learning to speak fluent Italian?

Question

The only language I speak is english. I've just decided I need to do some thing fun and challenging. I was wondering if anyone knows any way to learn fluent Italian without taking a course because I dont think there is any around were I live. and do you have any tips?

ALSO!!!UPDATE

can some body explain breifly the pronounciations of words like...il dottore(doctor) and la mucca(cow) and others just so i have a better understanding of how to pronounce the words.

Answer 1

Italian is a very popular language, so there are great resources both online and offline.

If you don't want to pay straight away, start with BBC and see how you like it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/italian/

If you're ready to spend some money, I would recommend the Assimil method (Italian with ease) - you will find it on Amazon.com and other bookstores. It's awesome and learning with this method is thorough and fun.

I also find www.wordreference.com forums and dictionaries very helpful - you can ask native speakers of Italian anything you want, and it's all free. There are very kind people there and are ready to help free of charge.

Good luck. I personally love learning Italian and I'm getting better every day.

If you have any questions feel free to email me and I'll see if I can help you.

Answer 2

Becoming fluent is tricky....I'm English and I speak French, German and now I'm learning Chinese. I'm most fluent in French and that was with 7 years of teaching. After 1 year of Chinese at University I'm not bad and I've just spent 5 weeks in Beijing which has helped a great deal. By being taught and being in the country you can get really good. As for learning online and with CDs this could be hard because grammar in Romance languages can be hard and also teachers help because of culture and context (i.e. archaic words, slang). Try and build up your vocab knowledge first and then try and move onto verbs and how they are conjugated. Try and holiday in Italy and use your language in person. Good luck!

Answer 3

Tapes or CD's, along with a grammar book.

I did that but later went to night classes by the local Italo American club. I learned to read and write from a library book, but not able speak at first.
You may have a University nearby for classes.

I learned conjugations of the verbs. Saved a lot of "parroting and memorization".
Just as English there are many "regular verbs" and some "irregular". Irregular just have to be memorized, but learning the infinitives of regular verbs are all conjugated the same.
Italian has 3 forms of regular. Those that end in "are", parlare, to speak. "ere", vedere, to see. "ire" sentire, to hear.
Those are conjugated in a regular form. Like English, "I speak, you speak, he/ she speaks, we speak, you all speak. they speak". Past and future tenses are also regular.

Learn those 3 forms and it becomes easier.

Masculine and feminine genders are also part of the language, with nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc, all having the same endings by gender. VERY FEW exceptions for some words.

I can't teach you here. There are some very good CD's.

Library has First Year Italian books. You can buy "Modern Italian" books. They are more current in word usage and contain "old words" that have become slang or objectionable in today's world. I made my mistakes with those, some from a dictionary.

Answer 4

Well it's kinda though for an english to speak Italian, grammar very hard and it also sounds very different... german would be easier for an english speaking person, but i'm not here to discourage you... come to yahoo answers italia from time to time, you'll find all the help and support you need.... good luck

Answer 5

Spanish and Italian are like 65% the same. Go to Italy and you'll probably pick it up easily.

Answer 6

im italian girl....my name is emanuela f u wanna contact me and i can teach u a simple italian with my exercises book.
u can help me with american-english.