How to Learn Italian

Unless you are very lucky and/or experienced, it can be difficult to learn a foreign language. I struggled for years before I found the system that worked for me. I'm happy to say, I now speak Italian pretty well, but I had many false starts and frustrations before I really got going. These are some of the lessons I learnt the hard way.

The main thing is that you really need a teacher. While teach-yourself materials can be useful as back-up, they are no substitute for someone to talk and listen to you, to correct your mistakes and to explain why you should say it this way and not that. I spent a couple of years with a book and CDs but I didn't get to grips with the language until I enrolled on a course (or rather, the right course).

If you want to know about science, maths or the history of art, books and lectures will take you a long way. It's not the same with a language: you learn a language best by speaking it. For this reason, you need a very small class or, even better, one-to-one tuition.

Every Thursday night for 18 months or so, I went to Italian class at my local college. I learnt more than I had at home by myself but most people were coming just for fun, for something sociable to do, and progress was slow.

I looked around for another course and discovered a language school offering one-to-one Italian lessons. In the year I have been there, I've gone from lower intermediate to advanced and I'm overjoyed! It's so satisfying finally to be able to make sense of it all and have a real conversation. It may sound selfish but I love being able to ask as many questions as I like, without worrying that other people are getting impatient. Equally, when I understand, I love not having to wait for other people to catch up.

Apart from the fact that it's the most efficient way to learn, a one-to-one course is also much more convenient because you can arrange the lessons for times that suit you. With my childcare and work commitments, I really like this flexibility.

When I'd mastered the basics and was equipped to cope, we started doing the entire lesson in Italian, which I really like. It's not just an academic exercise any more; I'm using the language to communicate with my teacher. This forces me to be resourceful and I get a huge buzz from making myself understood and from understanding what she says to me.

So stop torturing yourself with self-study courses, miss out the large group and go straight for one-to-one lessons. An experienced teacher will get you speaking Italian in a shorter time than you might think. It has certainly worked for me!

If you live in or close to Manchester (UK), contact the JMJ language school and begin a one-to-one Italian course whenever you like.

Title:
How to Learn Italian
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