Learning Italian

[Roee]

大家好我想开始学意大利文.现在我就利用我的电脑学习(Rosetta Stone). 我不太喜欢Pimsleur得教法因为英文太多了。

Hello Everyone,

I'd like to start studying italian; so far I've been using Rosetta Stone as my primary tool but am looking for resources similar to this site or any other ideas that you might have. My approach is to be immersed in Italian as much as possible and not get involved in other languages -- which is why I prefer not to use Pimsleur and such. Your comments will be most welcome.

Thanks,

Roee

[Roee]

Is this to assume Italian is not currently in high demand? I wonder if there is any internet resource following current trends in language learning over the years.

[Lil']

Io sono italiana se vuoi posso darti una mano!

Hello I am italian and if you wish I can help you!

Why are u interested to study italian?

Ciao

[Language Guy]

L'italiano no e molto facile.

I'm not sure what you mean by being "immersed", but if you've never studied a romance language before, I suggest you try not to rush it. Italian has extensive rules on conjugation and especially gender agreement that make the learning slower than most romances. But the culture is so rich and fun, I recommend its study!

[Lil']

Yes, you are right. It isn't easy to learn. The grammar is full of rules and exceptions, but it's worth it, it's a beautiful language (and not because it's my mothertongue!).

Anyway Language Guy, dove hai studiato italiano?

[Roee]

Lil' and Language Guy, Thank you for your replies.

Well, I'm interested in Italian for no special reason-- I just like the way it sounds, often get to travel there etc.

By now I've learned English, French and German (and Mandarin) and Italian doesn't seem to be any more difficult. In fact, it's somewhat easier -- I'm currently studying Mandarin and Italian as far as pronunciation and such is SO MUCH easier. It's enough to hear the sentence just once to remember it, and being a phonetic language I can even read words and sentences I have not seen before and understand them. My goal is not to speak "correctly" or even write "grammaticly corrent" Italian. Just to be able to converse. As far as immersion goes it means something like Rosetta Stone where it's only Italian, no English or any language. Works well for me.

[Language Guy]

Roee- That sounds fine. I also had a background in French when I went into Italian, and it helped alot. If you can master French and Mandarin pronunciation, you can speak Italian in your sleep. But I warn you, even if you only want to speak Italian semi-correctly, it will still be tough (as compared to French, where many different grammatical differences still sound the same). But it will definitely be fun.

Lil'- I took a compressed year of Italian in my senior year of high school instead of taking an advanced science class. We learned alot in that one year, but I remember only a few sentences. If I had a textbook with me again, I could start speaking it, but until then, it's all in the recesses of my mind. Since then, I've also studied Spanish. So I figure that with both Spanish and French under my belt, some day in the future Italian will come easier to me(and I hope to study it again!)

[davethedope]

I think it's funny that you say that you don't care if you can read or write properly. I agree with this. I have studied the language quite a bit, in fact I have a degree in Italian language and culture, but I don't really ever want to be completely fluent. In fact, the worse I speak the better I feel. I would rather be able to understand everything I hear and then give the polizia the old 'purtroppo, ma non ho capito'.

[Jamoldo]

My Italian isn't too bad either, so if anyone wants to get together in Beijing just to practice, I could be up for it. Most of my practice is informal reading, like La Gazzetta dello Sport, Corriete Della Sera (Sport) etc. I'm thinking of joining something Italian when in Beijing just to have a chance to meet some Italians and keep up my language skill..