Learning Italian from scratch. Easily! Italian for beginners

You will need

• - Italian language textbook (self-instruction manual),
• - audio CDs,
• - notebook,
• - pen,
• technical means - optional.

Instructions

Give yourself time every day for an hour to an hour and a half. Plan your class schedule for the week ahead and correlate all other things with it. In order not to forget about your classes in a series of household chores, use reminders, a planner on your computer, organize your schedule so that by the time of class you have all your work done. Prepare yourself a comfortable workspace where you will not be distracted.

Buy any textbook or Italian. The difference between them will only be in the form of presentation of the material - in some textbooks it is more interesting or more modern, in others the material will be drier. Beforehand, if possible, familiarize yourself with it, in what form the information is given, and what explanations and exercises are used. But, by and large, with any textbook you will have to do the same repetitive actions - study the rules, grammar, do exercises to consolidate them and words. So don't waste a lot of time on this. Use the Internet to read tutorials and reviews about them.

Set yourself short-term goals. For example, learn 50 - 100 lexical units per week. This will help you track small successes and maintain motivation, a sense of self-satisfaction, and will allow you not to depend on the brightness of book illustrations.

Buy discs so that you can listen and repeat the material after the announcers. It is advisable that they come from the same set as the textbook. You can also use the Internet for this; there are many educational audio recordings available for review.

Alternate learning the rules with practice - do exercises, watch Italian channels, listen and translate songs, memorize and sing songs yourself. Getting emotional pleasure from classes is very important; it significantly contributes to memorizing new material.

As you progress in your skills, read literature in Italian. Start with simple and short fairy tales. First use bilingual with parallel Russian. Gradually, by practicing reading and memorizing words, you will stop paying attention to translation, and the need for it will disappear.

Use online lessons on the Internet. Meet Italians with similar interests. Visit Italian Internet resources, take an interest in what is happening in the country, read the news. By receiving information in the target language from all sides, the brain adapts to the language faster and more easily; this imitates the situation of “immersion”, when mastery occurs faster.

Helpful advice

For additional studies and consolidation of knowledge, use the time on the road, and, if possible, the time before bed.

Sources:

• Italian language tutorials.
• learn Italian

Learning a foreign language on your own is not such an impossible task. The main thing is to be patient and find free time. But you need to repeat classes regularly. Otherwise, it will be quite difficult to achieve success.

Instructions

To learn Italian on your own, stock up on teaching literature. You will need phrasebooks, bilingual dictionaries: Russian-Italian and Italian-Russian, audio and video courses. Phrase books will help you learn the most common phrases, polite addresses, and stable language structures. With the help of audio and video courses, you will be able to understand how speech sounds, what intonation shades it has, where logical stress should be placed, etc. Dictionaries will give you the opportunity to study vocabulary. But in order for you to master Italian, you need to set aside a certain time for yourself and set a schedule. For example, according to research by scientists, it is advisable to spend 1.5 hours a day and at least 3 days a week on learning new things. Divide this time so that on one day you work with a phrasebook, on another with a dictionary, on the third with visual and audio lessons.

Books written in the original language are another way to learn the language. Take for study a work that you know well. Read the original in English and try to translate it, writing down unfamiliar words. Don't be alarmed if at first almost everything seems completely new to you.

Movies with subtitles will also help you learn the language. They will teach you how to match the original sound with the spelling of a word. This way you can quickly expand your vocabulary.

Italian has a special energy and sound. It is not for nothing that it is recognized as the language of love: melodic, rhythmic, temperamental, with beautiful phonetic transitions and combinations of sounds. Listening and speaking Italian is a real pleasure. If you want to learn, follow our advice.

How to learn Italian quickly

In any endeavor, be it skydiving or the desire to learn Italian from scratch, the most important thing is attitude and motivation. Whatever method you choose for yourself - on your own, classes with a tutor, courses - the main thing is not to slow down and finish the job. One of the driving forces is motivation. Below are some stimulating facts that will help you learn Italian from scratch on your own and quickly.

