Very often people who start studying Italian, they say: "I heard that it is very easy language". It also happens that the “simplicity” of Italian is even the only motivation for learning it: “I decided to learn Italian because it is not difficult.” Those who are already learning Italian often sigh: “Wow, “easy”! And I thought…” So can Italian be considered a simple language?
The Italian language is a direct descendant of the Latin language, the bearer of an ancient and rich culture and, at the same time, a modern living language. Such a definition provides for significant lexical richness, a variety of expressive and stylistic devices, a complex grammatical structure. Therefore, to call such a language “easy” is in itself a mistake. Yes, study foreign language always involves a lot of work, no matter how hard the creators of some methods try to convince them otherwise, which promise to master a foreign language in a short time and without effort (sometimes even under hypnosis!).
And is it worth learning Italian "under hypnosis"? After all, learning a foreign language is not only and not so much hard work, but, above all, pleasure. The very process of learning a language (especially if you like this language!) can, and should, bring joy. The joy of contact with an unusually beautiful and expressive language; joy because you learn so much new about the culture of another people; the joy of feeling your own success and the visible result, which you, having shown a little perseverance, will certainly feel.
Therefore, when starting to learn Italian, think not about whether it will be easy or difficult for you, but about how much you like Italian and whether you really strive to learn it. If the main or even the only motivation is the simplicity allegedly inherent in Italian, then it is worth considering whether you need to take on a deliberately difficult task, which is the study of a foreign language.
From the point of view of grammar, the forms and use of articles present difficulties (both because there are no articles in Russian, and because in Italian the article has various forms and it is difficult to reduce cases of its use or absence to a few clear rules). Difficulties are also caused by the use of prepositions, which do not always fit into any schemes or rules (in many cases, the need to use one or another preposition depends on the specific word and the preposition should simply be remembered). And, of course, the main difficulty of the Italian language: the verb. Here, learners of Italian will encounter a number of verb tenses that do not exist in Russian. It is important not only to learn the forms of tenses, but also to understand the differences in their use. Those who master all 8 tenses of the indicative mood and 2 tenses of the conditional mood are waiting for the "cherry" on the pie: the subjunctive mood with its 4 tenses. But do not worry too much: in fact, not all verb tenses have complex forms, and many of the tenses are formed almost according to the same principle. The main difficulty is not the forms, but the use of verb tenses and moods.
What about in Italian? lung tongue? Easy spelling: learned the rules of reading - and you can read and write in Italian without thinking about transcriptions and exceptions to the rules (and this opens up great opportunities for self-education!). There are almost no exceptions to the rules in grammar, since Italian is to some extent an artificial language (in the 19th century, after the unification of Italy into a single state, it was streamlined, “brought to a common denominator”). Therefore, Italian grammar can be called correct, harmonious and logical. And, finally, Italian vocabulary is not so complicated: there are a lot of words of Latin origin in Russian, and this will certainly help you!
Say what you like, but learning a foreign language from scratch is what a job! Especially mental and, most often, emotional. For me, that's exactly what happened. In my school years, like many others, I began to study English. It was primitive, at the level of knowledge of the alphabet, personal pronouns, standard phrases like "My name is Natasha" and "I live in Moscow" or meager poems about the fact that I have eyes and I can see a book and a pen in front of me, I see ceiling and floor, I see a window and a door. You know, many years have passed, but I still remember the rhyme. Apparently, the weekly repetition worked. And what?
I am ashamed, but when I first came abroad, I could not communicate with foreigners. At all. No way. Well, except that hello, goodbye and thank you. It was the maximum.
I was devoured by a sense of shame, because next to me there is a sister who speaks excellent English, speaks German, Spanish and Portuguese. And each of our conversations ended with her optimistic phrase “Learn English!”. But I didn't want to. I had no desire for this.
In the most terrible summer of 2010, I went to Italy. Two weeks of walks in the most beautiful cities: Rome, Milan, Florence, Naples. Under the road from one city to another we looked. Graceful "Roman Holiday" with Audrey Hepburn, breathtaking "The Italian Job" with greetings from Venice, sunny shots "Under the Tuscan Sun", which have become the most beloved and symbolic images of Italy. In the evenings in a small room (oh, that piccolo!) I turned on the Italian TV channel Rai and listened, listened, listened ...
