Be fluent in Italian

I have no excuse not to do this. With an Italian boyfriend (and Spanish, the same boyfriend, ah!) I really have a good opportunity to do this well and quickly. So now he speaks to me in Italian on Wednesdays and I answer in Spanish, and on Thursdays he speaks in Italian and I (try) to answer in Italian. It’s easier for me as I’m Portuguese and I speak Spanish fluently and some French but there are many things that are different.

I could be putting more effort into this but I have other priorities, but anyway I’m improving. This is a good way to couples to speak each others languages because if you know that that day you will do this you will do it naturally instead of waiting for the day when you and your partner are in the mood to learn a new language.

i want to be fluent in italian so i can have a proper conversation with my grandparents without my mum translating for me

not now.

i’lll have to come back to this one. no more trip to italy in my future.

I’ve moved on to learning some basic food names. It’s really the pronunciation of the words that frustrate me.. For example, il granoturco has 2 too many rolling r’s for my little Midwestern accent. However, I am not discouraged.. ;-)

and I think this one will have to be put on the back burner

I’ve officially started. I am just trying to learn some vocabulary words right now. I have little captioned pictures up all over my house and now know how to say things like ‘ladies room’, ‘milk’, and ‘keys’.

I returned to taking lessons in Italian two weeks ago after an almost six year pause. It is a challenge getting my homework done and a it hurts my brain to speak Italian for a full hour, but all and all it is a pretty satisfying endeavor. My desire was really just to get some mental exercise and not lose to much ground on the year or so I have put into learning Italian. Not sweating fluency or a planned trip to Italy and just focusing on the enjoyable parts of learning a language make this a pleasant experience.

I bought an Italian instruction CD to listen to while I drive and when I’m on lunch breaks. Hopefully this will be a good refresher for the basics.

but since actually no-one in our hotel spoke either English or German I had many occasions to try and make myself understood. And mostly I was successful. Even though once the conversation was over and I went over it again in my mind, I knew just what i ought to have said. But still, I count this experience as one step forward on the road to this goal.