One of the national prides is the Italian film fund, or rather the directing school, known throughout the world for such masterpieces as “La Dolce Vita,” “The Taming of the Shrew,” and “Scent of a Woman.” Adriano Celentano, Sophia Loren, Ornella Muti - you will be able to hear the original speech from the lips of the legendary stars, without translation into Russian.

You will understand the plot lines of opera productions. After all, it is in Italian that the characters of the classical opera communicate. You will perceive music in combination with words, and you will receive double aesthetic pleasure.

Morandi, Celentano, Ramazzotti- this music is beautiful and subtly touches the strings of the soul. Once you learn Italian, you will understand the meaning of each song and can even sing along.

Museums- one of the country's treasures. They store about 70% of the world's artistic treasures, recognized by UNESCO as unique. If you speak the language, you can join any excursion tour and learn a lot of interesting things about each of the exhibits, down to the word.

Italy is one of the most picturesque countries, which boasts many unique historical and architectural monuments. Rome, Florence, Venice - thousands of tourists from different parts of the world come to these cities all year round. By learning Italian at home, you will be able to travel freely and make new friends. A dictionary and phrasebook will no longer be useful.

Fashion and design. Italians have a sense of style in their blood. If you want to learn the intricacies of the fashion industry, you definitely need to visit Milan Fashion Week. You will be the first to see legendary couturiers, current collections, and what will be in trend all year long. If you want to get into fashion design, there are specialized schools in major Italian cities that train aspiring fashion designers. In the question of how to learn Italian at home, in this case there is only one answer - think about the end result and achieve your goal.

Cooking. If you have a talent as a cook or specialized education and want to become a real professional, Italy will be the ideal place to achieve brilliant results. This school of chefs and restaurateurs is considered one of the strongest in the world. And you can’t do it without knowledge of the language.

• Italians mostly speak their native language and are reluctant to speak English, French or other European languages. Therefore, if you are planning to find business partners, you will have to seriously think about how long it will take to learn Italian from scratch. And before taking specific actions, achieve a conversational level - so that you can freely communicate with your interlocutor.

  Your travels will become brighter and more eventful if you communicate with local residents in their native language during the tour. They are very hospitable and friendly, they will be happy to show you the sights, tell you interesting stories and invite you to visit. At the end of your trip, your list of friends will be enriched with a couple of smiling Italians.

Another incentive to learn Italian is a promising job as a translator. There are not many specialists with a profile in Italian. The salary level is quite high. The mission is noble.

If you dream of marrying an Italian and changing your place of residence, you won’t be able to cope without the language. Learn grammar, expand your vocabulary, practice live speech. A diploma from the Russian Geographical Faculty is not needed; it is enough to reach a conversational level.

This language is easy to learn, it has easy and understandable phonetics. If French has many subtleties that require years of practice, here sounds and letters are in clear correspondence between spelling and pronunciation - this is similar to Russian.

There are many reasons for beginners to learn Italian on their own. And each of them is weighty and significant. Still striving for new knowledge - we have collected useful recommendations that will help you achieve the desired result.

Tutor

The most effective and fastest way is to hire a tutor. Nothing can be more intense than individual lessons. Firstly, you choose a convenient schedule for yourself. Secondly, the teacher draws up a training program specifically tailored to your level of knowledge, adjusts the process depending on the difficulties that arise, focuses on mistakes, and works on weaknesses. The main thing is to find a good tutor who will give you comprehensive theory and speaking practice.

The most common option is language courses. To do this, you need to find a school that suits you geographically and according to the class schedule. The group usually consists of 10-15 people with approximately the same level of knowledge.

The teaching system is standard: lectures, audio and video lessons, tests, communication. The disadvantage is that you yourself need to notice the mistakes and correct them in time. In group classes, the teacher’s emphasis is scattered across all students; help is required - do not be shy to draw attention to yourself.

Live communication

If you want to learn Italian on your own, find an interesting conversation partner. Live communication is the basis of efficiency. Through dialogue, you will learn speech patterns, catch the correct intonations, and expand your vocabulary. The second question is where to find such a person. Option two: foreign students from Italy (which is very rare for Russian universities) or through the Internet. Conversations via Skype are a great opportunity to see, hear and communicate. Advice: agree in advance on the time to get in touch, take into account the difference in time zones.

