Love at first sight. It's such a beautiful language. I love both hearing and reading it. Nobody and nothing forces me to learn Italian. Maybe that's why it's so nice.
Non so, a volte non mi piace. È bella, suona bene, è facile leggere e quasi sempre pronunciare. Non è bella da madrelingua perché ci sono cose come "analisi grammaticale, logica e del periodo" che insegnano a scuola, sono tutti i modi in cui è costruita una frase, vengono dal latino. Lì inizia l' inferno
If you really love something, it doesn't matter if it's difficult. I mainly use intuition. I like learning languages through freestyle immersion. By watching movies, listening to songs, reading articles, poetry, I was able to understand most of the text. I'm not afraid of hell, your language is pure poetry. I also learned Greek this way. This hell gives me pleasure.
I used to feel the same way about my native language, which is also a latin language. At school they also focus a lot on grammar rules and mechanics. When I was 11 I had to memorize all verb conjugations and write them on the blackboard. It got to the point I would refuse to watch anything dubbed, always opting for the original audio and subtitles when available.
The turning point for me was becoming an avid reader. Suddenly, I intuitively knew how my language worked and the meaning it carried on each sentence. It got to the point where I knew which clause a sentence had with just a glance! And no amount of studying had done that for me, it was purely me immersing myself in a grammatically correct environment (because let's be honest, no native speaker speaks their language correctly lol).
Eventually, I learned to love anything dubbed in my language, even anime. There's so many fun expressions and memes I'd be losing out otherwise! Hearing a character call a short person "pintor de rodapé" ("baseboard painter") hits way differently than "shrimp"; hearing a character with a specific regional accent with their specific slangs by itself gives a lot of hidden meaning, like the character being more laid-back. I'm sure each country has their counterpart, but I'd be losing out unless I did my research on each accent.
But I digress. I honestly think you'll eventually learn to love your language if you just give it a chance outside of a school environment. To answer your post, I started learning Italian because I have family there and it should be easier since I already speak a latin language!
Yeah I agree with this. Especially in surroundings where English is considered "cool" I see this sentiment quite a bit in younger people. People who like that they study and/or work in an international environment because then they don't have to speak our native language. Which they dislike and think is ugly, nonsensical, useless, irrelevant, difficult, etc. And I'll sometimes see the same "the language sucks and is super hard why would you ever want to learn it" sentiment on the learning sub.
I also had an "English is much cooler" phase when I was younger. I don't quite remember when it switched for me but it's been a while now. I've quietly started an anti movement against unnecessary English use lol, which especially in corporate speech is rife. In personal communication I try to avoid anglicisms. I'll translate the names of TV shows (which are always subbed here not dubbed unless it's for little kids) and sometimes even the names of the characters, which does sometimes lead to confusion among anyone watching with me lol but at this point I can't stop myself.
lmao I do the same thing! John Snow is João das Neves! Even when singing a song I sometimes try a real-time translation. Word-by-word earns laughs from friends, lyrical adaptation gets groans once they notice lol.
But yeah, now that you mentioned it, I probably had the "English is much cooler" phase as well. I also can't pinpoint exactly when it went away, but becoming proficient enough in it certainly had a hand in it. All the novelty went away and stuff. What's funny is that people around here tend to borrow English words and "portuguesify" them, especially verbs related to coding and gaming. To grind becomes "grindar", to run becomes "runar", and so on. Those I don't mind and I myself use them a lot, but the ones in corporate setting are aggravating lol. Why use "meeting" when we have a perfectly fine word like "reunião"? Sheesh.
Hahaha I'm so glad I'm not the only person who does this. And yeah it probably did have to do with becoming very proficient.
We do also nativise English verbs like that, and same as Portuguese mostly computer related. Downloaden, uploaden, spammen, gamen, etc are all part of regular language now. But yeah corporate English is ridiculous lol. We'll hold a *meeting* where we'll have a *brainstorming* session with the *finance* and *demand planning* teams about *sustainability* in the *supply chain*. Ugh. Not to mention all the marketing (there's another one) in badly written English when we don't have a single English client.