However, I did not start learning Italian on my own right away. There were several important and fateful meetings that turned into golden keys from the doors to the world called "Italian language". I share these "meetings" with you. Heartily.
A young man with an interesting name, Zhivko, greets hotel guests with a wide, disarming smile. A melodious Italian dialect spreads around, and he invites you to sit down in pure Russian: “Welcome to Italy! Coffee?" And after a few minutes, a steaming, fragrant cup of espresso appears on a tiny table. This is how my Italian morning began at the Playa Hotel, located on the Viserbell embankment, which is a 10-minute drive from the city. July that year turned out to be very hot, even in the morning hours the Italians themselves hide under awnings, miniature umbrellas and behind bar counters. “Just like at my house,” Zhivko admits, and this is where our acquaintance begins.
In the Hotel Playa, which mainly hosts Italians and only a few rooms are usually occupied by visiting foreigners, everyone speaks their own language. English does not help in communication, in Italian at that time I could only say 2 words - Ciao and Grazie. Therefore, it was Zhivko who became my personal translator. I was alone in the Russian hotel.
Later we met with him at the hotel restaurant. There was a menu on a separate table attached to me for the rest of the holiday. Of course, everything is in Italian. Under each name of the dish, Zhivko wrote a translation with a simple pencil. Albeit with errors, but still such attention is expensive.
I remember once I really wanted milk. Still, coffee in the morning, afternoon and evening is unusual for me. “Milk is latte,” Zhivko explained and smiled again.
I remember those days with warmth, because each of us can find ourselves in a situation where a person who can speak your native language is simply needed nearby in a foreign country. I already have it. Although now we can already speak Italian. If you ever find yourself in the Witherbella area, say hello to Zhivko from Moscow.
And another Italian inspiration
I don’t remember exactly in what television season, Channel One began showing the Ice Age show, in which pairs of professionals and amateurs skated on ice. Among them was my favorite couple. They performed one of the numbers of the program to the amazing and probably the most famous song (Adriano Celentano) "Confessa". By itself, the number under the spotlights fascinated, but even more I was captivated by this amazing voice with a hoarseness. Guess what I wanted to do? First, understand what the song is about. And, secondly, to sing yourself. But for this you had to know Italian.
And then one day, on one of the warm summer evenings, I made up my mind. Okay, I will learn English! Because it is necessary. And I will learn Italian. Because I want. This difference between “need” and “want” played a very important role for me. I know the second language better than the first.
Do not force yourself, friends! Let learning a new language bring satisfaction and joy from what happens. And, most importantly, teach for yourself, not for others. After all, how nice it is to hear small but successful attempts to pronounce a phrase in Italian, the words “Brava!”
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AUGUST, 2016
There are many reasons to learn Italian. This can be done for the soul, for life or for the mind. I think that the most important reasons are hidden in our sensual and emotional sphere: our dreams, craving for beauty, enjoying Italian music, communicating with Italians and traveling around Italy. Let's start with this.
1. DREAM
It is worth learning Italian if it is an old dream. For all those who grew up on the songs of Toto Cutugno, the Sanremo festival and films with Adriano Celentano, or for those who have some other important personal memory, Italian is a childhood dream. The language of the sun, love and happiness that we felt in Italian melodies, we saw in photographs and in films.
However, one can often hear the opinion that dreams, they say, are nonsense, you need to do useful practical things. I think that dreams must be realized - this is our gift to ourselves and our souls. The point is not even that you will begin to understand long-familiar songs and films, but that you will take care of yourself and your desires.
2. BEAUTY OF SOUND
Italian is very beautiful: melodic, ringing and passionate. It's nice to hear him - it's not for nothing that so many beautiful songs and opera arias are written in Italian. It is pleasant to speak it - one of my friends once said: "Italian words are so sweet to pronounce, as if you are eating a cake."
