Category Archives: Italian

Learning Italian? How difficult is it?

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Learning Italian Language Guide: Background, Examples & Ease of the Language

The best part of learning Italian is that newcomers generally wish to learn it because they genuinely love the language, the country, and the atmosphere of Italy. No matter if it’s the Italian food, music, or people who entices you to explore, Italian is one language that is learned most of all for the pleasure and feeling to become nearer to the people of the wonderful country known as Italy.

The Italian language is considered by many a pleasure language because it has a much lower economic utility than other languages of Europe such as Dutch, German, or French. Because of this Italian has been referred to as a luxury language, whose users learn mostly for want rather than need. However, now that travel is much more accessible for everyone and learning a new language is as easy as downloading an online language course. The Italian language  is starting to be learned by people of all ages’ groups and social classes. However the main motivation for learning Italian is still mostly because it is a socially attractive language instead of a business language such as English.

Italian is the main language of approximately 65 million people. The vast majority of native Italian speakers are concentrated in Italy. However there are also Italian speakers in San Marino, Vatican City, Switzerland, the Istria region of Croatia, and Slovenia.

Italian is  considered a Romance language. This means that it is one of the languages that descend from Latin, which is the language of ancient Rome. Italian belongs to the same language family as Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Catalan. Because of this there are strong similarities between each of these in their structure, sound, and vocabulary terms. However, Italian is the romance language closest to Latin when it comes purely to vocabulary. If you have learned another romance language, or even learned a no longer used language like Latin, then it should be much easier to for you to also learn Italian.

The Italian language we have today was mostly “promoted” by the famous Italian poet Dante Alighieri. Dante used his native Tuscan dialect to write the “Divine Comedy.

Different Types of Italian

As with all languages anyone learning Italian from scratch will find many regional variations within the language relating to special vocabulary, accents, and verb usage. However there are special dialects of Italian that are only spoken in their region and are important to be aware of if you are learning the language for the first time. These dialects are from the Naples and Campania region, the Venice and Veneto region, and the Friuli region. It is also important to be cautious of the island dialects of Sardinian and Sicilian.

Regional dialects are only spoken in their individual regions, and are not official languages. These language dialects tend to be spoken by the older population and only in informal contexts. Younger Italians normally stick to standard Italian which is what a beginner should focus on learning.

Difficulty level of Italian as a new comer

The Italian language isn’t especially difficult to learn, however at first every language can appear to be difficult to pick up. In order to learn Italian you will need to commit to consistently putting in time and practice. The good news is that if you do Italian is actually one of the easier languages to learn when compared to Russian or Chinese.

Italian looks roughly how it sounds so you will not need to learn a new alphabet before you can start learning Italian.

Because Italian has deep roots in Latin, and other Romance languages learning Italian will be much easier if you already know a Romance language like Spanish, French, or Portuguese because many of the words, verbs, and overall structures are similar to each other. Spanish and French happen to be the closest language to Italian out of all of the romance languages.

New comers to Italian should be careful against the misuse of words that seem similar to English words but have completely different meanings in Italian! A good example of a word to watch out for is Sensibile. This in Italian means sensitive, instead of being reasonable like it does in English.

Don’t let mistakes cause fatigue early on in your goal to learn Italian. Mistakes happen no matter what and are part of the learning process when learning a new language. However, if you practice enough your mistakes will lessen greatly with time!

10 reasons for Learning Italian

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Learning a second or third foreign language is very exciting. Italian is among the most popular foreign languages that most people engage in.  Theres a lot to learn about, such as history and culture when a person has some Italian knowledge. The language also allows one to interact with people abroad during visits and holidays in Italy and other places. There exist many other reasons as to why people learn Italian. The following are the top 10 reasons for learning the language.

 

1.      Most people rate Italian language as the most beautiful worldwide spoken language. It is regarded as a language of food and arts. The language is also easy to learn compared to other foreign languages.

 

2.      One improves their cultural and universal speaking skills. The Italian culture dominates in many areas and offers great ways of enjoying it. This is through such aspects as the Italian fashion, designers, gastronomy and architecture among others.

 

3.      It allows one a chance to easily study art history associated with Michelangelos birth land. Most art history books are composed in Italian language thus one needs to be familiar with the language to avoid wasting time with translations.

 

4.      There is no need of following up subtitles when watching prominent Italian language movies. Such movies include the Viscontis, Fellinis and Pasolinis. These movies rate among the top 10s and play in Italian language.

 

5.      Understanding a variety of names to describe food. Compared to any other language, Italian offers the most words to refer to food. This is because Italians love food too much and there are many Italian recipes that one can enjoy from home.