Senza parlare dei metodi di insegnamento, alle elemantari per imparare a fare l’analisi grammaticale la maestra ci dava dei video su youtube da guardare (prima del covid)
If it makes sense, I'm native Italian and I feel the exact same about English. 20+ years in (several of which in school, admittedly) and though I've had to learn it for quite a while, it never felt forced since I've always found it fascinating. Aside from the idea that people could understand each other fully while speaking what to me at first sounded like gibberish (which is in and of itself amazing), I find that English is way more melodic than Italian, easier to listen to for longer periods of time, and although the syntax can be confusing, it has the added perk of a truckload more sources of information and translations available on any random topic compared to Italian.
It's interesting to me that you feel English is more melodic than Italian, while I (a native English speaker) find Italian more beautiful and melodic. English just sounds flat to me.
I do love learning languages and finding out about other cultures. I favor East Asia, but Italia is right up there with it.
I agree with this. I love the way Italian sounds. Maybe it reminds me of my grandparents, I don't know. Either way, I started learning it a few years ago, then I switched over to Korean for a couple of years and came back to Italian. I was doing both languages for awhile, but I have been immersing myself in Italian (movies, music, following Italian speakers and teachers on social media) in anticipation for my trip to Italy, which is finally here. Leaving tomorrow morning.
Non ho scelto italiano. L'italiano ha ~~scelta~~ scelto me. I miei nonni e parenti sono italiani. Tecnicamente «sono» italiano anch'io nel senso puro di avere la cittadinanza. Sebbene non ~~ho~~ sia mai vissuto lì, secondo me dovrei ~~ancora~~ comunque parlare la lingua.
The clause form was correct, good work! :) the error was on the transitivity of the verb, in this sentence you're not living 'something' but 'somewhere', so you need to use the auxiliary verb 'essere', for example:
Io *sono vissuto* a milano - i lived in milan
vs
Mio nonno *ha vissuto* una vita intensa - my grandfather lived an intense life
Don't worry though, native speakers often get these wrong in everyday speaking :P
For the second part, you wrote 'ancora', which is for something that is still happening or happening again, the correct word for 'anyway' is 'comunque'
Keep up the good work! :D
they're perhaps the funniest type of clauses to me bc they literally express an anti-condition.. like yeah there this thing that SHOULD or could at least stop me from reaching the goa in the main clause, but nope, it wont!
even if it rains, im stil going for a walk in the park!
I'm not sure why you'd consider it torture? It's easier than English because it's got consistent spelling, it's easier than French because it actually pronounces almost all the letters you write and it's easier than German because there's way less exceptions to which noun gets which gender. So far I'm pleasantly surprised with the difficulty.
As for why: I wanted to learn a new language. I'd already studied English, German and French to varying degrees. I have no connection to Spain or Spanish. Italian is the next major Western European language, plus it has some relevance to my work which meant I also already had a tiny head start in vocabulary. It just made sense
I've been studying Italian off and on since 2020 and I don't find verbs that hard. My problem comes with prepositions, conjunctions and certain words (such as ancora and anche, which in turn can have multiple meanings depending on context).
I have. As far as I've heard it's really only a handful of verb forms that are commonly used in daily conversation and they all seem relatively straightforward and comparable to verb forms I'm familiar with. Yes there's a bunch more conjugations than I'm used to but it's certainly easier to remember when to use what one than it is in the German case system.
You don't need to know 100% of a language's grammar to be able to speak it. Like in my language we have a difference between gendered and neutral words, and technically the majority of gendered words have an additional distinction between male or female. Do I know the difference between the male and female words? No, nor do virtually any of my countrymen. Does it have any impact on 99.9% of speech? No because it's barely ever relevant. Do I think foreigners would need to learn it in order to master the language? No, because see the previous point.
