Archives for December 2014

I studied French at school.

Several times a week, for what always seemed like forever.

Remember that cliched scene of a surging crowd of noisy children finally released from the tedium of school work?

That was us.

I started at the age of around nine, and endured studying a foreign language for eternity, until I was permitted to give up at the age of sixteen.

Do I speak French now?

Of course not.

But I have fond memories of our French teacher, who once grabbed my ear and twisted it painfully.

She regularly lamented my horrible French pronunciation in front of the class.

Thirty years have passed, and now I own an Italian language school, which specialises in courses for adult learners.

Clients include university students and young people, but also professionals – business people, teachers, the occasional diplomat or sports star – and many, many retired people.

They choose to study Italian at our school in Bologna because Italian is a great language and Bologna is the ideal place to study it.

But mostly because someone who has already learnt Italian with us told them they should try it.

Clients who’ve learnt a lot of Italian come back again and again.

And they tell their friends!

For this to happen, we ensure that our Italian courses for adults are absolutely NOT like my French lessons at high school!

Here are some thoughts on that:

• Our success depends on your positive response to what we do and how we do it. And on the improvement in your Italian as a result of the time and money you invest. Obviously, not every student will easiy reach their goals, and we won’t be able to please everyone all of the time. But we do our best!
• Your teacher is trained to teach adults. She (it’s usually a she) does that every working day of her career, so there’s no reason for her to talk down to you, and every reason for her to be encouraging and supportive.
• Your Italian classs will have a maximum 10 students, so you can count on plenty of opportunities to speak, and you can expect feedback on the mistakes you make (but in a positive, encouraging way!) The other students will be from various countries and should have approximately the same level in Italian. Hopefully, you’ll make friends, and so have people to practice speaking Italian with, both inside and outside class.
• Grammar’s important in Italian, but we don’t fill class time with boring, repetitive exercises. Homework is optional – we set it because it may help you consolidate your learning and progress faster. Whether you do it or not is completely up to you. Oh, and we understand you want to learn to SPEAK and UNDERSTAND Italian, which means you’ll need plenty of opportunities to interact in Italian during class time. We’re on to that.
• Speaking of speaking, the ‘lingua-franca’ of our school is Italian, not English. We don’t do English-language medium Italian lessons because we believe they’re counter-productive (and because not all our students even speak English.) You’ll be studying in Italian from the first minute of the first lesson.
• Learning happens outside of class too. For example, the ‘coffee break’ is not just a break but a chance to chat in Italian with students and teachers from other classes, all together in the local coffee bar. The same is true for the regular social activities we organise – you and your class can see the city, drink wine, visit a museum, eat out – but it should always be in Italian!
• Finding your class hard-going, or way too easy? Talk to your teacher first. And if you get no joy with her, try the Director of Studies (the teacher’s boss), who’s there to make sure everything goes as smoothly as possible. One or the other of them will be able to help you. We might, for example, suggest changing to an easier/harder class.
• Most days there’ll be a tutor available in our library to help you with your homework (you’re not expected to sweat over it alone!) You can also ask the tutor for extra speaking practice, or to go over things you didn’t quite understand from your lessons. He/she is usually a university student or teacher-trainee gaining the experience needed to graduate.

And if your Italian pronunication is not up to scratch?

Don’t worry – we won’t twist your ear!

More Articles About Learning Italian | FAQ

 

The ‘best offer of the year‘ on group Italian courses at our school in Bologna begins today.

What this means:

• you save 20% on the price of any group Italian course in 2015
• the saving is good for courses of any length (the longer you study, the more you save)
• start your course on any date in 2015 (you don’t even have to tell us now when you plan to study)

Summary: you pay just €120 deposit now to make big savings on your 2015 Italian course!

Click here to lock in your 20% discount while the offer lasts.

You too could learn Italian in Bologna, Italy in 2015!

Want to speak and understand Italian better?

