Learning Italian at home, listening to audio lessons on the way to the office using the CD player in the car or reading a book all about Italian are different examples of how one person can learn another language without getting formal lessons from any teacher or language professor.
If you are an interested learner, disregard your age or status in life; if you want to learn something out of pure interest and curiosity, you will reap your own rewards in the end. Also, it doesn’t matter if you have the most expensive language learning software or if you just read on available online resources and old books from the library, the important thing is that you keep on learning no matter what it takes.
The Italian language has a different accent compared to the English language, the Italian accent needed to be followed is also different, but the easy fact about the Italian language is the way each word is pronounce because it only follows the syllables and the way how each word is spelled. What else can help your progress in learning? To apply what you learn and what you are learning in the process in the most natural way possible is the answer.
Don’t expect to speak in perfect grammar. That is just too impossible. What you need to concentrate on instead is how much vocabulary you know about the language. You will for sure, commit mistakes and several attempts to talk to a native Italian speaker perfectly is going to be a failure, but that’s okay. You are a student and you’re meant to commit mistakes. No big deal.
The big event will come when you have been studying much about the Italian language and its culture. Exposing yourself to Italian movies, shows, music and history will be a great help to your fluency of the Italian language. You’ll learn the accent, you’ll acquire the most natural conversation, and most importantly, you’ll learn how it really feels to talk in fluent Italian. But until then, you will need to work hard on many aspects and not giving up is another.
Posts Tagged ‘Fluency’
Self Learning On Italian
December 18th, 2009Learn French Fluently in Less Than 8 Weeks and Exercise Your Brain
December 18th, 2009In today’s competitive world, it is not a surprise to see the marketplace inundated with self-improvement products. But did you know that learning a foreign language, such as French, is one of the most overlooked means to improve oneself in North America. And the interesting thing about this is that learning a language has so many benefits that it boggles the mind as to how we fail to see the obvious. We all have our reasons to learn French online but why not remind you of the obvious and the not so obvious reasons so that you can improve yourself by learning French and go beyond the workplace to enrich your life experiences and join our global community.
The first “obvious” is that second language learning is more of a cognitive than linguistic activity. Research shows that children who learn French, or any foreign language, out perform their non-foreign language-learning peers in verbal skills and in problem solving activities such as math. It also increases a child’s critical thinking skills, creativity and flexibility of mind. Most of the people that speak more than one language, have acquired fluency from childhood. And haven’t you noticed that their pronunciation is native-like pronunciation and intonation? But anyone, regardless of his or her age, can learn a language such as French and improve their cognitive skills because we all know that the single-most determining factors in achieving fluency in are desire and drive.
The second “obvious” is that learning French opens the doors to a new culture and hence new experiences. Yes, you can get a promotion or an increase in income if you speak French, not to mention, the admiration of your peers, friends and family. If you learn to speak French fluently, you will have the freedom to travel abroad and not feel imprisoned or alienated by your inability to communicate with the native French speakers. In this way you will be breaking the stereotype of a typical Anglophone tourist in Paris, for example, and be a welcomed citizen of the world.
The last “obvious” is not so obvious. Recent studies suggest that individuals who speak more that one language have a lower incidence of senility compared to individuals who speak only one language. Also one of the preventive measures for Alzheimer’s is mental stimulation. What better way to exercise your brain than to learn French online at your convenience and on your own terms?
In whatever way you are improving yourself, whether it is mind, body or soul you will reap the benefits. So on your way to Yoga class or while you are going for a run or a walk with your dog, you can also learn French fast if you remember to bring your iPod with you and exercise your brain. It will not only be your brain that benefits but the whole YOU and your life experiences. Do not forget the obvious. Learn to speak French fluently. Exercise your brain and change your life.
Intermediate Language Learning – Group Study, Evaluation, Learning Pace, Practice
September 5th, 2009After you’ve established a basic vocabulary in the language you’re studying and feel confident enough that you can pass on to some more complex jobs, it’s time to put what you know to practice. The following tips and tricks are meant for people who have already achieved a basic level of understanding in a foreign language and want to improve areas such as speaking, writing, vocabulary improvement and so forth.
Study with a Friend or Form a Study Group
If you’re studying the new foreign language in class, it will be easy for you to grab a classmate and start studying together. Otherwise, if you’re learning the new language on your own, you could try looking for someone with the same interest or someone that wants to improve that specific language and help each other out. Studying with a friend is an incredibly powerful way of stimulating the learning process and you’ll be able to improve your vocabulary a lot faster. Most importantly, you’ll not just learn the words, or just understand the language you’re studying, as soon enough you’ll be able to handle conversations with your study-buddy, which will be far more helpful in allowing you to reach fluency in that language.
Evaluate Your Strengths and Weaknesses
Each person has his strengths and weaknesses when it comes to learning a foreign language. Some may be better at memorizing words, others will understand grammar rules faster, or get a good grip on pronunciation with ease. To the same extent, one person might have troubles with any of the above mentioned areas. But language lessons and course books don’t care about this. They have straight on, step-by-step requirements that you need to follow, however you should adapt your own strengths and weaknesses to this learning process.
For example, if you’re having problems with the grammar and you can’t really get a correct sentence without checking the book, but the course has already passed on to, say, vocabulary, do you continue? Of course not, you should make sure you have covered everything up before moving on, or you might end up with serious holes in your learning that can prove important later on.
However, if you find yourself flying through a chapter and you’ve already got a good grasp on what they’re trying to explain, but the course goes on and on for 20 more pages about the same thing, you should skip them. It’s all about making your language lessons efficient and evaluating your own strengths and weaknesses so that you know what to emphasize on or what to lay low with.
Find Your Own Language Learning Pace
This is sort of complementary to No. 5 since your pace will mostly be determined by your strengths and weaknesses. The most important thing to know is that you should set your own boundaries. Don’t let a course book or a free online language lesson tell you “It’s time to move on to the next chapter”. You’ll have to decide when to move on and you should only do so when you’re fully confident that you got everything right so far. Remember, skipping or not fully understanding a part of your new language is like taking a card out of the base of your card castle. Sure, there’s a chance it will still hold based on the other cards, but you’ll be left with quite a shaky castle..
Practice Consistently and Efficiently
One thing I don’t like about course books is that they give you set time limits for studying. “Study 1 hour each day for 2 months” and the likes. I’d say you will be better off simply studying consistently, as much as you feel comfortable with, otherwise it won’t be efficient. If you’re going to go study for 1 hour simply because you’ll “ruin the program your course book gave you” then that right there is very inefficient. If that’s your only motivation, you’ll probably be very unfocused, thus inefficient when studying.
You should always study when you’re in the mood to do so and not forced by any other factors. Otherwise you’ll lose a lot of time mindlessly reading stuff in your new language, but not assimilating anything. In addition, frustration and nuisance will build up and when that happens, many people simply quit. If you study consistently and efficiently and you’ll actually see some results, that will give you enough motivation to study the next day and the next and so forth. One last note regarding language learning efficiency: follow tip number 3 and eat the information with a small spoon. You don’t want to overwhelm your brain with new information.
By: Michael Gabrikow