Journey

The ideal method that allows you not only to delve deeper into the language environment, but also to get a lot of impressions is a trip to Italy. If your goal is to learn Italian on your own, choose special tours similar to English language camps. If finances allow, you can hire a tutor and combine travel with classes.

Without leaving the apartment

If you plan to learn the language at home, choose good online courses. The program should be understandable, classes should be supported by audio and video material. At the end of each stage - testing. If you haven't completed the task, repeat what you've learned and try again. Working on mistakes in this case is only on your conscience, strain your willpower.

Whatever method you choose, don’t stop, set yourself up for a successful ending. To make classes easier and more effective, we’ll tell you about little tricks that will simplify the learning process:

You must learn to hear yourself. This is the only way to understand your speech mistakes. Try to speak Italian as much as possible. Sing songs, recite poems, express your thoughts out loud - you'll see, your loved ones will like it. Italian is beautiful, even if its meaning is unclear.

Prepare stickers with difficult words that you can’t remember, and paste them in different rooms - where you visit most often. This way you will train your memory and will not make mistakes.

Buy books in Italian. It is best to choose fiction and preferably something that you have read in Russian. If difficulties arise, support the process with a dictionary. Write down the phrases you like and pronounce them.

Watch movies, TV shows. This is another opportunity to hear live speech. The presentation of information by TV presenters is a speech standard to which one should strive.

You should always have a small dictionary in your pocket or purse. If you want to say a phrase in Italian, but have forgotten the word, use the cheat sheet. And the more often you rely on the regulatory framework, the richer and more literate your vocabulary will be.

Italian is a unique language, with its own history and energy. Today he is beloved all over the world, but this popularity did not arise immediately. Previously, before it was completely separated into a subgroup of Romano-Germanic languages, Italian was considered common and was used among people of the lower and middle classes. Surprising but true. And this is not the only surprising fact.

Charles V, one of the Holy Roman Emperors, said a phrase about Italian that every third Italian knows today and repeats at any opportunity. Translated into Russian, his words sounded something like this: “Every language is needed for something. In Spanish I speak with the Lord, in French about matters with men, in German with my faithful horse, and in Italian with beautiful women.” And today Italian is considered the language of love, conquering women’s hearts.

A debut in fiction, written and published in Italian, is Dante’s famous work “The Divine Comedy,” which instantly spread throughout the world and became no less popular than Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.”

Italian is conservative and has not changed phonetically or structurally over the past seven centuries. And it's not about the strictness of the standards. The language is convenient and easy to learn, does not require speech and grammatical improvement.

Italian loves borrowed words. Sometimes even with an excess, polluting the original standards. Thus, at the beginning of the 20th century, Mussolini made quite tough attempts to limit the use of foreign words. For this reason, little Italians know Mickey Mouse as Topolino and Donald Duck as Paperino.

One of the features is endings in words with a vowel sound. This rule applies to both categories: common nouns and proper ones. Residents of the North of Italy can be identified by the ending of their surname with “o”, and southerners - with “i”.

The language of terms in the musical and culinary fields is mainly based on words borrowed from Italian. Musicians all over the world know: concerto, sonata, soprano, maestro, piano. And, of course, all chefs are familiar with pasta, mozzarella, pizza, amaretto, cappuccino.

26 letters in the longest word in Italian. This is precipitevolissimevolmente, which means “very quickly” in Russian.

The number of tenses in Italian can be confusing at first. There are 15 of them, but not all of them are used in modern speech. For example, Passato remoto and Passato prossimo can be observed geographically - among the residents of Tuscany. These forms of long past and near past tenses are today used only when writing official documents.

Not all Italians have the same pronunciation. However, this phenomenon is also characteristic of other languages. Our northerners okayut, southerners - swallow vowels in syllables and pronounce the fricative “g”, etc. Synonymous speech mutations also occur in Italian. For example: Coca-Cola from the lips of the inhabitants of Tuscany will sound like Hoha Hola.

Many words consist of two parts, the first of which is constant, and the second is adjacent and changes the meaning. Sometimes similar-sounding word forms have contradictory meanings: bellissima - translated into Russian as “beautiful”, but bellona - faded.

