Can you learn Italian by yourself?
To learn Italian on your own, start with the basics like the alphabet and grammar rules, build your vocabulary, practice listening and speaking with native speakers, read and write in Italian, and immerse yourself in the language and culture through media and events.
- Watch Italian movies and TV shows. ...
- Follow the Italian news. ...
- Try cooking more Italian recipes. ...
- Read out loud. ...
- Use your hands. ...
- Create your own flashcards.
Grammar: Areas that students of Italian typically find challenging at first stem from the amount of grammar there is. It's not so much its complexity that's challenging but rather there are just so many verb conjugations, tenses, and irregularities to learn.
It's estimated that you need 50-60 hours of study to reach the A1 level in Italian, and approximately 100-120 hours to reach A2. If you study one hour a day, you can comfortably reach A1 within two months (provided you already have a study plan, otherwise it will take a little longer).
Is Italian hard to learn for English-speakers? We have good news: The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) considers Italian to be one of the easiest languages for English-speakers to learn. In fact, they estimate that you just need twenty-four weeks (or 600 hours) to acquire basic fluency.
It's definitely possible with dedication and commitment. Italian is a beautiful and expressive language and with the right approach, it is possible to learn the basics in just three months. First, it is important to understand the structure of the Italian language, hence its grammar.
If you speak English, Spanish will be definitively easier than Italian for you because there are more similarities. For example, Spanish and English make plurals almost the same way, adding es or s at the end of the word, Italian doesn't.
But you'll probably find that Italian is slightly easier than French. Grammar-wise, they're fairly similar in complexity. Most of this discrepancy goes back to French pronunciation being less phonetic than Italian, but that also depends on what kind of learner you are.
While its grammar, and even its pronunciation, is more straightforward than German's in other ways, Italian will serve you lots of tricky exceptions to its various rules. Meanwhile, German is less confusing around rules. Most of the time, the grammar follows the logic you expect it to.
You can gradually accustom your ear to learning some words and phrases, but one has to actually study the language, its pronunciation and grammar, and, most importantly, you have to speak, not merely listen.
Is it easier to learn Spanish or Italian?
However, some languages are easier to learn than others, so you might want to be strategic about which language to choose. Luckily for you, both Spanish and Italian are ranked among the easiest languages for English speakers to learn, making it a toss-up between the two.
Most English speakers, and those who speak other romance languages like Spanish, will have a relatively easy time learning Italian, because the roots of many common words are the same. In fact, you may already know more Italian words than you think you do!
In 2022, Germany was the leading inbound travel market in the country based on the number of arrivals, with roughly 12.8 million arrivals.
As for purely domestic Italian vocabulary, you will need about 3,000 words to communicate with native Italian speakers. This will enable you to hold a conversation on general topics, and once you are able to speak about simple things, you can increase your level of knowledge to 5,000-6,000.
Knowledge of Italian is important for people in business, the arts, technology and many professions. According to UNESCO (the cultural and educational agency for the United Nations), over 60 percent of the entire world's art treasures are found in Italy.
This Italian course for beginners offers you video courses that are tailored to incorporate various methods into teaching and accommodate different learning styles, so that they can be a perfect fit for each student.
While it may not be possible to become fluent in Italian in just 10 days, it IS possible to learn the basics in a short period of time and move on to becoming fluent. Don't be discouraged. You can and will learn Italian much faster than you expect.
How long does it take to become fluent in Italian? No two people are the same, so there's no hard and fast amount of time it takes to reach fluency. However, data from the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) suggests that relatively easy languages like Italian take around 480 hours of study to reach basic fluency.
Approach to learning
The biggest difference between Babbel and Duolingo is the approach to language learning. Babbel is a better option if you want traditional language instructions through modules and lessons. By contrast, Duolingo works great if you need a playful, gamified experience.
- Read out loud. If you're listening to a lesson and reading along, read out loud. ...
- Prepare things to say ahead of time. ...
- Use shadowing (repeat the dialogues as you hear them). ...
- Review again and again. ...
- DON'T BE AFRAID TO MAKE MISTAKES!
Which language is closest to Italian?
According to Ethnologue, lexical similarity is 89% with French, 87% with Catalan, 85% with Sardinian, 82% with Spanish, 80% with Portuguese, 78% with Ladin, 77% with Romanian. Estimates may differ according to sources.
One 2011 study from the Université de Lyon looked at 7 languages, which reported the order as Japanese (7.84 syllables per second), Spanish (7.82), French (7.18), Italian (6.99), English (6.19), German (5.97) and Mandarin (5.18).
Spanish - officially, Castellano - traces its origins to the late X century (probably ~1000 AD), when the first known “Spanish” text was written, the Glosas Emilianenses. Italian's first written record also dates from the X century, being slightly older: the Placiti Cassinesi, written in 960–963.
Spanish is a top business language thanks to how widely spoken it is, but if you're working in, say, fashion, it might make much more sense to learn Italian. All in all, deciding Italian vs Spanish might be an easy or tough call once you consider all the factors. But this is hardly a one-size-fits-all decision.
To answer the question of whether Spanish speakers can understand Italian or not, the answer is: sometimes! Both languages are similar but different enough for many Italians to take Spanish lessons and vice versa. Speaking slowly and clearly helps a lot, and it's an effective way to better understand a new language.