And similarly you not knowing all verb forms doesn't seem to have any impact on you being able to live your life in Italian. So it doesn't appear to be really essential to learn in order to be able to express yourself in the vast majority of cases. And if you do want to learn the less commonly used ones there's time enough to do so once you obtain a higher level
It all started back in 8th grade, when, for some reason, I reaaalllly wanted to order pasta in Italian in Italy one day, so I bought a book to learn Italian
Then, in 10th grade, I discovered they teach Italian at school, and so I learnt it 10-12th grade and it was no longer about the pasta, Italian became one of my passions, it's such a beautiful language, poetic to hear, lovely to pronounce and easy to learn
ma, non so niente, I forgot almost everything I learnt, but I'll get back to it, powered by passion and love 💓
It's going to sound silly. I've always loved the language, but I recently got really invested into a fictional character who is Italian, and the idea of being able to talk to him in his native language is a huge motivator for why I actually started to study and learn it. It's not easy, but I'm determined to keep going!
For my parts, my grand parents on my dad’s parts are native from Italy (Monopoli - Puglia) but my dad never learn me Italian, I would like to speak it fluent to speak the native language of my grand parents while i still have them
my paternal great grandparents were Italian and my grandparents grew up speaking it. they learned English as kids too, so when they had my dad and uncles/aunt they spoke English at home so everyone would "assimilate properly" (much different times). no one in my family speaks Italian now, although their listening comprehension isn't bad.
I speak Spanish at a high level (lived abroad, wife of 13 years is Colombian) and I'm applying for Italian citizenship, so I figured learning Italian would be a rewarding and fun project. After I get citizenship I'd like to move there, or at least live there part of the year.
I am married to my husband who is a Italian. I move from Vietnam to Piemonte to live with him. Since most people primarily speak Italian and rarely English, it's practical that I need to learn a third language. Also, it's for my citizenship which I will do in the future.
My wife is an Italian dual citizen. I'd like citizenship by marriage so I have to learn the language. I'm just starting. It's a lot harder when you're older although not as bad as I thought it would be. If doesn't feel like "torture"
I don’t know very much Italian yet, but I learned last year that my family and I are Italian citizens by descent, so I thought it was only proper that I should at least try and learn the language of this country to which I belong
"torture"? As a Spanish speaker, I find it pretty easy. I found out many Italians consider their language as "the hardest in the world", but many Spanish, french and Portuguese speakers think the same about their languages.
When my great great grandparents came to the United States, they didn’t want to teach my great grandma and furthermore, my grandmother Italian because they wanted them to blend in better. So about 2-3 generations ago, the Italian language was cut off from us. I want to learn Italian so that I can go and see where we came from while knowing it and communicate effectively and correctly. I definitely would not consider learning Italian “torturous” as it will be my second language and I didn’t really care much for Spanish in high school. So this is also more of a second chance to communicate with another population.
1.) I know Spanish already
2.) Voted most romantic language in the world
3.) Cradle of western civilization
4.) I want to learn all romance languages.
5.) Visited the country and I like it enough to live there for a few years, so that's what I am going to do.
Perché mia compagna è italiana. I sui non parlano né inglese né - ovviamente - svedese. E presto avremo un bambino insieme.
Però... devo dire, non è così male. Imparare una nuova lingua è molto difficile ma anche divertente 😄
While my language learning skills are poor to say the least, Italian is far from torturous. English is probably worse considering our lack of phonetics alone
To answer the question, my friend is italian and while she is fluent in English I'd love to meet her and her family one day - all of whom speak very little to no English .... they're also Sicilian but yknow nothing is perfect xD
We visited family in Italy last May and I felt badly that all the work in communication fell on them. I would like to visit Italy every couple of years and would like to ease the burden on our family and be able to be more independent.
If I was smart I would be studying Spanish since I live very close to the Mexican border but Italian is so beautiful and inspires me in a way that Spanish doesn’t.
I would like to expand my horizons for a start. Being fluent in many languages is incredible, and I'm not sure how learning a new language can be seen as torture, really🤔🫣... but to each his own!