Let's sum it up

The Italian language is beautiful, popular and at the same time easy to learn. If you want to achieve a conversational level, start with self-study, learn the basics of grammar and phonetics. The next step should be to practice. Talk more, find an interlocutor who will help you correctly place intonations, speech and semantic accents. And the ideal way is to immerse yourself in the language environment and go on a trip to Italy. This way you will strengthen your knowledge base, improve your skills, and spend your time brightly, richly and usefully.

Learning foreign languages ​​in the modern world has become easier and more convenient. With the help of gadgets and online courses, you can study without even leaving home. And this knowledge will help in different areas of life - on vacation, in your career or study.

Among the languages ​​studied, English is especially popular. However, in recent years, more and more people are choosing other options, such as Italian. It is in fifth place in the top languages ​​studied. It is chosen for its ease of pronunciation, beautiful combination of sounds and special energy.

In addition, you can learn it yourself. True, this requires effort, and most importantly, systematic training. This article contains the most convenient lesson options that will help you learn it from scratch!

1 Tutor

Of course, the fastest and most effective way to learn is to hire a tutor. Individual lessons will help you determine your level of knowledge and find your strengths and weaknesses. The teacher will be able to create a convenient schedule during personal communication and work through all aspects.

First of all, when studying with a tutor, there are no problems with correct pronunciation and communication. The teacher will help you overcome the language barrier and quickly learn to speak Italian.

An option for those who for some reason cannot devote time to individual lessons is a language school. Group courses will also be effective, but will require more workload and self-discipline. The teacher will no longer be able to pay attention as much as at a personal meeting, so you will have to study on your own. An important advantage of these classes is active communication with other students.

2 Live communication

Another fun way to learn Italian on your own is to find a conversation partner. This could be a participant in some forum of interests, a student from, or a friend on Skype. This method will help those who are already familiar with the basics and want to practice dialogue. Live communication with native Italians will expand your vocabulary, raise your level of knowledge and allow you to practice your skills.

In such communication, you should take into account time zones and agree on contact in advance. This will help avoid inconsistencies and make communication as comfortable and useful as possible.

3 Travel

A method that will help you radically and effectively approach the learning process is to go on a trip to Italy. You can specifically set a goal to study, and then choose a language camp or tour. Or you can arm yourself with a dictionary, language learning apps, online courses, or a connection with a tutor.

Traveling around Italy will help you get to know the culture, customs and people of the country better. This immersion experience will allow you to learn Italian as quickly as possible, based on real life situations.

4 Without leaving home

The easiest, but longer way to learn Italian is to do it from the comfort of your home. Now there is. Many of them have a clear lesson schedule and a variety of different exercises for grammar, vocabulary, phonetics and conversation practice.

You can also learn using video courses and audio recordings. The only disadvantage of this method is that you need to have willpower and practice systematically. You also need to work through mistakes and spend more time working on yourself. It is also advisable to find a native speaker who could occasionally check your pronunciation and correct mistakes.

In order to learn quickly and independently, you need to apply several useful practices.

1. You can train your memory using stickers with difficult words. Post them in visible places and write words on them that are difficult to remember.
2. Arm yourself with methodological literature, dictionaries and audio-video recordings. You can also read books in the original.
3. Another good way to learn a language is by watching movies. There are many freely available that you can watch with or without subtitles, depending on your level.
4. Feel free to say words and expressions out loud and constantly practice your pronunciation. You can learn Italian, and in principle any language, only through daily training.
5. Set goals for yourself to learn the language step by step. You can start with the alphabet and names of the week and then move on to more complex words and phrases.

It’s not difficult to learn Italian from scratch on your own; it’s important to set a goal and go towards it. Methodical lessons will help you achieve success in learning the language within the desired time frame.

I have always been fascinated by people who speak several foreign languages. By the way, I never dreamed of becoming a polyglot. However, when traveling to countries where English is not the native language of the majority of residents, the "foreigner" factor comes into play.

You will most likely be perceived primarily as a tourist who came to gawk at their country and only visits strictly certain places of interest in a particular city.

The “foreigner” factor assumes that you will perceive information only in your native language/English, without absolutely understanding what is going on around you. The likelihood of getting into stupid situations, being deceived and limiting information also increases by an order of magnitude.

