, voi, Lei, and Loro. Tu, for one person, voi, for two or more people are the forms only used with family members, children and close friends. When speaking to an Italian they may ask “Possiamo darci del tu?” which means “May we switch to the tu form?” after a relationship has progressed. This is the sign that you are now able to use the more common form tu.
Err, umm, ah, like you know are conversation fillers, which make you sound like a teenager or worse. The fact is you know what you want to say, but at that moment you are temporarily incoherent. One remedy for this is to practice interjections, sentence starters, and additional useful phrases, which will help get your tongue started and back on track. You can commit your favorite snappy answers to memory to help you avoid those blank moments when you are at a loss for words.
Talking loudly does not make you understood, it just makes you loud. Many people have a bad habit of almost screaming when asked to repeat themselves. You may just need to polish up your Italian skills. Those you are speaking to are probably not hard of hearing. You may have mispronounced the word or maybe you just used the wrong choice of words. So don’t shout at them, they may be able to hear just fine.
There is one thing you will notice when you spend time in Italy, and that is Italians dress to impress. They may just be taking their ritual evening walk or stepping out to the opera. Italians want to look good. So when you go to Italy and are visiting the churches and the museums, you may want to leave the shorts and sandals at the hotel. It will improve your confidence among all those well-dressed Italians, which can help you improve your Italian.
There will be times that no matter how well you say something in Italian, sometimes it will be difficult for even a linguist to interpret. It could be what you are say and not how you are saying it that is the problem. The cultural differences become increasingly apparent when speaking a foreign language. If you are sure that what you are saying is grammatical correct and you are still receiving blank stares, you might try a different approach.
Italian Language Help Online
Even though you might want to email Dante Alighieri to ask him questions about Italian grammar and usage, you are unable to because he is no longer living. Even if he were still alive chances are he would be tied up in writing his new book, or a screenplay for one of the books he has already written, such as the La Divina Commedia.
However, there are more practical solutions to your dilemma. The national language academy of Italy can be access through the Internet and they can offer help to those wanting to master the Italian language. There is also the oldest language academy in Europe, the Accademia della Crusca who also can be accessed through the Internet. The consulenza liguistica section of the website has answers to the most frequently asked questions. They also have a site where visitors can consult the online library, which contains the first Italian vocabulary from 1612 as well as other historic publications.
On the Internet you will also be able to find other resources for asking questions regarding Italian grammar, dialect and usage. If you need help with pronunciation or translating a phrase or maybe you want a recommendation on schools in Italy. The About Italian Language Forum is a great place to find answers.
The forum is a place where you can chat about verb conjugation, grammar, pronunciation or anything related to the Italian language. Some of the more recent message threads were discussions about: il discorso indiretto, help with translating a passage from Luigi Pirandello, and the right way to learn Italian. On the forum you are able to post your notes and comments on the About Italian Language bulletin board and you will receive input from a variety of people who are enthusiastic about the Italian language.
If You Think Like an Italian, You Will Speak Like an Italian
When learning to speak a language like a native, you will need to forget your native tongue. Spending time in Italy speaking only Italian will help you speak as a native. If you want to read Italian, you can pick up an Italian newspaper and read the section that interests you most. The goal is to increase competency in Italian. To do that you must learn to think like an Italian, which means you will need to take off the training wheels so to speak. Get rid of those helpers, which are holding you back and hurt more than they help.
For instance bilingual dictionaries are a crutch. If your goal is to speak Italian, speaking English to your friends will be a waste of your time. You don’t want to make grammatical comparisons between English and Italian because it won’t help you achieve your goal. Every language has rules and forms, which are unique and sometimes illogical. If you want to speak with competence, translating back and forth in your head before speaking or reading is a fool’s errand, which will not get you anywhere.
Too many people consider language as a science and get tongue-tied. Students of the language obsess over details. Italian can not be dissected, instead of just speaking the language and interacting with native speakers. They should be imitating them and copying them in order to learn the language. You need to let go of your ego and pretend you are an actor by trying to sound Italian. Books with something to memorize turns off most students and these books are not useful.
The best piece of advice someone can give to anyone studying Italian, regardless of the level of study, would be to stop thinking in English. To competently speak Italian you have to forget about English grammar. You will not be able to translate literally and construct sentences according to English grammar.
One important fact you should know is that all languages are not equal and are not interchangeable. If languages could be interchangeable, translation would be extremely simple and straightforward. Learning another language would boil down to nothing more than learning to substitute one word for another.
The fact is each language differs in very important ways, in grammar as well as vocabulary. Each language has a unique way of looking at the world. No one can become fluent in a language until they stop translating and simply think in the new language. Each language has its own distinctive medium of thought.
You must let go of your fear of making mistakes. Your goal should only be to communicate. You really don’t want to sound as if you have a PhD in Italian grammar because not only will you never accomplish that, but there are very few Italians who can speak that well in their own language. But all Italians can communicate their emotions, fears, wants, and needs. The one thing that will hold you back is using English as a crutch and being afraid of opening your mouth wide enough to speak the language.
Don’t be discouraged, but many of the language learners just don’t seem to understand the concept and they never will. It’s a lot like taking dance lessons. You can take lessons from an expert with the cut-out feet and numbers on the floor to show the steps, but without rhythm, you will never get it right. You will end up looking like a klutz no matter how hard you practice or the number of lessons you take.
Memorizing scripted responses when learning a foreign language does not work. The majority of the textbooks for the beginners have several pages of dialogue. The dialogue is stiff and is a conversation you won’t have even in your own language. If you ask a person one of the questions from that dialogue and they don’t answer according to the dialogue you memorized, then what?
You are lost and have no idea what to say next. This is not learning the language; this is memorized scripts. Unfortunately with scripts, not everyone has the same script you do; leaving you with the inability to respond to unexpected answer.
When it comes to learning Italian or any other foreign language, you will want to speak it as well as you can speak English. Memorizing scripts don’t work, which means you have to learn how to formulate sentences in Italian just as you can in English.
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