In France at high school, we should to choose a language to learn. I could choose between Spanish and Italian. I have chosen Italian and when my professor, an Italian women ask me why, I reply "Because I prefer pasta and pizza than paella".
It was the third language I had to pick up in highschool, because based on some wizard magic, I got selected to learn italian instead of german, latin, spanish, french or russian (ofc after english, the mandatory second language) so I was like, if domeone else can do it I ALSO can and yes can do, thank you. I was practically a brat and being stubborn, so yeah.
I’m going to Italy in less than a year to study for a semester. The classes are in English but I really want to be able to navigate and talk to people.
I'm a quarter Italian with my maternal grandmother being 100%, but my family was "New York Italian" for several generations before that. It's the only cohesive part of my ethnic identity, since my other 3 grandparents were generic working class mixed white (bit of Irish, German, English, Dutch, etc). I crave a bit of connection to my family's history and just latched onto the Italian quarter.
Also and as such, I wanted to learn Italian as a kid, but my mom was *not* supportive. She kept pushing me towards Spanish as being more practical to learn. As an adult, I'm being a bit vindictive and vain by learning Italian now. I've always wanted to.
Finally, I've been planning a trip to Italy since I was 15. I really want to see Rome and Tuscany. There's always something though. The current hold-up is the whole fascism thing, but as soon as y'all oust Meloni and her ilk I'm looking forward to enjoying that long overdue vacation. While there, I expect whatever Italian I have learned to come in handy.
I love languages. Am I good at learning them? I don't think particularly excel at it but that's hard to say because my fixation on things tends to be very fluid. I was learning German and Polish before starting Italian (I put those two on hold). I find it pretty enjoyable.
And why Italian? Non io so. Lol. I'd love to stick to it because I want to go to Italy (was there as a little kid and don't remember much) and explore the italian cuisine by Italian people (and not local "Italian" restaurants).
Also, I've heard that Italians are super friendly when a foreigner tries to speak their language and not just all English. Don't know if that's true so I'll have to find out for myself.
I started learning it because it was one of the only two languages offered for year 11 at my school. It was between Italian and Greek, and... I figured my Greek stepmother could help me if I ever wanted to learn Greek. So I did Italian.
I really enjoyed it, and that was the first class I ever consistently got >90% or even 100% on exams. In year 12 I was the top of my class. That had NEVER happened before.
Figuring things out made me feel smart. I enjoyed the language, and trying to speak it too.
I graduated high school in 2016, but I've still kept up trying to learn.
Just around the sound part, it's one of the most beautiful languages I've ever heard. It sounds so much nicer than any other one. Also, it's not that difficult, depending on your language background. I'm a native and B1 Spanish speaker, so everything I learn is very simple and it clicks really quickly. idk where torture comes from lol, it's actually not that bad.
In New Jersey it’s mandatory to take at least two years of a language in high school and my options were Spanish, Italian, or Latin. My family has Italian ancestry so it was a simply choice. I stuck with it through the end of college mostly as a way to fill extra credit requirements & because I planned on studying in Rome. When I studied abroad it was incredibly helpful - I was able to actually talk with people when their English wasn’t great, and I played translator for friends that didn’t know the language.
All'inizio della pandemia, ho deciso di studiare una nuova lingua e ho scelto l'italiano perché suona bello, mi piace la cultura, e siccome parlo il portoghese fluentemente (i miei sono brasiliani ma sono nato e cresciuto negli Stati Uniti), la grammatica non è così dificile per me. Capisco bene ad esempio l'uso del congiuntivo perché esiste anche nel portoghese.
Because I said I'd go to Italy and try my luck at dating. Men in our country doesn't seem interested in me. At 30, I can't quit now, been saying this to everyone for years. If I do manage to finally go on my trip to Italy and it doesn't pan out, at least I'd be eating delicious food as I walk the street, probably looking like an idiot because I also happening to be crying. At least I'd have pastries to keep me company as I wallow in self pity and despair 😂😂 But you know, gotta keep the faith 😂😂
also italian, also agree. ONLY italians speak italian, 85M speakers who almost exclusively live in italy, while spanish has 600M speakers worldwide. Even french has more second-language speakers than italian, by nearly 4x as much.
