What are the easiest ways to learn Italian?

Italian, Italiano or Lingua Italiana, is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family. Italian is, by most measures and together with Sardinian, the closest language to Latin, from which it descends via Vulgar Latin. 

Italian is a national, or de facto national, official language in Italy, Switzerland (Ticino and the Grisons), San Marino, and Vatican City. It has official minority status in western Istria (Croatia and Slovenia). 

Italian is also a major European language, being 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. 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 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. Italian 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.

Italian is also spoken by large expatriate communities in the Americas and Australia and is included under the languages covered by the European Charter for Regional or Minority languages in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Romania, although Italian is neither a co-official nor a protected language in these countries. 

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.

Italian formerly enjoyed an official status in Albania, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro (Kotor), Greece (Ionian Islands and Dodecanese) and is generally understood in Corsica by Corsican speakers (in fact, many linguists classify it as an Italian dialect). It also used to be an official language in the former Italian East Africa and Italian North Africa, where it still plays a significant role in various sectors. 

While kids’ learning is intensely structured, orderly and ‘textbook driven’; learning gains an entirely new ‘meaning’ and ‘way to learn as we grow up! We no longer learn from textbooks or give weekly tests to prove our learning. We adopt both roles, of a learner and a teacher to ensure we learn! Thus, we consciously watch our learning like a teacher and improve it for ourselves. We also indulge and opt for multiple ways to help us with our learning. Why? Because there isn’t ONE single universal way to learn everything! To be proficient in Italian, we need to hunt for the best resources, from teachers to books, to online practise, and so on, because nothing is stacked up in one place for a learner to pick and walk off! 

In reality, a learner doesn’t use just one, but multiple tools to arm themselves up for the various learning heads; from learning the grammar, perfecting your pronunciation, to building your vocabulary.

Grammar is an intrinsic, unique element of each language, that frames rules for speaking and writing a language. It is the soul of a language and hence it’s not an easy thing to conquer! Thus it is never a good idea to start with the grammar of a language if you want to progress faster learning a language! You are likely to be thrown off-tangent trying to master a language if you choose to learn starting with its grammar because the results may not be encouraging enough for you feel to continue investing efforts! Especially when you’re slogging your way through verb endings and tenses! 

Your first part of learning should be something that will quickly give you the confidence to start speaking and understanding a bit of Italian. You don’t have to be perfect. You just need to get started and have some fun.

• Improve your listening skills with multiple online resources such as talk shows, Italian news, audiobooks to name a few! 
• News in Slow Italian presents a weekly news discussion in slow Italian. It’s a subscription service, but you can listen to the introductions to each episode for free.
• To hear curated collections of Italian video media use FluentU. It’s a halfway point between a structured language course and full real-world Italian media immersion.
• Put YouTube to its best use and stream Italian radio stations!
• Watch Italian films with English subtitles and English films with Italian subtitles to accelerate your learning.
• Learn with songs, podcasts and anything that you can lay your hands on to get maximum of some spare time.
• Set realistic goals!
• Study consistently but don’t lead yourself to burnout!
• Identify your unique style of learning that helps you ace the language.
• Read aloud to clear your pronunciation 
• Find a conversation partner on Lingoci, Verbling, iTalki to practice speaking with and seeking feedback.
• Identify Italian genuine and fake cognates
• Don’t be scared to try and make mistakes. We all do it. Why let that deter or embarrass you?!
• Remember self-studying is NOT meant for everybody!
• Watch out for fake online Italian learning tools!
• Sign up for an intensive course. It would really help you master Italian!
• Restrict translating Italian words/phrases into English to when you are just new! As you progress move away from it consciously. 
• Avoid writing in your head.
• Use Spaced Repetition System apps like Anki and Memrise for flashcards.
• Learn basic phrases, connector words, conversation builders that will help you communicate and express yourself through smaller sentences.
• Maintain a journal of new phrases that will help you build your first conversation and not just interesting or complex words.
• Start by reading children’s storybooks. Children’s stories can be a great place to start trying to read in Italian. Stories designed for children and young adults are likely to use simpler language and more straightforward ideas than texts designed for adults.
• Keep an Italian dictionary handy.
• Prioritize. Start with spoken Italian if the idea is to learn for business or travel! 
• Choose commonly used words to start a conversation rather than tougher ones that don’t find a way into day-to-day usage!
• Try and link Italian words/ phrases to images and visual situations, not words in your native language or English!
• Do study grammar with grammar-based software or textbook after a while. I suggest Rocket Italian or Duolingo to achieve the same.
• Study a language every day in short intervals or for about 2-4 hours, as much you can spare. Goes for Italian too. Studying regularly, for a short time, helps dramatically than trying to do it all in one sitting over weekends! 
• Practice without a blink. There’s no escape from practice and no shortcuts.  
• Engage in constant review to measure your progress – repetition is the key!

While all the above will help you ace your learning smoothly,  the best way to learn great Italian still remains through the full immersion method. A technique sworn by best of best, that can be daunting at first but has been proven to scale up your Italian Learning immaculately, in no time. To avoid feeling completely lost, you can reach out to a language centre in Italy to anchor and seek tailored programs.

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