3. ITALIANS
When learning Italian, you will not be able to avoid communicating with its native speakers - Italians. And it will be wonderful: open, friendly, sociable and positive people, whether it be a newspaper seller with whom you exchanged a few words, a man on the street who made a compliment, a barista who greets you with the same “ciao bella!” or a friend riding a motorino around Rome at night - all this will give you a wonderful experience of warm open communication, which (for some reason) is very rare in Russia in communication with strangers.
4. FEELING ITALY
If you know at least the basics of the language, your stay in Italy becomes deeper. You can experience much more than just eating delicious food and seeing beautiful landscapes (read also point 9 here). Knowledge of the language is the establishment of real, not superficial contact with what surrounds you. To do this, some use photography, some draw and sketch, and some hear and understand the language of the place.
5. SENSITIVITY
From Italian culture and communication with Italians, you can draw a new experience of sensuality and physical pleasures. We pay a lot of attention to intellectual work and care for the soul, but the physical experience (mild climate, delicious food, sex) is relegated to the background. Learning Italian can help you discover not only your emotionality, but also your sensuality.
Okay, these are all lyrical reasons, if they don't convince you, then there are also practical bonuses from knowing Italian:
6. TRAVEL
Firstly, it's not a secret for anyone that in Italy, not everyone speaks English (like maybe you yourself;), so the language will come in handy simply for resolving everyday situations encountered on the travel path.
And secondly, there is also an unobvious plus - you can use Italian, attention, not only in Italy! Surprisingly, it is a fact: more than once our students resorted to Italian to communicate with the Japanese, Belgians and French. And mutual understanding with the Spaniards is generally established instantly.
7. THE BENEFITS OF LEARNING OTHER LANGUAGES
If you have a difficult relationship with English (that is, your speech does not flow like Colin Firth), then learning Italian can really unlock it. The marathon participant said it best Sveta: “Perhaps my decision to learn Italian was my best decision of the last year (years?): thanks to Italian, I not only improved my English (I began to see roots from Latin -> it became easier to memorize words, for example, the same paunchy is perfectly remembered if you know Italian pancia, without any stupid associations with doughnuts, and borrowings from Latin (and the Romance languages that went from it) in English THIRD!
I can confirm that Italian is objectively easy to learn and can be an important learning experience for learning a foreign language. You will have a pleasant feeling “I can!”
B2 in Italian - a real result for a year and a half of classes.
Also, learning Italian can give you a lot of food for thought:
8. LEARNING ROMAN LANGUAGE
Italian is a Romance language, which means that, having learned it at least to a good B1, you can master any other Romance (Spanish, French, Portuguese ... Latin, after all!) almost instantly. Okay, 5 months for sure. With Italian, you will understand the logic of all these languages, and more than half vocabulary they are nearly identical. It can be said that with Italian you simultaneously gain understanding at levels A1-B1 in Spanish or French.
That is, if you do not know which Romance language you may suddenly need in the future, learn Italian. If it is not useful to you, then use it as a base for the rest.
Well, then, it's just interesting - to understand the logic of another language. And surprisingly, you will also learn a lot of new things about your native Russian)
10. SOMETHING NEW
In general, when learning any foreign language, we often cannot even imagine what awaits us on this path: an important acquaintance, a cool professional or personal project, or something generally unexpected and wonderful. For example, I learned Italian, and then worked as a translator with amazing people: businessmen, photographers, directors, and even with Toto Cutugno. And now my friend and I have our own Italian school in St. Petersburg, where we try to create an authentic atmosphere and convey everything that you just read about.
"Why Italian? You probably think that Italy will invade Ethiopia again, this time successfully, and then you can boast of knowing the language spoken in two whole countries!" I remember how I laughed at this phrase in Elizabeth Gilbert's book "Eat, Pray, Love", but I thought ... Really, why learn Italian? And here are the answers I found.
- In Italian you will be understood not only in Italy. But also in Switzerland, in several districts of Croatia and Slovenia (where it is recognized as one of the official languages), as well as on about. Malta, where Italian is quite widely spoken.
