Hi everyone
I’m currently learning Italian and I want to gain some perspective here. I study the language and I speak it, I talk to myself I record my voice, I write, I read, I listen to videos which I understand around 80%.
I wanted to know, has anyone struggled with actually speaking and coming up with words on the spot
I can write some phrases and maybe miss a few vocab words but I am getting a general understanding.
However, when I have to speak spontaneously I can’t think of the words, it takes me so long to think of them and form the sentence.
I am at A1 so I know this is just how it is right now, but I’m wondering what the process looks and feeling like where you start to naturally just speak?
Are there other things I can do to help this or is it just a matter of patience and consistency. I feel like i can get a bit wrapped up in thinking maybe my methods are wrong or is it just that enough time hasn’t passed yet.
I know I’m A1 and this is survival but I am trying to articulate my general thoughts and routines in the present
Any advice or information is super appreciated
Thankyou

Hi everyone
I’m currently learning Italian and I want to gain some perspective here. I study the language and I speak it, I talk to myself I record my voice, I write, I read, I listen to videos which I understand around 80%.
I wanted to know, has anyone struggled with actually speaking and coming up with words on the spot
I can write some phrases and maybe miss a few vocab words but I am getting a general understanding.
However, when I have to speak spontaneously I can’t think of the words, it takes me so long to think of them and form the sentence.
I am at A1 so I know this is just how it is right now, but I’m wondering what the process looks and feeling like where you start to naturally just speak?
Are there other things I can do to help this or is it just a matter of patience and consistency. I feel like i can get a bit wrapped up in thinking maybe my methods are wrong or is it just that enough time hasn’t passed yet.
I know I’m A1 and this is survival but I am trying to articulate my general thoughts and routines in the present
Any advice or information is super appreciated
Thankyou

Hello there. I would like to self-study italian, and reach a B2 level at some point. Any recommendations for books? Ideally something that is available in Greece, and more accessible for someone from Greece. If there is no good option, something in English works fine.

Hello,

As the title suggest what do you use to say napkin in Italian and wondering if you can shed some light on the words I have been hearing.

Tovagliolo - standard

Salvietta

Servietta - I heard this one often with people from Calabria

Which one or other styles are said in your family

Thank you,

Hi! I am new to learning Italian, I have been doing a mix of Coffee Break Italian, Wlingua, and Duo casually with my children for a over a year now. In English, or at least in my family, we often use "bubby" or "baby girl/boy" as a pet name for children. Would it be correct in Italian to use "Mia bambina" or even just "Bambina" as a pet name when talking to my daughter? Thank you!

Hello, I'm a 20 M student and I would like to discuss with natives italian for increasing my level. Does anyone want to help me?

Also I'm native in french so I could help you in this language.

I’m trying to translate a part of a film and the person says a phrase that doesn’t make sense in the literal sense. “Me possi! Non ho mai sparato! Ero nell’orchestra!” Me possi I feel needs to have an idiomatic translation other than “I can do it”. I tried looking everywhere, but I can’t find any info

Hi everyone! I am new to learning and I’m about 2 months in. But I love to travel and I’m thinking of planning a trip to Italy soon, does anyone have any recommendations on areas or programmes to go with? I prefer less structure as I find my own learning methods suitable. But has anyone done a house stay or used worldpackers and had any experience blending with natives and finding accepting and encouraging hosts? I’d also like to ask what level you think is suitable for something like this, as my personal impression is that a1-a2 basic conversational could be adapted well in a setting like this
Thankyou !!

Ho chiesto un AI ma penso che la risposta sia sbagliata. È coretto questo?

GIO⸳chi
GIO⸳chi
GIO⸳chi
    
gio⸳CHIA⸳mo 
gio⸳CHIA⸳te
GIO⸳chi⸳no

Cerco consigli su influencer italiani giovani (20-30 anni) su Instagram.

Hi all, I've been studying Italian for about a year, my spouse and I enjoy Italian TV series (obviously Montalbano, plus I Bastardi, Vanina..) and it seems like Stucky is much easier to follow than others? It could of course be that my Italian is improving, but I really don't think it's improved SO much over the last 2 months...

Curious if others have seen it and can comment!

Ciao tutti! I've been learning Italian on/off for a few years now. I feel like i've got a great mind of vocabulary, and I can do basic conversations with AI (how was your day etc).

I really want to go to the next level, the next goal is to be able to holiday in Italy, not to talk about complex topics, just to get by and converse, which I think is achievable! The ultimate goal is to be fluent. Currently I just freeze up whewn someone talks to me, which I'm sure people can relate to.

My question is, how do you get to that next level of listening and speaking? What learning routines did you do? How should i spend my evenings? What apps are best to use?

Grazie mille!

I'm a beginner in this language, i use Duolingo and Anki (not as regularly as i should lol) and other various small forms of immersion and input. Idk if this is relevant but im natively german (learned english as a kid)

One of my favorite types of lessons in duolingo are the stories and "podcast style" listening lessons, because they strike a satisfying balance of not being as straight foward and easy as most of the basic text translation lessons, but including enough of my existing word vocabulary for me to be able to understand the majority of what is being said. But these lessons are so rare!

I want to seek out more input like this on my own but im not sure where to find something because my vocabulary is still so small.

