How to be fluent in English and Italian language?

English is the official language in 54 countries that cover Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Australasia, and which include countries as diverse as New Zealand, South Africa, Belize, India, Malta, and Singapore. This means that English is a truly universal language that makes communication across the globe easy and convenient. In addition, the British Council estimates that more than 1 billion people are learning English as a second language at any given time. English is taught at school as a second language in hundreds of countries all over the world, from France to Thailand, Israel to Malaysia, in Sweden, China, and in many other countries. 

Italian, 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. Its influence is also widespread in the arts and in the food and luxury goods markets. 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. Italian is, by most measures together with Sardinian, the closest language to Latin, from which it descends via Vulgar Latin. Italian is the national, or de facto national, official language in Italy, Switzerland (Ticino and the Grisons), San Marino, and Vatican City. It is a major European language. Italian is the main working language of the Holy See, serving as the lingua franca (common language) in the Roman Catholic hierarchy as well as the official language of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.

Many students opt to learn two languages at the same time, which is a good choice as it reduces the time and effort spent. But a better choice is learning a pair of languages that are quite similar to one another. If you’ve chosen Italian and English, then you’ve definitely picked a good pair as the two share tons of similarities.

Let’s understand their similarities in detail: 

First of all, FSI [Foreign Service Institute of languages] which classifies all the languages in the world into 5 different categories on the basis of difficulty to learn for an English native speaker, ranks Italian in Category 2, which is one of the easiest languages to learn due to their uncanny similarities. This means that as a native English speaker, learning Italian is going to be a cakewalk for you.  Secondly, several Italian and English words not only look but also sound similar. Basically, they have tons of cognates, especially since both were derived from Latin. Another factor that’ll benefit you is the fact that almost all vowels and consonants sound the same in both languages. Finally, even the structuring of sentences are usually similar. Keeping in mind these major similarities, you can formulate an effective plan to learn the two languages. Moreover, you can even set appropriate goals depending on the said plan.

Identify and Rectify:

Identification of any errors is extremely important in the process of learning any language. Apart from mere identification, rectifying them is also just as important. Throughout the process of learning Italian and English, you should focus on any mistakes you might make and how you rectified them. This will help you further identify your personal areas for improvement which can then be addressed with a much specific method.

Read Daily:

Reading is a gifting habit to develop. I call it gifting because it takes minimum to no effort yet it gives you a variety of benefits in return. These benefits include better vocabulary, understanding of grammar, understanding of tones used, etc. Apart from just reading, reading the right material is also just as vital. Therefore, reading specific Italian and English books or novels written in both or even the italian or English newspaper is likely to benefit you greatly.

Write Daily:

Reading is a good habit to develop but so is writing. Writing enables you to organise your thoughts on a piece of parchment and help you figure out how to frame the same sentence better. Through constant writing in both, you’re bound to get used to the arrangement of words and framing of sentences over a period of time. Moreover, there are multiple ways to write, you can maintain a journal or a diary in either of the languages or even paraphrase sentences from actual books in both.  

Vocabulary Expansion:

If you’ve genuinely considered tip 2 and 3, then you already know where this is going. Through constant reading and writing you’re automatically going to improve your vocabulary but there are other methods of expanding your vocabulary as well, these include, watching Italian movies or shows with English subtitles or previously watched English shows or movies dubbed in Italian. Furthermore, you can also listen to Italian music to help expand your vocabulary and read their English lyrics.  

Converse:

Finally, and arguably the most important tip is to simply try being social. Learning on your own is great but what’s the point of attaining theoretical knowledge if you don’t have any practical application for it? Hence, initiate or actively participate in conversations, once you feel comfortable and confident with the amount of Italian and English knowledge you possess. 

Many Italian speakers are native bilinguals of both Italian (either in its standard form or regional varieties) and other regional languages. 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). In modern Italy, people communicate mostly in regional dialects, although standard Italian is the only written language. It is estimated that about half of Italy’s population does not speak standard Italian as a native language. It is one of the official languages of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and one of the working languages of the Council of Europe.

Multibhashi offers amazing online classes in both the English and Italian language, you can enrol to receive expert guidance. 

Click here. For Italian

Click Here for English