Each year hundreds of people from all over the world take courses at our Italian language school in the historic center of Bologna.

Many of them are so satisfied at their progress that they return again and again! (See testimonials.)

2015 could be the year you join them.

Make it the year you really begin to speak and understand Italian!

OK, here’s where you can find the information you’ll need to choose and book your Italian course:

• information about Italian courses in Bologna
• Italian course prices
• information about accommodation
• how to book your Italian course
• more about Bologna
• contact us with your question or for help booking
• pay the special ‘Save 20%’ deposit now!

Act now: the ‘best offer of the year’ ends on 25th December!

The ‘save 20%’ offer is valid only until Christmas day.

That’s just 10 days.

And the offer won’t be repeated for an entire year – if at all.

So you’d be well advised to pay your special -20% course deposit now, before the preparations for Christmas get too hectic!

Take a few minutes today to lock in your 20% saving. Go here.

Pay the (€120 not €150) course deposit so we know you’re entitled to 20% off whenever you choose to study in 2015.

Save 20% on 2015 Italian courses

Learning a new foreign language, such as Italian, is exciting at first. You begin with boundless enthusiasm, full of good intentions.

Your Italian course, or self-study program, is stimulating and enjoyable. Each new learning experience reinforces your determination to make progress.

And then, suddenly, it all starts to seeem like an impossible task!

The endless new words, the perverse grammar, that impossible pronunication…

The progress you’ve made is dwarfed by what still lies ahead.

Already you seem to be forgetting what you’ve already studied faster than you can remember the new lessons.

It’s as if each step forward comes at the cost of two steps back!

It feels like you’ve ‘hit a wall’ in your learning.

A wall that brings your progress to a dead stop, and prevents you from moving forward.

If that happens to you, you’ll recognise how your enthusiasm plummets compared to what it was before.

Learning Italian becomes a chore not a pleasure.

It’s increasingly hard to motivate yourself to study.

You might even give up completely. Sadly, lots of people do.

Perhaps you weren’t meant to speak a foreign language?

Could it be you ‘don’t have the right sort of brain’?

Maybe you should just chalk it up to experience?

Go find an easier, less ambitious pastime?

If this ‘language-learning’ wall sounds familiar, know that you’re in good company!

Everyone (or at least, a lot of people) go through this. Even people who have already mastered other foreign languages. Even language teachers.

It’s absolutely normal.

Know also that there ARE things you can do which will help you get back on track.

But first of all, you need to reassure yourself that there’s probably nothing wrong with your brain.

You’re not incapable, or doomed to failure.

You have just as good a chance of learning Italian as anyone.

Next, consider your expectations.

When you begin a new language, naturally it’s going to be interesting and motivating (remember?)

Later though, the more you study, the more there will be to remember.

So when you focus on something new, the things you’ve already studied start to slide out of reach.

A ‘beginner’ mindset is great when you’re just starting out and know little or nothing of the language. But it’s not easy to maintain as your study becomes more routine.

To continue making progress with your Italian requires sustained effort in the medium-term. Months not weeks. Years even.

So you’ll absolutely need to adopt a slower, more regular pace.

Planning in progress tests and reviews will help you see just how much you’ve achieved, so countering those negative feelings of de-motivation.

Giving yourself time off can work too. Like a ‘break-day’ on a diet.

Above all, don’t expect too much, too soon.

Successful language learners are distance runners, not sprinters!

OK, so you’re now thinking medium-term and you’ve set a pace that you’re sure you’ll be able to maintain.

But what if things are STILL not working out?

Could be you’re ‘stuck’ on a particular area of grammar, or your dedicated study of new Italian words is no-longer bearing fruit.

You’re putting in the work, but you’re not seeing the growth in your Italian that you have come to expect.

Likely then, something is wrong.

For example, perhaps your choice of what to study is inappropriate for the stage you’ve reached?

What you did before got you this far.

But it might be the wrong thing to allow you to progress to the next stage.

