10 Feb
How to learn Italian well: all you need to know
At this point and if you follow our blog, you will have discovered that there are many strategies to learn Italian well. Obviously – and probably due to professional distortion – the first thing we recommend you do is to enroll in a course, whether in a group or individual lesson, in Italy, in your country, or whatever you like best. Having a teacher to guide you in your learning is pure gold and in order not to make those mistakes that can crystallize over time and become difficult to remove, it is certainly better to study “well” right away. That said, there are those who instead decide to practice the exclusive immersion method, which provides, precisely, the idea of immersing themselves in the language by living for example in the country where it is spoken and learning it on the street, from native speakers, by listening, always chatting and trying. We also really like this fascinating strategy, which certainly turns out to be the most fun and authentic way to learn Italian. So let’s do this, let’s try to integrate some academic learning – so to speak – with many different do-it-yourself activities.
How to learn Italian: our 5 tips
They may not seem entirely new to you, but seeing them written in black and white will certainly help you get your mind in order. Let’s go see what you can do to learn Italian!
Talk, talk, talk
Even if you have very little knowledge of Italian, you need to start speaking right away. As you know, the important thing is to communicate, to convey the message, perfection comes later. Who to talk to? Here is a good opportunity to start new friendships. Usually, in cities there are always language exchange groups or tandems in bars, for example. Of course, this is not the best time to meet, but let’s remember that we live in the digital age and we can meet someone with whom we can chat even online. If you are in Milan, for example, you can join the Telegram group “Milan International Events” (but you can find many others everywhere) and you can immediately make friends with Italians and non-Italians who love our language. Alternatively, there are also internal dialogue (haha) and the mirror. Why should talking to yourself be a bad idea? We are the person we are with the most in life.
Read a book. Even out loud.
You can choose books suitable for each level (the Alma Edizioni publishing house, for example, has developed a dense series of novels and essays suitable for each level with exercises included), comics (Mickey Mouse, Dylan Dog, just to name a couple of really known), books already read in their own language or books from scratch, perhaps by Italian authors. Here we had selected a list of easy books (levels A1-C1) that we would like to propose again. For the higher levels it is worth discovering the most famous contemporary Italian authors and authors. Here are some that we like and with a delicate pen for those who are still learning: Michela Murgia, Andrea Vitali, Oriana Fallaci, Stefano Benni, Elena Ferrante, Alessandro D’Avenia, Tiziano Terzani, Bianca Pitzorno, Fabio Volo, Umberto Eco.
To listen
To listen, nothing better than a little Italian music. We don’t want to influence your musical tastes, so what we can recommend is to turn on the radio and try to see what catches your attention. From there you could discover truly amazing songwriters. A very useful thing is to find the lyrics of the songs and try to translate them into your language. Your vocabulary will undergo a surge, word of a cub. Of course, if you are not in the musical mood, you can simply listen to radio programs or podcasts, we have talked about it extensively here:
Last but not least, one idea is to make “pen pals”, as they once did. However, in 2021 we will do it through Whatsapp voice messages, with which you can practice your listening and speaking with native and non-native speakers. There are also very famous apps for making language exchanges and speaking (!) for free: Italki, Speaky, Conversation Exchange, Hello Talk, MyLanguageExchange. Let us know the one you like best!
Watch movies and series in Italian
We have written an article that is right for you on the series in Italian, you can read it here . But if you want, we also recommend some films (in this regard we propose our old article with some of the most famous Italian films https://www.ellci.it/i-film-italiani-piu-famosi-per-imparare-la -language-having fun /). Here at our school, in cineforum activities, we always watch these films which, in our opinion, are very understandable even for those with a lower level of Italian and whose images help a lot not to lose the thread of the discussion. Benvenuti al sud, Pane e tulipani, Tutta la vita davanti, Il capitale umano, L’ultimo bacio, I cento passi. And if you want to get a glimpse of a nice glimpse of contemporary Italian history from 1966 to 2003, don’t miss La meglio gioventù.
Keep a secret diary
Remember that writing a diary can help you in many things: first of all getting to know yourself better, freeing your emotions, taking stock of your life and of course improving your writing skills!