Learning Italian Tips

Learning Italian Tips

1 Make your own vocabulary notebook (use an inexpensive address book which has alphabetical tabs - see previous post on DIY diaries)

2 Ask an Italian restaurant for a takeaway menu; copy words with translations

3 Add google translate to your favourites bar or an icon for a translation service

4 Follow a conversation course such as Earworms - a short form of the Berlitz listening method

5 Buy a pocket phrase book to browse at bus stops, stations, or while waiting on the phone to busy companies listening to music

6 Buy a children's vocabulary book such as Usborne's for fun. Cheap alternative - read multilangage instruction books, comparing the Italian and the English.

7 Buy or enrol in a proper course preparing for a first level exam to stick to a system and learn sentence structure, past, present and future tenses.

8 Plan a set time of day for each day's learning and homework.

9 Take an exam - even if you are likely to fail - because a) it will make you work harder and b) give you the genuine excuse to tell others that you can't help them but must study.

10 Listen to Italian songs, noting the words, watch Italian films, reading subtitles and hearing pronunciation.

11 In an Italian restaurant sit near the bar or waiter's gathering place, doorway or wherever you can hear them talking to each other. If you hear a word repeated, write it down.

12 Look at a map of Italy and copy down place name words you already know or can work out, such as sea, bridge, square, church, museum, hotel, taxi.

13 In Italy or a tourist board, take the Italian and English versions of maps and brochures and compare them.

14 In airports and hotels take the Italian and English versions of brochures on hotels, museums and attractions and compare the words.

Angela Lansbury BA Hons author, travel writer and photographer, speaker.

Semi-retired from teaching English language and literature O level, A level, English as a second/foreign language and foreign languages.