I Want to Learn Italian

I am in love with Italy. It is MY country, where I feel at home. The people are friendly and great, the food is amazing, and it is beautiful and chaotic and lovely. Some people hate it, but here is where I feel at home. I'm currently in Roma and loving it.

So learn the language. It is the most reliably rewarding thing you can do with the feeling in this post, and Italian is unusually kind to a beginner: it is spelled as it sounds, so you can read a menu aloud and be understood in week one.

Three routes, in rising order of how much they change things.

• An app, before you go. Half an hour a day for a couple of months gets you the present tense, numbers, and enough to order confidently. It will not get you a conversation, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling a subscription.
• A language school in Italy, for a week or a month. Perugia, Siena, Bologna and Rome all have them, mornings in class and the afternoon in the city using it. This is the step that actually works, and it costs less than most people assume.
• Staying put. A month in one town beats three months moving. You start recognising people, and being recognised is what forces you past the phrasebook.

The thing nobody warns you about: Italians will switch to English to be kind to you. Ask them not to, once, and most will happily stay in Italian for the rest of the conversation.

Posted 28 August 2005 by Cherie in Italy, Eurail Blog Archives