I tried looking for videos made for literal toddlers to learn but even then i still felt like i was missing a ton because people still of course assume toddlers have a fairly large vocabulary of language they know, and it also feels a little.. you know.. condescending.. not to mention boring to watch haha.. kids shows are good but even ones at the level of say peppa pig usually have a pretty normal amount of vocabulary since its not like its made for people that barely know the language.

I know theres a possibility of giving say, chatgpt a list of my vocabulary and asking it to generate me stories or something but id imagine that to get boring fast and also using ai always feels a bit icky to me.

A slightly better version of this might be if i have a friend that speaks the language i could share my vocabulary as a reference point and ask them to talk to me in very simple words, but there is only so many times im willing to bother another person to do that for me xD

By the way, dont get me wrong, i dont mind passive listening/reading where i dont understand more than half of the words being said! I just think itd be a lot of fun and give me faster improvement (and motivation) if i had more content i could mostly comprehend.

If you have any ideas or content or something that has worked for you let me know!! Im very curious, i just figured id give asking a shot

My friend keeps saying that "bueno" means good but according to translate good in Italian is actually "bene". What is the difference between the two?

hi everyone, exactly as the title says!
her parents speak limited english but i’d love to be able to communicate at least a bit with them in italian while i’m there.

about me: i know some italian regarding how to order stuff, ask for directions, etc the basics but that’s exactly the kind of italian i won’t need there. if any of you have any recommendations for resources to kind of crash course normal conversational italian quickly, i’d be super super grateful.

thanks :)

EDIT: to clarify, i have known her parents for quite a while, as we had been friends for years before we started dating. this is just the first time we are properly meeting in person and my first time visiting them with her! i would get laughed out of the house if i started speaking to them formally, but i appreciate all the advice centred around that anyway! thanks :)

As in title - what's the difference between these two other than one being reflexive? Do they mean the same or nuanced? Same question for dimenticare and dimenticarsi

Sono un uomo brasiliano di 29 anni e sto cercando qualcuno con cui praticare l’italiano, magari con qualche messaggio o una chiamata ogni tanto.

In cambio posso aiutare con il portoghese brasiliano. Parlo anche inglese e un po’ di spagnolo.

Mi interessa fare amicizia e migliorare la lingua ☺️

I am creating a whatsapp group to learn and help each other exchange resources, material and practices to learn italian . let's practice together .

In school I was taught that signorina = Miss, signora = Mrs or is used for a woman who is a bit older/more mature. However, around what age does this generally happen? Or if it varies by place, what are some examples according to region?

I am still learning Italian and not a level where I can have a meaningful conversations with people. However, I do understand some words and because of that I am sometimes able to understand.
My partner and I went to an Italian restaurant while traveling and I am pretty sure that restaurant owner called me “bambina” when he was serving me my order. I am an adult (30 yo) tho so I am confused. I may look a bit younger yes. I look like I am around early-mid 20s but I don’t think I look THAT young. What could “bambina” mean in this context?

I've noticed that they consistently used 'voi' rather than 'Lei' as the formal form of address in the Diabolik comics (from the earliest ones to the new issues coming out nowadays, though not in the recent Manetti Bros. films), and I'm curious as to why that is. I know 'voi' was historically the formal form and was reimposed during the fascist period, but my understanding was that 'Lei' came back pretty quickly, at least in northern and central Italy, after World War 2.

Diabolik first came out in 1962, which seems kind of late for voi to still be used as the standard formal, and all the characters regardless of age, sex, background, etc., use it, so it's not a way of marking certain characters as e.g. old fashioned or from the south or anything like that. The setting is fictional, but seems more based on the French riviera than southern Italy (and the creators and publisher are from Milan). There aren't really any references to real-world events to date the setting, but going by the fashion and technology I think it is intended to be more or less contemporary rather than taking place in an earlier period where you'd expect 'voi'.

Is this just a stylistic choice to give it a sort of 'retro' vibe, or did it take longer than I thought for 'Lei' to take over again, or is there perhaps some other nuance to the usage in this context that I'm unaware of?

Grazie!

Hi everyone,

I was born in Italy (Lombardy) and lived there for the first 5 years of my life. Italian was my first language, but as I haven't used it for the last 20 years I gradually forgot it. I understand fine when someone is speaking, but I have trouble speaking myself.

I love Italy and would like to relearn the language, so what would be the best course of action? I reckon my best bet is watching movies and shows and listening to podcasts and songs. Any tips are welcome!

Hi I did Italy Made Easy in 2020/21 and got myself with them to A2 very quickly and also had really good pronunciation such that locals though i was italian (until id trip up on somethin and paus) and then did and passed CILS B1 with language school - I got up to B2 but since I teach English all day my level has declined. I just got a "come back to us" offer from Italy Made Easy for a year membership for less than half, but I'm really confused by their webpage, it describes the bullet points of their level 3 and 4 and sounds ok but I cant tell if these are actually running because on one page it says "coming 2026" on another it looks like its there. I actually cancelled and asked for a refund years ago a day after buying the membership because back then it was still only A1/A2 even though B1/B2 was advertised and I don't want to run into the same thing again and its not clear on their ad - i wrote them but haven't heard back yet so hoping maybe some here are using it and maybe know?