Learning Italian

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So, I've been stumbling off and on for awhile trying to learn Italian. Within the last year I found an app called Duolingo.

Originally, Italian wasn't offerred, so I tried it out with German. It's a pretty cool app.

After Italian came to the app and I completed and "mastered" multiple beginner lessons, I had to put it down because of the loads of schoolwork coming in.

Because my vacation has just recently started, I've been able to find much more time.

I had to start over, but it's picking up quickly again. My goal is to make it to the Italiani section of the forums by the end of the year at least

If you guys have any suggestions for my journey to *conquering Italian lemme know!

Progress:

Spoiler for Hidden:

Spoiler for May 6-10 2013:

[sixers]

Best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself into a community which speaks that language. Obviously the best way to do this is to travel to a country, or find a small community in a city or something where everyone speaks that language and just hang out with them for as much time as you can, while trying your best to jump in the conversation and speak your mind, learning new words, etc etc. But this is hard to do, costs a lot of money, can't just up and leave your home/job to go to a community where you can learn a language. Now that we have the internet though, this has become alot easier. Find chat rooms, preferably some sort of VOIP, where you can actually have conversations with people and speak back to them in the language you are trying to learn. It's also easier if you can find some sort of medium in which you guys share a common interest. This is how most non-english speaking pick up english. English is the dominantly spoken language on-line so if people want to participate in the discussion they are forced to learn the language.

anyway I feel like i'm rambling but I got my point accross.

[RavingRabbid]

Best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself into a community which speaks that language.

For italian, this isn't the case.

There are 14 different dialects, and there are more sub-dialects (someone with a good hearing can separate me from someone who lives 10 minutes of train away). Communities tend to group around a single dialect, and dialects are very different from italian.

I take it you already know how to decline verbs (don't worry, not even italians can do that well. I myself miss how to make a remote past sometimes.), at least how to make the infinitive forms (participio, infinito, gerundio) and the verbs avere and essere.
About indicative forms, you should know Present, Imperfect and Future. Remote past isn't used much (at least around here). About coniugative and conditional (or how you call them in english), understand how they work.


If you can understand this, or even half of it, you're set and can pretend to be speaking italian. He's tuscanian, and he's reading and commenting the "Divina Commedia" to italians. Tuscanian is the root of italian, so it's a good compromise between dialects.

If you fancy a film, this could work. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087814/

[Shrink]

I take it you already know how to decline verbs (don't worry, not even italians can do that well. I myself miss how to make a remote past sometimes.), at least how to make the infinitive forms (participio, infinito, gerundio) and the verbs avere and essere.
About indicative forms, you should know Present, Imperfect and Future. Remote past isn't used much (at least around here). About coniugative and conditional (or how you call them in english), understand how they work.

All of the beginner lessons have been related to nouns (singular and plural) and conjugation of verbs in the present tense.

I took Spanish for five years in school, so it hasn't been hard to learn what I have. Unfortunately, only practicing for about an hour a day only gets through so much material. Trying to immerse myself in the language should be interesting, but my grandmother is Italian, so hopefully she can help me pick up some here and there.

If you go to the site here, you can see how they lessons are set up. I have only made it through Plurals and Food 2, but I've absolutely loved the language thus far.
At times, it is a bit difficult to type what the speaker has said because of the speed and accent, but it's also very helpful!

Also, thanks for the movie suggestion. I'm very into film, so that'll be a great watch soon. I've wanted to watch Life is Beautiful as well for a long time.

[sixers]

Best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself into a community which speaks that language.

For italian, this isn't the case.

There are 14 different dialects, and there are more sub-dialects (someone with a good hearing can separate me from someone who lives 10 minutes of train away). Communities tend to group around a single dialect, and dialects are very different from italian.

Still seems like its the case...

[Tom Bombadil]

dialects exist also in different languages i think...i speak with a different accent from rav (which lives 200km away from me), but i think that english spoke in manchester is somehow different form london one...but they don't make language unuderstandeable or misunderstandeable

imho best way to learn a language is watching movies (Non ci resta che piangere is a very good one, but also 3-oscar winner "La vita è bella"), first you watch the movie in your own language to understand it, then you watch it in italian subtitled in italian, to understand clearly the dialogues and recognise how words are pronounciated, and then only in italian...

step 2 is to find a place in which you can speak italian and practice your language...if you follow this path i think you'll be able to join our topic...

(another good thing is to read books in italian, especially those one you've already read in your own language)

[Shrink]

imho best way to learn a language is watching movies (Non ci resta che piangere is a very good one, but also 3-oscar winner "La vita è bella"), first you watch the movie in your own language to understand it, then you watch it in italian subtitled in italian, to understand clearly the dialogues and recognise how words are pronounciated, and then only in italian...

(another good thing is to read books in italian, especially those one you've already read in your own language)

Okay, great! That really sounds like a nice immersive way to get into the language without even having to move

[sixers]

Just listening to a movie is really too passive. You need to be active in conversation. Listening and talking.

and yeah, all languages have dialects. I really know noting about Italian, but i'm sure that everyone who is fluent in italian can perfectly maintain a conversation with anyone else no matter how drastically different there accent is.

[Tom Bombadil]

Just listening to a movie is really too passive. You need to be active in conversation. Listening and talking.

of course, but it might help in get in touch with the language, then you must experience direct conversation to improve your speaking and your listening skills

[n00b]

Though I haven't learned Italian, I can say that, complementing my Spanish classes, I learned from watching common movies (usually Disney, since I knew a lot of them anyways) with Spanish subtitles, and it does take some getting used to, especially the speed and pronunciation (and that whole vosotros thing, but we don't like to talk about that). So imo, a great way to learn Italian, especially if you are using something to help you learn it, is to watch, like Tom said, a movie in your native language, then Italian with Italian subtitles, or even just a movie that you own if you're able to change the language. Not quite sure how you would practice your speaking, but I think in the beginning it's more important to learn the basic vocabulary, sentence structures, and conjugations before trying to speak proficiently.

I know my thoughts kind of run on, but it's finals week, so I've slept little and studied much, so give me a break D:

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Mark of progress~

Spoiler for Hidden:

This will be the only post of the sort, while the rest of the updates will be through edits in the topic.

Spoiler for Italian skill tree:

Yay for colors!