- Italian can be mastered fairly quickly at a conversational household level(I emphasize, on HOUSEHOLD!). Easy spelling: learned the rules of reading - and you can read and write without thinking about transcriptions and exceptions to the rules. The sounds are similar to Russian, rarely difficult to pronounce letter combinations. There are many recognizable words, since the Italian language is a descendant of Latin, and in Russian there are a lot of words of Latin origin. Italian grammar can be called correct, harmonious and logical. There are almost no exceptions to the rule. There are no cases. There are only two genders: male and female. The word order in the sentence is almost the same as in Russian. In a word, you can immediately start talking.
- With the help of the Italian language you can improve your speech! The fact is that Italian consonants are pronounced clearly, energetically and firmly. The sound "R" sounds booming (very useful for those who do not pronounce this letter, especially children). Thus, you train your articulation apparatus, and your speech becomes more distinct and clear.
- When you speak Italian, you become more relaxed. Yes Yes! Italian is a very expressive language. In addition to good articulation and lively intonation, body language and gestures are immediately involved, which allows you to feel less constrained and automatically adds self-confidence.
- Despite the fact that there is an opinion that everyone everywhere already speaks English language, in Italy this is not entirely true. Of course, in hotels, restaurants, outlets and large tourist centers you will feel quite calm even with minimal knowledge of English, but is this "standard set" of a tourist really going to satisfy you? Locals - this is REAL Italy! It is they who will tell you what cannot be found in any guidebook and even on the Internet. One caveat: most of the locals, not employed in the tourism business, speak only their native Italian (especially in the south of the country).
- Italian language is extraordinarily beautiful. The focus of speech in Italian is the so-called lower tooth, and the words end in a vowel, which makes the language melodic and melodious. No wonder Italian - native language operas. It makes me want to sing!
- After studying your favorite topic "Food" (and it is one of the first), you will easily and even with some pride understand the names of dishes on the menu of Italian restaurants. And never again ask the waiter: "What is a minestrone?".
- And how many Italian words you will discover by reading the names of shops, beauty salons, laundries and the same restaurants and pizzerias (well, this is sacred)! And how many funny inconsistencies you will find!
- Starting to learn Italian, you will become more erudite. You will never again exclaim "Bravo!" just like that, but only to the male performer; you will correct the interlocutor who will say "Lambor Gini", because "Lambor Gini" and only "Lambor Gini" are read correctly; you will simply no longer be able to pronounce "latte" (with emphasis on "e"), but with confidence in your voice say "latte" (with emphasis on "a"); the enigmatic "Cosa Nostra" will acquire the translation "Our Cause", and the hackneyed but incomprehensible "Lashatemi Kantare" will be a simple phrase meaning - "Let me sing."
- And finally, already in the first lesson of the Italian language, you will be surprised to learn that "Ciao" is translated not only as "Bye!", but also as the opposite of "Hello!" .
Thus, I say "Ciao!" to you as I now say goodbye to you, and I say "Ciao!" to you as I welcome you to your language lessons, in which, to quote Elizabeth Gilbert, " every word... like the singing of a nightingale, like a magic spell, like a candy that melts in your mouth".
You can sign up for a lesson with an Italian language tutor.
site, with full or partial copying of the material, a link to the source is required.
This site is dedicated to self-learning Italian from scratch. We will try to make it the most interesting and useful for everyone who is interested in this beautiful language and, of course, Italy itself.Interesting about the Italian language.
History, facts, modernity.
Let's start with a few words about the current status of the language, it is obvious that Italian is official language in Italy, the Vatican (simultaneously with Latin), in San Marino, but also in Switzerland (in its Italian part, the canton of Ticino) and in several districts in Croatia and Slovenia, where a large Italian-speaking population lives, Italian is also spoken by some of the inhabitants on the island of Malta.
Italian dialects - can we understand each other?
In Italy itself, even today you can hear many dialects, sometimes it is enough to drive only a few tens of kilometers to encounter another of them.At the same time, dialects are often so different from each other that they may seem completely different languages. If people from, for example, the northern and central Italian "outback" meet, then they may not even be able to understand each other.
