3 Language Schools

Hi Sandra,
why not considering coming to Sardinia for an Italian language course? Together with two Italian friends, I opened a language school for foreigners last year in Alghero, Sardinia. Alghero is easy to reach now that Ryan Air flies here from London, Frankfurt and Barcellona. SUrely staying here is less expensive than Florence and it is also easier to bond with locals than in Florence. I speak from experience, as many years ago, I did an Italian course in Florence.
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Hope to hear from you!
Nico

One way to help your Italian in a fun way - when searching for a house ie. making several visits a year is not to stay in a hotel but stay with a family in B&B.

You get good food (in my case home made - I stay at an agriturismo), good conversation, competitive price, local information and you learn a great deal!

I have attended a few so called "total immersion courses" for Italian and as an English teacher I taught a lot of them over the years.

The main problem is that a good course is going to have more than one student, and the odds are you are going to speak the same langauge (i.e. english) as at least one of the students. When your lessons finish it is very difficult to speak Italian to an English person as you walk around town. If you speak English you've lost the advantage of the total immersion course, and if you speak Italian you'll reinforce each other's errors.

When I taught English to Japanese students they were forbidden from speaking Japanese on the school grounds, so they ended up speaking 'Japlish' which is a heavily accented and completely wrong version of English! It was a nightmare to undo the damage.

If you really want to learn Italian, and you have the money to pay for a total immersion course then go on a lovely long holiday in the middle of nowhere (tourism wise) in Italy. When you find somewhere with friendly people, stay and talk and listen and talk and listen, and watch lots of television too. Buy monolingual grammar books, a monolingual verb book, some Italian high school grammar exercise books, and a simple Italian dictionary (keep your english-italian dictionary for emergency use only or throw it away_. The money you save on lessons you can spend on good food, newspapers, books, and travel.

If you want to know a word or the name of something ask somebody. Describe what you want to know and they'll be delighted to help you. Even if you don't learn the word at least you'll be obtaining real life Italian language skills which you will always need.

If you want to learn how to tell the time, go to Milan for the day and every five minutes ask somebody (different) the time. If you want to know how to give and receive directions, keep asking people for directions. Behave like a small child and just keep asking and listening and you'll learn a lot more than you ever will on a course. I wanted to know how to say the words first, second, third, fourth etc in Italian, so after the grand prix I asked every man I passed if he knew the result. Everyone did and ran down through the finishers using primo, secondo, terzo etc AND I learnt all sorts of other vocabulary at the same time. When I read Gazzetta dello Sport the next day it was amazing how much more I understood.

If you need to learn Italian business letter writing then you'll certainly need to go on a course, but for learning general Italian there is no better way to learn than to use the language.

Hope that's a help. Feel free to send me some of the money you would have spent on ann expensive course!

I think Neil and I speak the same language!

I agree - at the agriturismo - we chat about TV over dinner - the TV is on.

But mostly we are speaking language across the table.

Natural language is about natural usage. What I did find helpful with learning Italian without lessons is my French at School and excellent Spanish lessons (for 2 terms) the year before - but I still say Spanish words so not good. It gave me structure. And Michel Thomas (DC's from WHSmith or any good bookstore) teaches you that language can be worked out - well only with a bit of "going for it" and letting people correct you.

I love staying with the family I really dig into the language - I learn anything I want to learn about ordinary or technical language.

A class will probably only tell you how to get your tyres changed or how to book a room. I really value staying with a family. Because you get the language from all ages, Grandmother (Vecchio as she called herself - that was our joke only), Parents, Children and the dogs!

CD's not DC's!

Plus - also - buy the biggest best dictionary you can buy - I prefer Oxford, always have a pen and paper on you, write down the word when you can when out that you dont understand.

And go and research it at home. That is if its not convenient to find out the meaning then!

I love Dictionaries!

I too love dictionaries, but once you get past a certain (surprisingly basic) level you are much better off with a monolingual Italian dictionary. The aim should be to understand the language and its use, and it is far better (in my opinion) to look at a tomato and think "pomodoro" than to think "that's a tomato, and in Italian it is called a pomodoro".

In an Italian only dictionary you get far more demonstrations of the use of each word. Think about it, an Italian-English/English-Italian dictionary of a certain size can only fit one quarter of the examples of use of a similar sized monolingual dictionary (because there are no translations). Also, if you spend your time reading an English-Italian dictionary, you are reading and thinking in English and picking out Italian words and phrases - not good, especially if you are supposedly totally immersing yourself in Italian.
Look up 'pomodoro' in your Italian-English dictiony and you are told it is a 'tomato' - look up 'pomodoro in your Italian monolingual dictionary and you are told (in italian) that it it is a red fruit that grows on a herbacious plant in bunches and is often used as a dish in its own right or as a condiment particularly in salads.

If you use a monolingual dictionary you are reading Italian all the time. You are struggling to comprehend not only the words and expressions, but also the explanations. You will meet new Italian words and grammatical constructions in CONTEXT and in simple clear Italian sentences.

Burn your evil english-italian/italian-english dictionaries, put in a bit of work with your monolingual Italian dictionary and you'll be rewarded for your efforts.
The only time you will come unstuck is when you have an abstract english word you need translating into Italian! So actually, please don't burn your dictionary until you are able to ask a passerby 'what is the Italian for...' and then explain (in Italian) the meaning of the word 'Abstract' sufficiently well that he or she tells you the word is 'astratto'.

Good luck

I just read with great interest the exchange between Glen and Neil. I agree with a lot of what they say but want to point out one thing. To learn Italian the way children do - by instinctively absorbing the language - you need to spend a long time in Italy. I would guess between 6 and 12 months and nowadays few people have that kind of time on their hands. If you attend language classes, the process is speeded up considerably. Sounds assume structure - adults need rules to learn a language. <-- [i]removed trade ad (webmaster)[/i] -->
I think you should consider a language course taking into consideration what Glen and Neil have said about trying to spend the max. of time with locals.
If you have any questions, please contact me via[i] <--removed trade ---- All members of the forum can be contacted on the forum or via a private message no need to put a link to their site (webmaster)-->[/i]
Nico

Thanks Nico!

By the way - ask an Italian the word for 'to spell' !