But if you know the language of the country where you are going, the attitude towards you will become noticeably warmer: you will understand more and better, you will be able to communicate about anything and, most importantly, you will learn how and how the people of this country live.

For me, the main point of learning a language is not translating “mom washed the frame,” not passing exams, not cramming for tests, but communication.

Motivation

So, I decided to study Italian. Italian, IMHO, is a very beautiful and melodious language: the merging of prepositions with articles alone is worth it. But Italian also has difficulties in learning, first of all, conjunctions, articles, and verbs. However, any other language has its difficulties.

My experience of learning Italian began about 3-4 years ago. Although this course was informal, that is, the emphasis was not on academic learning, but rather not on informal communication, I failed. First of all, I was embarrassed to speak. Secondly, I misunderstood the rules. Thirdly, at the initial stage I spent too much time studying grammar. But one plus still remained - I learned the alphabet, learned to read and learned how the endings of verbs of three conjugations change.

Benny Lewis
An Irish polyglot who travels the world and learns new languages. He sees his mission as showing people that languages ​​can be learned quickly and effectively.

A little time passed, and I was again inspired by the idea of ​​learning Italian. I bought some kind of textbook, and it lasted me exactly five days, after which I threw it on the far shelf, where it collects dust to this day. I was frustrated by the endless boring exercises and rules, so it's no wonder that Italian became a pipe dream for me.

This summer, I was wandering around the Amazon website and came across a book by an Irish polyglot, “Fluent in three months,” where he shared his technique. Having become acquainted with his story, in which he tells how he learned eleven languages, I came away with the main idea - a method in which there is no place for speaking practice from the first day of training is, by default, complete garbage and a waste of time.

I received another signal of fate when I read the book “The Language Exit Point or How to Quit a Foreign Language.” I confidently recommend this small but very useful book to those who have suffered through the courses and are still embarrassed to speak a foreign language.

Elena Shipilova
Creator of distance learning foreign language courses Speak As Soon As Possible and the website speakasap.com, whose mission is to make people multi-speakers.

What motivated me? The idea that on a trip to Italy I will be able to talk without problems with the staff of a hotel, restaurant, cafe. That I can read and understand what they write about. And that if I succeed with Italian, in the future I will be able to take a swing at French, since they are similar. It is difficult to maintain motivation, but it is possible. After about 10-12 days of realizing and following your goal, a sincere interest in the language appears.

Benny Lewis claims that a foreign language can be learned in 90 days, which is exactly the period available to Americans coming to Europe as a guest. My goal was more modest - to understand the principles of the Italian language, learn to speak and explain myself in 90 days.

My experiment began on June 6th. Did I succeed? Yes, no doubt. During these 90 days, I learned a lot of things that I would not have been given in expensive courses. And most importantly - I can talk!

General rules and guidelines before starting to learn a language - what I understood during these 90 days

You won't know the language 100%

Yes Yes exactly. That’s why you give up studying it, because under your vague formulation “I want to know... the language” anything is hidden: grammar, reading, fluency in phraseological units... Surely you vaguely understand what it means to “know a language perfectly” , but are aimed at the result C1/C2, which in the European Framework of Reference for Languages ​​means “advanced level”.

But you will never know a language perfectly, because the language changes and you have too little time. If you want to master a language immediately, completely and completely, you will spend a lot of effort, but you will get scanty benefits. It is much more important to master the basics of grammar and learn many words that will definitely be useful to you in communication and reading.

Therefore, at the very beginning, discard such motivation as “to know perfectly.” Let your goal be “actively use the language”

Need to set a deadline

Parkinson's First Law states: “Work fills all the time allotted to it.” Accordingly, if you have a blurred time frame for when you should begin to express yourself more or less tolerably, you will most likely never use it. Instead, you will continue to study new and new textbooks and techniques.

So make just two decisions about timing:

1. I will use the language for 90 days, and then it will become easier and genuine interest will appear.
2. I will speak the language from the first day of training.

Your goal is to get the point across

The use of language is, first of all, communication. It doesn’t matter what it is: personal or virtual. If you are learning a language to only translate or read and never communicate, you can continue to learn the language using traditional methods.