Please be fair to yourselves! Spain, France, Portugal, England, all of them colonized countries at one point. This certainly had a hand in the number of Spanish-speaking people and I'd bet it's the same for others as well. As far as I know, Italy never colonized other places. And when Italians sought refuge in other countries, fleeing from war, they were forced to not teach the language to their children in fear of persecution. The total number of speakers is more complex than simply whether a language is popular or not.
1) most of my ancestors come from Italy (64% Italian per 23andme)
2) I love the country’s history, culture, and beauty, and would like to not embarrass myself if I need to speak it when I eventually visit
3) I took Latin for 6 years in middle/high school, so I have some sort of foundation in Romance languages.
Plus, I just want to know another language. Languages are fun, I think it’s good for one’s brain, but, America being so large and spread out, we don’t have a need to know another one other than English.
because my father's italian, I have citizenship, and even if I dislike the culture, I love the things this second nation has granted me.
It's the bare minimum of respect to learn it.
First, I don't regard learning Italian as torture. Second, I really like the language. Third, there is a lot of great literature written in it.
My husband is Italian, and if I pass the B1 test I can get citizenship. That’s my goal!
The B1 test is not hard. I consider myself a below, average language learner, and I passed it. If I can do it, you can do it.
Love at first sight. It's such a beautiful language. I love both hearing and reading it. Nobody and nothing forces me to learn Italian. Maybe that's why it's so nice.
Non so, a volte non mi piace. È bella, suona bene, è facile leggere e quasi sempre pronunciare. Non è bella da madrelingua perché ci sono cose come "analisi grammaticale, logica e del periodo" che insegnano a scuola, sono tutti i modi in cui è costruita una frase, vengono dal latino. Lì inizia l' inferno
If you really love something, it doesn't matter if it's difficult. I mainly use intuition. I like learning languages through freestyle immersion. By watching movies, listening to songs, reading articles, poetry, I was able to understand most of the text. I'm not afraid of hell, your language is pure poetry. I also learned Greek this way. This hell gives me pleasure.
I used to feel the same way about my native language, which is also a latin language. At school they also focus a lot on grammar rules and mechanics. When I was 11 I had to memorize all verb conjugations and write them on the blackboard. It got to the point I would refuse to watch anything dubbed, always opting for the original audio and subtitles when available. The turning point for me was becoming an avid reader. Suddenly, I intuitively knew how my language worked and the meaning it carried on each sentence. It got to the point where I knew which clause a sentence had with just a glance! And no amount of studying had done that for me, it was purely me immersing myself in a grammatically correct environment (because let's be honest, no native speaker speaks their language correctly lol). Eventually, I learned to love anything dubbed in my language, even anime. There's so many fun expressions and memes I'd be losing out otherwise! Hearing a character call a short person "pintor de rodapé" ("baseboard painter") hits way differently than "shrimp"; hearing a character with a specific regional accent with their specific slangs by itself gives a lot of hidden meaning, like the character being more laid-back. I'm sure each country has their counterpart, but I'd be losing out unless I did my research on each accent. But I digress. I honestly think you'll eventually learn to love your language if you just give it a chance outside of a school environment. To answer your post, I started learning Italian because I have family there and it should be easier since I already speak a latin language!
