Best tips and tricks to learn the Italian language

Italian is a major European language that is the national, or de facto national, official language in Italy, Switzerland (Ticino and the Grisons), San Marino, and Vatican City.  It is the second most widely spoken native language in the European Union with 67 million speakers (15% of the EU population) and it is spoken as a second language by 13.4 million EU citizens (3%). Including Italian speakers in non-EU European countries (such as Switzerland, Albania and the United Kingdom) and on other continents, the total number of speakers is approximately 85 million. Many Italian speakers are native bilinguals of both Italian (either in its standard form or regional varieties) and other regional languages.

Make colour-coded flashcards with vocabulary and gender information. We recommend using coloured flashcards to help you remember words and, you’ll begin to associate the word and its context.

Keep an Italian journal. In this diary, you can write whatever you want: Make a weather report. Make a shopping list. Focus on writing in a specific tense until you’re comfortable changing tenses. Try writing only in it until you’re ready to switch to another tense. 

Read in Italian at least once a day. Read about something that interests you. If you enjoy cooking, check out an Italian food blog. If you enjoy reading women’s magazines, why not check out the online Italian versions of good magazines? 

Modify your technological settings. Why not make Italian the language on your phone, tablet, or computer? 

Organize and label items in your home or office. On a post-it note, write down the Italian names of objects in your home or office, then stick the note to the object. Say the Italian name aloud every time you look at the item. 

Set up a weekly “Italian movie night.” If done correctly, watching movies or Italian programmes can be a great way to help absorb spoken Italian. 

Listen to the radio in Italian. Listening to Italian radio will be a significant value-add. 

Use Italian, and speak to yourself, your pet, or even a plant. Admit it: you mutter to yourself from time to time. Consider the phrases you use the most – at least five of them – and translate them into Italian. Say them in Italian whenever possible, aloud in front of a mirror so you can see how your mouth moves as you speak.

Play some Italian music. Nothing can take you deeper into a language than a song. Find your favourite Italian song on YouTube and memorise it. Pay close attention to how words are pronounced.

Find an Italian chatting partner. In order to truly learn Italian, you must speak it. A language exchange with a native Italian speaker is possible thanks to communication programmes such as Skype and Google Talk. Visit websites such as Conversation Exchange and How Do You Do.

Italiano or lingua Italiana is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family. It is known as the language of music because of its use in musical terminology and opera; numerous Italian words referring to music have become international terms taken into various languages worldwide.It is also widely spoken in Luxemburg, Germany, and Belgium, United States, Canada, Venezuela, Uruguay, Brazil, and Argentina. It has official minority status in western Istria (Croatia and Slovenia).  

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