As Benny Lewis points out in his book, you should be speaking your target language from day one. Here you can give in to panic and stop studying anything at all: “I can’t do anything at all and I don’t know anything!”

You're right. You Bye you don't know anything. But let's understand why speaking is more important than the ability to read, translate and write fluently in a language. You probably know people who have studied a language for several years at school or university or in courses, but when they meet a native speaker they are speechless. No wonder. After all, speaking a foreign language is almost never taught in our educational systems.

It is through conversation that most communication occurs - conveying your thought, opinion or question to the interlocutor. It is through conversation that you feel the language, and it is through conversation that the instant use of language occurs, which is not taught in textbooks. Therefore, strive to talk as much as possible from the first day of study.

Be a child

Dear mothers, please remember how you taught your child to speak? Do you remember? I give Bonk's textbook a check that you didn't shove Rosenthal's reference book or Ozhegov's dictionary under his nose so that he could learn to speak.

How does a child learn language? He just uses familiar words. He has no idea about cases, genders, compound or complex sentences, participles, verbs or tenses. So how can he speak Russian at three years old, but by the age of four or five his questions are making his head spin? 25 frame? Ilona Davydova?

Right! He's just talking. He speaks, ignoring the mistakes. Adults correct him, and he remembers what is correct. He speaks every day. He asks the meaning of the words. Thanks to the absence of fear, complexes and embarrassment (“What if that little guy from the third floor laughs at me for saying “palakhod” incorrectly?), the child begins to use language. The sooner he begins to read, at least syllable by syllable, his vocabulary will inevitably be enriched. Then - conversation plus reading, and now the child already speaks the language quite well. But when our hero has already grown up, teachers intervene in the matter and turn him into a “literate person” (although, judging by how many spelling and punctuation errors you see on social networks, there is a suspicion that this did not help everyone).

So, you must put aside all fears and embarrassment when speaking in the target language. If the process of reading and writing is more inward, then communication inevitably leads to contact with another person. So you shouldn't be shy. Two more rules follow from this principle.

You talk like shit

The first corollary of the principle “Be a child” is that you should speak without any embarrassment and as bad as possible at the beginning. Don't worry, it won't be perfect the first time. Most likely, at first your speech will consist of groans, grunts, simple words and lots and lots of mistakes! But this is great!!! After all, it is thanks to mistakes that a child, and other people, learn.

Your success and progress in speaking is directly proportional to the number of mistakes. The more you do at first, the easier it will be later. First you will remember how this word is said, how it is used at that time, and then each time the learning curve will tend to increase. Your memory will simply get angry at these mistakes and, in the end, it will remember how to speak correctly.

Fuck the rules (only at the beginning)

While talking, you will frantically remember this or that rule that needs to be applied in the conversation. But at the beginning of training this should not worry you. Rules are necessary, but only after you have already “conversed,” that is, after 5-6 speaking lessons, you will be able to learn the simplest grammatical rules.

At first, you can always learn the simplest words, pronouns and constructions, such as: “I”, “you”, “he”, “how are you”, “hello”, “good”, “I’m working”, “my name is”, “what’s your name”, “how old”, “I’m studying”, “I like” and feel free to use them. Then, when you become confident that speaking is not scary, you can plunge into the fascinating world of simple grammar (at first, only simple present, past and future tenses).

There is always time

“I don’t have time” is the coolest excuse. But there is always time. I learned the language in the evening, “stealing” 30 minutes from social networks and when I returned from work on the bus. When you study remotely with a native speaker and pay him at the same time, you willy-nilly find time for this.

Use the time you spend in transport in queues. Less Facebook, games and idle pastime, and time, as if by magic, will appear.

Tools

In fact, any book will be useful after second week of speaking practice. You should choose a book that explains grammar as simply and clearly as possible. Everything else can be burned and forgotten. You study one lesson a day from the book, memorize the words. Write down what you don't understand and ask your teacher.

This site has ready-made lessons that will allow you to get a small base in seven lessons. Language marathons are also regularly held there, which will allow you to learn and study a lot in a month.