Yeah I agree with this. Especially in surroundings where English is considered "cool" I see this sentiment quite a bit in younger people. People who like that they study and/or work in an international environment because then they don't have to speak our native language. Which they dislike and think is ugly, nonsensical, useless, irrelevant, difficult, etc. And I'll sometimes see the same "the language sucks and is super hard why would you ever want to learn it" sentiment on the learning sub. I also had an "English is much cooler" phase when I was younger. I don't quite remember when it switched for me but it's been a while now. I've quietly started an anti movement against unnecessary English use lol, which especially in corporate speech is rife. In personal communication I try to avoid anglicisms. I'll translate the names of TV shows (which are always subbed here not dubbed unless it's for little kids) and sometimes even the names of the characters, which does sometimes lead to confusion among anyone watching with me lol but at this point I can't stop myself.
lmao I do the same thing! John Snow is João das Neves! Even when singing a song I sometimes try a real-time translation. Word-by-word earns laughs from friends, lyrical adaptation gets groans once they notice lol. But yeah, now that you mentioned it, I probably had the "English is much cooler" phase as well. I also can't pinpoint exactly when it went away, but becoming proficient enough in it certainly had a hand in it. All the novelty went away and stuff. What's funny is that people around here tend to borrow English words and "portuguesify" them, especially verbs related to coding and gaming. To grind becomes "grindar", to run becomes "runar", and so on. Those I don't mind and I myself use them a lot, but the ones in corporate setting are aggravating lol. Why use "meeting" when we have a perfectly fine word like "reunião"? Sheesh.
Hahaha I'm so glad I'm not the only person who does this. And yeah it probably did have to do with becoming very proficient. We do also nativise English verbs like that, and same as Portuguese mostly computer related. Downloaden, uploaden, spammen, gamen, etc are all part of regular language now. But yeah corporate English is ridiculous lol. We'll hold a *meeting* where we'll have a *brainstorming* session with the *finance* and *demand planning* teams about *sustainability* in the *supply chain*. Ugh. Not to mention all the marketing (there's another one) in badly written English when we don't have a single English client.
Senza parlare dei metodi di insegnamento, alle elemantari per imparare a fare l’analisi grammaticale la maestra ci dava dei video su youtube da guardare (prima del covid)
If it makes sense, I'm native Italian and I feel the exact same about English. 20+ years in (several of which in school, admittedly) and though I've had to learn it for quite a while, it never felt forced since I've always found it fascinating. Aside from the idea that people could understand each other fully while speaking what to me at first sounded like gibberish (which is in and of itself amazing), I find that English is way more melodic than Italian, easier to listen to for longer periods of time, and although the syntax can be confusing, it has the added perk of a truckload more sources of information and translations available on any random topic compared to Italian.
It's interesting to me that you feel English is more melodic than Italian, while I (a native English speaker) find Italian more beautiful and melodic. English just sounds flat to me. I do love learning languages and finding out about other cultures. I favor East Asia, but Italia is right up there with it.
I agree with this. I love the way Italian sounds. Maybe it reminds me of my grandparents, I don't know. Either way, I started learning it a few years ago, then I switched over to Korean for a couple of years and came back to Italian. I was doing both languages for awhile, but I have been immersing myself in Italian (movies, music, following Italian speakers and teachers on social media) in anticipation for my trip to Italy, which is finally here. Leaving tomorrow morning.
I wish you a pleasant stay and many nice experiences!
Grazie mille!
Non ho scelto italiano. L'italiano ha ~~scelta~~ scelto me. I miei nonni e parenti sono italiani. Tecnicamente «sono» italiano anch'io nel senso puro di avere la cittadinanza. Sebbene non ~~ho~~ sia mai vissuto lì, secondo me dovrei ~~ancora~~ comunque parlare la lingua.
Sebbene non *sia* mai vissuto lì, secondo me dovrei *comunque* parlare la lingua. :) as a native i never tought how hard some forms can be to learn..
🙏 I had never heard of a concessive clause before an hour ago, haha. I'll have to study it later tonight. We'll see if the information sticks.
The clause form was correct, good work! :) the error was on the transitivity of the verb, in this sentence you're not living 'something' but 'somewhere', so you need to use the auxiliary verb 'essere', for example: Io *sono vissuto* a milano - i lived in milan vs Mio nonno *ha vissuto* una vita intensa - my grandfather lived an intense life Don't worry though, native speakers often get these wrong in everyday speaking :P For the second part, you wrote 'ancora', which is for something that is still happening or happening again, the correct word for 'anyway' is 'comunque' Keep up the good work! :D
Ah, I see. I've never heard it explained that way, as something vs somewhere. That's so helpful, thank you.