What is especially interesting is that in addition to the oral form, some of the dialects also have a written one, such as the Neopolitan, Venetian, Milanese and Sicilian dialects.
The latter exists, respectively, on the island of Sicily and is so different from other dialects that some researchers distinguish it as a separate Sardinian language.
However, in everyday communication and, in particular, major cities you are unlikely to experience any inconvenience, because. today the dialects are spoken mainly by older people in countryside, but young people use the right thing that unites all Italians literary language, the language of radio and, of course, television.
It may be mentioned here that until the end of the Second World War, modern Italian was only written language, used by the ruling class, scientists and in administrative institutions, and it was television that played a large role in spreading the common Italian language among all residents.
How it all began, origins
The history of the formation of modern Italian as we all know it is closely connected with the history of Italy and certainly no less fascinating.Origins - in ancient Rome, everything was in the Roman language, commonly known as Latin, which at that time was the official official language Roman Empire. In the future, from Latin, in fact, the Italian language and many other languages \u200b\u200bof Europe arose.
Therefore, knowing Latin, you can understand what a Spaniard is saying, plus or minus a Portuguese, and you can even make out part of the speech of an Englishman or Frenchman.
In 476, the last Roman emperor Romulus-Augustula abdicates the throne, after the capture of Rome by the leader of the Germans Odoacar, this date is considered the end of the Great Roman Empire.
Some also call it the end of the "Roman language", however, even today disputes still do not subside, because of what exactly Latin language lost its relevance, due to the capture of the Roman Empire by the barbarians, or was it a natural process, and what language was actually spoken by the end of the Roman Empire.
According to one of the versions, ancient rome by this time, along with Latin, the spoken language was already widespread, and it is from this folk language of Rome that Italian comes, which we know as Italian of the 16th century, according to the second version, due to the invasion of the barbarians, Latin was mixed with various barbarian languages and dialects and it is from this synthesis that the Italian language already originates.
Birthday - first mentioned
960 is considered the birthday of the Italian language. The first document is associated with this date, where this "proto-folk language" is present - vulgare, these are court papers related to the land litigation of the Benedictine abbey, the witnesses used this particular version of the language so that the testimony was as clear as possible more people, up to this point in all official papers we can see only Latin.And then there was a gradual spread in the ubiquitous life of the vulgare language, which translates as a folk language, which became the prototype of the modern Italian language.
However, the story does not end there, but only becomes more interesting and the next stage is associated with the Renaissance and with such, all famous names like Dante Alighiere, F. Petrarch, J. Boccaccio and others.
to be continued...
Online translator
I suggest that all guests of my blog use a convenient and free Italian online translator.If you need to translate a couple of words or a short phrase from Russian to Italian or vice versa, you can use the little translator on the sidebar of the blog.
If you want to translate a large text or need other languages - use full version online dictionary, where more than 40 languages are on a separate blog page - /p/onlain-perevodchik.html
Italian self-instruction manual
I present a new separate section for all learners of the Italian language - Italian Tutorial for Beginners.Making a full-fledged Italian tutorial out of a blog is, of course, not easy, but I try to give the most convenient and logical sequence of interesting online lessons so that you can learn Italian from them yourself.
There will also be a section - an audio tutorial, where, as you might guess, there will be lessons with audio applications that can be downloaded or listened to directly on the site.
How to choose an Italian language tutorial, where to download it, or how to study it online, you will find information about this in my posts.
By the way, if someone has ideas or suggestions on how best to organize such a tutorial on our Italian blog, then be sure to write to me.
Italian via Skype
Secrets of how to learn Italian via Skype for free, whether a native speaker is always needed, how to choose a teacher, how much it costs to learn Italian via Skype, how not to waste your time and money - read about all this in the section "Italian via Skype.Come, read and make the right choice!
Italian phrasebook
Free, Fascinating, with a native speaker - a rubric for those who want to learn words and phrases on certain topics.Join, listen, read, learn - voiced Italian phrasebook for tourists, shopping, airport, everyday situations and much more
In chapter "
