Goal Met – 50 Hours of Italian Learning

Ciao! Come Stai? Io vorrei studiaro il parlaro Italian. Stavo Andado Italia in maggio e Io Volevo imparare molto Italiano.

Ok, that’s about as much butchered Italian as I’m going to subject you to. It’s a lot easier for me to read and understand than to write or speak as conjugating the verbs correctly is easier to do when you are looking at them in front of you.

This one was a slog at time as learning a new language is a tough thing to do – there’s a lot of rules you need to be sure of and in the beginning it was pretty easy as everything I was learning was in present tense but when we started looking at all the tenses it got complicated very quickly. 

I was using a mixture of learning methods for this. The primary one was the Babbel app as it allowed me to learn in 10-20 minute increments and was really good for vocabulary reinforcement.  I mixed in a few Youtube teachers focusing in on structure and grammar as those things aren’t as focused in the app and listening to Italian content (even in the background) helped my brain normalize the language (this trick I picked up from a few different teachers)

It did actually help me a little when I travelled to Italy as I could navigate the shops and pay for things using Italian which felt like an accomplishment as small as it was. I could read most of the signs and figure things out using context clues so I felt like I was putting my learning to use. Once I got back I kept at it figuring if I keep learning the next time I go back, I’ll be even better prepared!

I felt like using multiple sources of learning was the right approach as each offered a different perspective and where they crossed over, the learnings were reinforced. I started working Italian words into my daily life to entertain my kids and I made sure to pronounce them as Italian as possible to annoy my wife.

This is one of the things I’m opting to carry over into the future as I really want to strengthen my language skills and it’s still a challenge to me which means I’m engaging that learning process that I’ve worked so hard to develop this year.

Ciao Tutti!