Or perhaps you’re not doing anything actively wrong, just not doing some of the obviously right things?

Are you including regular review activities?

Are you consolidating what you’ve studied with reading and listening practice activities?

If you’re an inexperienced language learner, it’s possible your Italian study plan includes activities which add little value.

Eliminating those, and replacing them with more appropriate alternatives, may be enough to speed up your progress!

To break through the wall, shake things up a little and see what happens.

Vary your mix of study activities.

Then observe what works for you, and what doesn’t.

For example, perhaps a change of emphasis would help?

Why not put away the grammar book for a while and try working on a simplified audio book?

Or sign up for an Italian course, and so let the teacher take the strain when it comes to deciding what to next.

Syllabus design and lesson-planning are what language teachers get paid for, after all.

Conversely, if you’re already doing a course, but feel it isn’t working out, why not take on some more of the responsibility for your learning, rather than leaving every decision to the teacher?

You could, for instance, draw up a self-study plan to supplement what you’re doing on the course.

In short, if what you’ve tried isn’t working any more, don’t give up – try a different way!

‘Hitting the wall’ is a common experience for learners of Italian, but breaking through that wall is absolutely possible.

Think medium-term, have realistic expectations, and above all, keep trying out different language-learning activities and approaches until you find a combination that works to drive you forward!

More Articles About Learning Italian | FAQ

 

So you’ve decided to learn Italian. (Why Learn Italian, anyway?)

Naturally, you want some idea of how long it’ll be before you can actually manage to communicate in the language.

You obviously don’t expect to immediately reach the same level of proficency that you have with your mother tongue.

But to be able to hold a normal conversation seems like a reasonable objective, doesn’t it?

So how long, you ask, will it take me to get to the point when I can join in conversations, make myself understood, and figure out what people are trying to tell me?

Good question.

In part the answer will depend on what you define as a ‘normal conversation’.

There’s a world of difference between a brief exchange about the weather while waiting for the bus, and a heated political discussion in a pub.

But mostly what you’ll be able to say and understand in Italian depends on how much time you allow yourself, and how much practice you get.

So, let’s suppose you’re taking a 20-hour per week Italian course at a language school here in Bologna, and that you’ll be starting right from the beginning with ‘Ciao!’ and ‘uno, due, tre’.

By the Friday of the first week, you’ll have covered some of the basics and might be beginning to find your way around Bologna, but basically you’ll still be pretty lost!

The second week (hours 21-40) will see you settling better into the routine of learning, and so gradually becoming more able to follow classes taught only in Italian.

You’ll have started Week 2 with a lot more Italian than you had on the Monday of Week 1, and will finish it with a more in-depth knowledge of Italian grammar and vocabulary than you had seven days earlier.

Progress then, but no miracles.

Your third week (hours 41-60) is where the difference really starts to show.

You’ll have made some friends by then, and hopefully will be communicating with them in basic Italian.

Ordering a coffee or a meal in Italian will have become routine, and you’ll be a lot more confident working out what the teacher is saying and knowing how to respond.

Grammar-wise, you’ll be studying the second half of the A1 (beginner) syllabus. Perhaps you’ll have already encountered a past tense, which inevitably opens a lot of conversational doors!

Week four (hours 61-80) will see you approaching the end of the A1/Beginner’s syllabus.

You’ll feel more confident with the basic grammar that is essential to speaking and understanding Italian, and you’ll have covered a lot of new words (which, after 80 hours of practice, you should now be able to remember!)

By this point, most students will recognise themselves in the A1 level description:

Can understand and use familiar everyday expressions and very basic phrases aimed at the satisfaction of needs of a concrete type. Can introduce him/herself and others and can ask and answer questions about personal details such as where he/she lives, people he/she knows and things he/she has. Can interact in a simple way provided the other person talks slowly and clearly and is prepared to help.

Disappointingly, even after four weeks of studying each morning, you’ll still be quite limited in what you can say and understand…

On the positive side, you’ll be way, way better than when you began!