 

6.      It gives one a chance to easily interact with Italians who are best known for their friendliness and accommodative traits. The locals are also talkative and fervent to take visitors through the country. Learning Italian is the only way to get directions when one visits Italy.

 

7.      Italiansongs become entertaining at last. Such include the likes of Luciano Pavarotti, a very popular operatic tenor. Rather than listening, it allows one to learn and practice Italian pop songs.

 

8.      Poets and poem enthusiasts get a smooth time reading La Divina Commedia that was written by the epic poet Dante Alighieri. Written back in the 1300s, the poem is regarded as the finest work in Italian literature.

 

9.      The language is the closest to Latin, an ancestral language common in all romance languages.

 

10.  Eases communication with ones Italian-born grandparents as well as enhancing research on family roots as well as interpreting ancient family documents.

Tips for learning Italian

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How can I learn Italian in London?

If you are interested in learning italian while you live or work in London, you will soon find out that you have many possibilites some can be also free.
You can attend meetings and events at the Italian cultural institute in London.
The Istituto culturale Italiano  always organises plenty of talks, film projections, classes and workshop throughout the year. Therefore if you are planning to get acquantied with the Italian  language and the Italian culture this it is a very good option. Furthermore the institution has an extensive library where you will find anything to help you with the language and also it can help you  if you would like to learn more about travelling, working or studying in Italy.

 

Italian language exchange.

London is a melting pot and you will never be too far from your local Italian community, so why don’t you put on some adverts at the restaurant or cafe’ around the corner indicating that you are loooking to set up a language exchange. I am sure you will get plenty of interest, Italians like to travel and they will be very happy to teach their own language to you in exchange of English, Spanish, French, German or whatever your first language is. The classified website Gumtree is an other place where you should look at, as there are many adverts regarding language lessons there too.

Watch Italian movies or listen to the Italian radio.

This might be ideal if you already know some basic Italian, or if you want to get accustomed to the sound of the Italian language. The best it is to get DVDs of Italian movies with subtitles, this will help you to understand the plot. Students don’t need to focus in understanding every single word said in the film but they should rather  focus in having an idea of what is going on.

Don’t Buy self learning material, phrasebooks and cds that promise that you will learn Italian in one month.

I do not especially recommend this method for various reasons. Firstly a language is about communication and these methods fcous on memorising set sentences so they just don’t full fill the purpose of learning a language: communicate.  As soon you stop using the cds you will forget evething. An onther factor is that these self learning materials tend to end up on your bookcase shelve quite quickly due to the lack of self motivation.

Attend an Itailan course in London.

Group coures are one of the best ways to learn Itailan simply beacuse you will be meeting new people, the teacher will motivate you, it is fun and you will soon understand how fast you can learn by just attending the lessons. The fees are normally reasonable as you will be splitting the cost of the teacher with other students. The Language Class organises a variety of group lessons either in the day time, weekend or evenings. So if you are looking to get started with Italian give us a call we have something for you.

Italian lessons in London

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The language class and how to learn Italian in London

We at the language class offer a wide range of way to learn Italian in London. First of all we are based on the edges of the City so coming to us it is very simple. The nearest station is Aldgate east and it is served by 4 different lines, we have the District, Metropolitan,  City and Hammersmith and the central Line from Liverpool street.

 Courses for adult learners in the evening.

Our courses are held mainly in the evening after 7 pm to allow everyone who want to learn Italian to come to our classes, the evening lessons lasts 2 hours and they end at 9 pm, normally the classes will least for 10 weeks. Our lessons are centred on the needs of the students, so you will be the star in our classes not the teacher. This means that all classes are tailor made to the needs of the group as a whole. The student will discover the language with the help of the teacher, in fact discovering it is much more effective than being passively taught. Our Italian courses are based on the communicative method, this guarantees that you get a lot of oral practice to build confidence form the the start. Therefore when you will travel to Italy you will know how to handle situations such as ordering food and asking directions.  Also the lessons are task based, and this means that you will have to complete task at the end of each lesson in order to put into practice what your have learned.

Other Italian courses: weekend, daytime intensive and private lessons.

For those who want to  learn Italian in London we have also have other formats if you cannot attend the evening classes. Our Italian native teachers are available to come to your office, or you are welcome to come to our classroom in Aldgate if you cannot arrange a meeting at your work place. We also organise weekend Italian lessons on Saturdays or you can take one of our intensive courses that run from Monday to Friday and they are very good if you are travelling to Italy at short notice.

Italian language children lessons.

If you have plans for your children to become bilingual in English and Italian or you have family in Italy we are here to help. We recommend that the children start the tuitions when then are at least 4 years old. In this case the tutor will always come to your home for the lessons as we do not do children lessons at our classroom. Our teachers are highly qualified to teach and they all have CRB clearance for extra peace of mind.