I want to learn a new language.

[Plant Woman]

I'm thinking Italian is what I want to learn. I have this idea in my head that it might not be hard to learn, because I'm used to using and speaking botanical Latin, so maybe it won't seem so "foreign" to me. Ok, I have lots of ways to delude myself and this probably is another one, so don't laugh too hard at this old bird trying to talk myself into thinking something won't be too hard.

What method would be the best way to learn to speak and understand it that doesn't involve taking a class?

[livius drusus]

Yay! When I saw this thread title I was totally going to suggest Italian. Sure, I'm biased, but I think Romance languages are the easiest to learn and Italian is the easiest of the Romance languages. No crazy spellings and endless irregulars like French, plus unlike Spanish it's pretty.

I have zero advice in terms of methods, I'm afraid. My method was simple and effective: I learned how to talk.

[Plant Woman]

That is so good to hear that it won't be too hard to learn because of the irregular languages or like ours that is a convoluted conglomeration of different languages.

I keep seeing the Rosetta Stone on tv, but I am skeptical of the claims. Hmmm, I should see if there are any online training programs.

[Watser?]

Yeahbut...

What's the point of if? Might as well learn Romanian (or Dutch): relatively obscure European language only spoken in one and a half country.

[Plant Woman]

I want to go to Italy some day and get off the beaten tourist path, so knowing Italian would be helpful. And learning a new language would be fun too boot.

[Watser?]

Oh

Ok then.

Btw, I have seen Italians communicate with Romanians, each speaking their own language. So it might be somewhat useful beyond Italy (and Switzerland).

[Gonzo]

French is easy, pretty, and fun.

The French Legion recruits learn and master French in like eight months, and most of them are criminals.

[livius drusus]

French isn't easy at all. There are lots of subtle pronunciation rules, unintuitive spelling and tons of irregular verbs.

[Watser?]

Vraiment?

Putain!

[livius drusus]

Ton cul!1

[Dingfod]

Originally Posted by Plant Woman

I want to go to Italy some day and get off the beaten tourist path, so knowing Italian would be helpful. And learning a new language would be fun too boot.

I was watching one of those home-buying programs on HGTV where a couple from the UK were looking at country houses in some mountainous part of Italy (I know that narrows it down), I forget where, but the prices were ridiculously low, US $83,000 for a 1500 square foot farmhouse that needed only a little work. I wonder what the income requirement is for retirement there.

[Plant Woman]

On the side of a volcano?

I don't know, I wasn't thinking retirement, just an extended travel time there.

[Gonzo]

French isn't easy at all. There are lots of subtle pronunciation rules, unintuitive spelling and tons of irregular verbs.

Matter of opinion.

[Dingfod]

Six months in a foreign land, the maximum length of the typical tourist visa, might be enough to get a pretty good grasp of a language.

[livius drusus]

Originally Posted by Gonzo

Matter of opinion.

Not really. It's pretty basic fact that French has more intricate pronunciation rules, less intuitive spelling and more irregular verbs than Italian.

[livius drusus]

Originally Posted by Dingfod

I was watching one of those home-buying programs on HGTV where a couple from the UK were looking at country houses in some mountainous part of Italy (I know that narrows it down), I forget where, but the prices were ridiculously low, US $83,000 for a 1500 square foot farmhouse that needed only a little work. I wonder what the income requirement is for retirement there.

You can buy property off the beaten path for relatively little money, but when the dollar is low, your retirement income plummets. You could easily find yourself all of the sudden 50% poorer, and there's nothing you can do but wait it out. Getting a job without EU citizenship is almost impossible.

[Qingdai]

Spanish is not pretty?!?!

Pulease!


"Tengo a mi patria
siempre en mi mano
manza y pequena
como un garbanzo."

Spanish is spoken in many places and with many attractive and interesting accents.

[Plant Woman]

The sounds seem simple enough to learn, except fro the r trill. I could never do that in Spanish, so I doubt I could do that for Italian. Some of the sounds are just how we pronounce here in the states. Sch being an sk sound, no brainer!

[Qingdai]

Can you purr?
Then you can trill.

Speaking Spanish, I could get the gist of what Italian speakers were saying, but they didn't seem to believe me and resorted to that old, time honored method of yelling and repeating more slowly.

[Plant Woman]

Originally Posted by Dingfod

Six months in a foreign land, the maximum length of the typical tourist visa, might be enough to get a pretty good grasp of a language.

Probably, but I think it would be fun to learn it ahead of time and then go use it. However, it won't be easy either way, but I think a jump start would be the way to go.

[livius drusus]

I've had Italian to Spanish conversations. You can totally make do.

P-dub, Americans often have difficulty rolling their r's. A mushy r (that's the term for it in Italian) is a feature of the stereotypical American accent. It's no biggy. Q is right that you can probably train yourself to trill, though.

[Plant Woman]

Originally Posted by Qingdai

Can you purr?
Then you can trill.

Speaking Spanish, I could get the gist of what Italian speakers were saying, but they didn't seem to believe me and resorted to that old, time honored method of yelling and repeating more slowly.

I guess I can purr but it seems to have a hard b to start it.

Yeah, yelling and going slow might work if you're a P-A-R-T-I-A-L-L-Y D-E-A-F P-E-R-S-O-N!

[Gonzo]

Originally Posted by livius drusus

Not really. It's pretty basic fact that French has more intricate pronunciation rules, less intuitive spelling and more irregular verbs than Italian.

Well I have only ever worked on learing French, so mrawh! I have nothing to compare it to. Maybe it is just in my blood.


Irregular verbs don't scare me.

Portugese does, though.

[livius drusus]

They're not scary, but they're obviously not easy. The more exceptions there are to a rule the more you have to learn by memorizing. I didn't have difficulty learning French, but I started out with the advantage of native fluency in another Romance language.

[Gi-Ryuu]

I don't know any italian, but it seems like it would be pretty simple to learn compared to a non-romance language. If you do something like rosetta stone, definately find a forum or other group of italian speakers that you can test your knowledge on.
That is because while I was using a similar product to learn japanese, the thing told me that the proper word for "Thank you very much" was actually something more like you would tell your boss after they had handed you a nickel. If I hadn't already taken a class that had explained the difference, I would have made a lot of people very mad at me.