But what if you decide to progress further?

The A2/Pre-Intermediate descriptor (another four weeks/80 hours) will give you an idea of what you can achieve with more time:

Can understand sentences and frequently used expressions related to areas of most immediate relevance (e.g. very basic personal and family information, shopping, local geography, employment). Can communicate in simple and routine tasks requiring a simple and direct exchange of information on familiar and routine matters. Can describe in simple terms aspects of his/her background, immediate environment and matters in areas of immediate need.

That still doesn’t seeem quite what most people would define as ‘holding a normal conversation’, though…

So, if you have the time and energy, a good target to aim for would be a B1/Intermediate level.

For most people, a B1/Intermediate level is reachable in a total of 12 weeks / 240 hours of study:

Can understand the main points of clear standard input on familiar matters regularly encountered in work, school, leisure, etc. Can deal with most situations likely to arise whilst travelling in an area where the language is spoken. Can produce simple connected text on topics which are familiar or of personal interest. Can describe experiences and events, dreams, hopes & ambitions and briefly give reasons and explanations for opinions and plans.

Now THAT sounds more like it, doesn’t it?

Imagine being able to ‘understand the main points’, ‘deal with most situations’, ‘describe hopes and ambitions’ and ‘give reasons and explanations’ – in Italian!

That would indeed be a normal conversation, and then some!

It’s achievable in around 12 weeks of study.

An extended summer holiday, for example.

Or a sabbatical period…

More Articles About Learning Italian | FAQ

 

Why study a foreign language?

It’s hard work, time-consuming and potentially expensive.

And if you’re going to bother at all, why choose Italian, rather than say Spanish, French, German, or something more ambitious like Chinese?

There are many excellent reasons to learn a foreign language, none the least that it’s an infinitely better use of your time than sitting in front of trash reality TV programs.

Learning a foreign language will boost your self-confidence, give you the chance to develop new skills, and open your mind.

Imagine you manage to reach a reasonable communicative level in Italian or another foreign language – think what a psychological boost that will give you, how much more confident you will feel about tackling other complex and difficult projects in the future.

In Turkey they have a saying, something like this:

If you speak one language, you are one person. But if you speak more than one language, you become more than one person.

Being multilingual brings freedom and opportunity.

Having the ability to express yourself in another language, and to understand what others say to you, really will open the door to new worlds and new ways of being you!

Convinced?

Excellent!

But why then choose to learn Italian?

Many students of Italian have obvious family reasons for learning the language – parents or grandparents born in Italy, or like me, an Italian partner.

But if that’s not the case for you, Italian could still be an excellent choice, if for no other reason than the fact that Italian is closely related to other ‘Latin-origin’ languages like Spanish, French and Portuguese.

So?

Well, I studied French at school, but felt I had made little progress with it.

Since learning Italian, however, I find myself able to make sense of a French newspaper or novel, such are the similarities between the two languages.

And I know no Spanish at all, but regularly hold conversations with young Spanish or South-American students who come to Bologna to learn Italian.

Imagine the scene: they’re speaking Spanish, I’m replying in Italian…

But due to the similarities between the two languages, we’re actually managing to communicate with no real problem!

Choose Italian as your foreign language and, as an extra, you’ll gain some ability to understand three or more OTHER languages.

But study Italian and you’ll also be learning the language of fashion and design, of art and opera, of Italy’s much-loved cuisine and fine wines, of Dante Alighieri and renaissance Florence.

What’s more, with some knowledge of the Italian language, visiting some of Europe’s oldest monuments or getting to know Italy’s magnificent and varied landscapes and coastline will be a richer and more satisfying experience.

But why take my word for it?

Google ‘most studied languages’ and you’ll find that according to the latest statistics, Italian is in fourth place after English, French and Spanish (all ‘colonial’ languages).

Master Italian, and you won’t be short of people to talk to!

More Articles About Learning Italian | FAQ