I studied grammar one lesson at a time, trying so hard not to get hung up on complex topics or complex grammatical structures. I took the basic principles, did the exercises, and asked my teacher what I didn’t understand.

Application for learning words. Gives reminders about a word with its translation. Available as an extension on Chrome. A nice bonus: if you are reading on your phone and see an unfamiliar word, you can highlight it and Biscuit will instantly translate it into English and save this card for studying it.

English-Italian dictionary (via in-app purchases). I liked the fact that all tense forms of the verb are indicated there.

Application for keeping a diary. Around the end of my mini-challenge, I started journaling in Italian to improve my writing skills.

Songs

Of course, the Italian stage is very well known to the older generation, primarily through Celentano and Toto Cutugno. Among the modern ones we can remember Bocelli, Ramazzotti and a couple more. But when you discover the world of Italian pop music, you simply listen to it.

But you need to listen with benefit. To do this, print out the words of your favorite song and try to translate it. Avoid the temptation to copy-paste an entire song into Google Translate at once. First, read the text carefully, then find familiar words and grammatical structures, and then start translating.

If this song is your favorite, then hum it, this way you will automatically remember the words and grammatical structures.

When I arrived in Italy, I didn’t know a word of Italian. Calming myself with the fact that master's studies are in English and Costa Smeralda is an international resort, during the first weeks I did not even bother myself with any kind of study of the language of the great Dante.

After some time I realized thatItaly and English practically incompatible with each other. From that moment my acquaintance with Italian began. I started saying hello and goodbye in Italian, learned the names of some drinks that I usually ordered at the bar (my “Due birre grandi, per favore!” is still remembered by all my friends. And no, I’m not an alcoholic), I learned how to ask for a package in the store . I held on to this “knowledge” for several more months.

I realized that I urgently needed to learn Italian when it came time to look for a place for a summer internship. I won’t say that they didn’t want to take me anywhere, after all, knowledge of English and Russian is very valued here, but... why does a company need an employee who can’t even call a taxi if necessary?

Initially, at the University secretariat, I said that I wanted to do an internship at the Airport. And not just a simple one, but in the golden General Aviation (the so-called terminal for private flights). I came to the first interview with the director in full confidence that I would be hired right away - I’m so cool, I studied so much and speak two languages ​​fluently...

They gave me two weeks. No, not even a probationary period. Two weeks to learn the language and return for a second interview in Italian. These were probably the most exciting and at the same time the most beautiful two weeks of my life.

• During these two weeks I walked a lot. Just like that, through the streets. I was walking and listened to what people were saying, tried to catch familiar words by ear.
• Watched movies in Italian (or rather, I was reviewing those that I had seen before translated into Russian in order to understand the essence of the picture).
• I went for a walk in the park with Italian music in headphones. I listened to ten of the same songs over and over again in order to learn them by heart. Language expressions, grammar, stable phrases - everything is in music!
• Spent time on the beach with an Italian textbook or a fashion magazine to boot. Back in Russia, I bought a “Practical Course of the Italian Language” from the author Dobrovolskaya. A very decent edition, in my opinion.
• I asked all my Italian friends talk to me only in their native language, both in person and by telephone.
• If you are not physically in Italy, I advise you to find a pen pal on the Internet for language practice. I heard that this method is very popular now.

All these actions bore fruit. No, of course, I didn’t speak Italian as a “native”, but I began to understand people, the fear of communication disappeared, I could answer basic questions and created a good basic dictionary in my head.

At the second interview I was still given a place. Small, but a success, isn’t it?)

Work has begun. And here one undeniable thing helped me a lot - there was not a single Russian-speaking person in my environment! Neither at work, nor at home. I plunged into conditions where the only Russian interlocutor was my mother on Skype for 5 minutes a day. My work colleagues, wonderful guys who spoke perfect English, tried to give me as much Italian language practice as possible. I made phone calls to various Italian institutions with a prepared speech on a piece of paper, I worked with Italian-speaking crews, answered all letters without exception.... And it bore fruit! By September 2014, I was already able to express myself quite fluently (sometimes with minor grammatical errors), and periodically fell into a stupor if I didn’t know a word (after all, I was still thinking in Russian in my head).