Introduction:

Italian belongs to the Romance branch of the Indo-European language family. Like the other Romance languages, it is a descendant of Vulgar Latin spoken by the Romans and imposed by them on the peoples under their rule. It is spoken by 57.7 million people in Italy with a total worldwide 64 million speakers in some 29 countries. Italian is the national language of Italy, San Marino, Vatican City, Switzerland, and some areas of Slovenia and Croatia. It is widely spoken in Malta, Corsica, Albania, Luxemburg, Germany, and Belgium. In the Americas, it is spoken in the United States, Canada, Venezuela, Uruguay, Brazil, and Argentina. Italian dialects form a continuum of intelligibility, with the geographically distant ones being mutually unintelligible. In modern Italy, people communicate mostly in regional dialects, although standard Italian is the only written language.

I started learning Italian in 2015 from the Italian Cultural Institute in New Delhi and completed level B1 by mid-2017. Since then, I’ve been studying at home on my own. Initially, to enroll for a foreign language course, I was hesitant and unsure but over time I have realized how useful it has been for my personality and growth. It has been an exciting yet frustrating journey! So, I’m going to share my experience and I hope it helps you learn Italian in a better way.

• Motivation is the key

Perfection was my ultimate goal. No mistakes, no slip-ups, just everything going just right for me to succeed in Italian. But as we all know – and as I quickly learned – mistakes are inevitable, and I got very frustrated. This led me to an important turning point in my learning where I was forced to make some big changes to my learning.

• Online content 

One of the easiest ways I find to get a good dose of the language in my everyday life is by following Italian speakers on Instagram. That way, it’s almost forced on me while doing my mindless scrolling and I’ll stop to read a caption or listen to stories in Italian. Of course, I’ve used apps to study Italian before. It’s nice to study a set amount of words and verbs in Italian and mixes written and auditory Italian prompts. I also am obsessed with podcasts, especially anything that could be classified as “self-improvement”. It’s so easy to listen to a podcast in Italian when I’m on the bus or walking somewhere and it does make a difference in listening comprehension.

• Reading to improve grammar

 If you get enough conversation practice but are still struggling with verb tenses and other grammatical mistakes, a grammar book might be the best way to brush up on your knowledge. To start pushing past my current limits, I bought myself a grammar book in Italian. Believe me, it just gets better.

One of the major challenges I faced was my fear of talking in Italian. I’ve always had difficulty speaking to native speakers, I felt very shy and conscious and it was hard for me to put myself out there. I loved constructive feedback but dislike native speakers telling me every single word that could be a certain way. So I constantly second guess myself. But eventually, my desire to Italian was bigger than my fear and I succeeded. 

I have a newfound respect for language learners because over these years I realized how difficult it is to switch between languages. My brain was speaking Hindi, English, and Italian and it got so tiring and cumbersome at the time of the day. Learning Italian helped me find this business side of me. It has given me an incredible opportunity to understand the business aspect of things in Italy.