Ha scelto* :)
also sebbene non abbia, i think
TIL that "concessive clause" is a thing. 🙏
they're perhaps the funniest type of clauses to me bc they literally express an anti-condition.. like yeah there this thing that SHOULD or could at least stop me from reaching the goa in the main clause, but nope, it wont! even if it rains, im stil going for a walk in the park!
🙏
Only italians don't like italy
My girlfriend is Italian, but she's New York Italian, and so I started learning so I could speak it better than her.
This is my favorite comment
NY italian: worse italian.
I'm not sure why you'd consider it torture? It's easier than English because it's got consistent spelling, it's easier than French because it actually pronounces almost all the letters you write and it's easier than German because there's way less exceptions to which noun gets which gender. So far I'm pleasantly surprised with the difficulty. As for why: I wanted to learn a new language. I'd already studied English, German and French to varying degrees. I have no connection to Spain or Spanish. Italian is the next major Western European language, plus it has some relevance to my work which meant I also already had a tiny head start in vocabulary. It just made sense
You haven't studied verbs yet. I still don't remember All forms
it gets easier.
I've been studying Italian off and on since 2020 and I don't find verbs that hard. My problem comes with prepositions, conjunctions and certain words (such as ancora and anche, which in turn can have multiple meanings depending on context).
I have. As far as I've heard it's really only a handful of verb forms that are commonly used in daily conversation and they all seem relatively straightforward and comparable to verb forms I'm familiar with. Yes there's a bunch more conjugations than I'm used to but it's certainly easier to remember when to use what one than it is in the German case system. You don't need to know 100% of a language's grammar to be able to speak it. Like in my language we have a difference between gendered and neutral words, and technically the majority of gendered words have an additional distinction between male or female. Do I know the difference between the male and female words? No, nor do virtually any of my countrymen. Does it have any impact on 99.9% of speech? No because it's barely ever relevant. Do I think foreigners would need to learn it in order to master the language? No, because see the previous point. And similarly you not knowing all verb forms doesn't seem to have any impact on you being able to live your life in Italian. So it doesn't appear to be really essential to learn in order to be able to express yourself in the vast majority of cases. And if you do want to learn the less commonly used ones there's time enough to do so once you obtain a higher level
Happy cake day
Thanks!
It all started back in 8th grade, when, for some reason, I reaaalllly wanted to order pasta in Italian in Italy one day, so I bought a book to learn Italian Then, in 10th grade, I discovered they teach Italian at school, and so I learnt it 10-12th grade and it was no longer about the pasta, Italian became one of my passions, it's such a beautiful language, poetic to hear, lovely to pronounce and easy to learn ma, non so niente, I forgot almost everything I learnt, but I'll get back to it, powered by passion and love 💓
Spite and stubbornness.
There are really worse languages out there. Hasn't been torture at all.
It's going to sound silly. I've always loved the language, but I recently got really invested into a fictional character who is Italian, and the idea of being able to talk to him in his native language is a huge motivator for why I actually started to study and learn it. It's not easy, but I'm determined to keep going!
Hah, me too!
No way, which character are you into? Mine's Chuck from Brawl Stars!
I have no idea who or what that is, sorry. 😅 Mine's an original character, I created him for a tabletop roleplaying game.
Opera.
For my parts, my grand parents on my dad’s parts are native from Italy (Monopoli - Puglia) but my dad never learn me Italian, I would like to speak it fluent to speak the native language of my grand parents while i still have them
Because I have Italian origins, I live in Italy now, and I think it's the most beautiful language in the world.
my paternal great grandparents were Italian and my grandparents grew up speaking it. they learned English as kids too, so when they had my dad and uncles/aunt they spoke English at home so everyone would "assimilate properly" (much different times). no one in my family speaks Italian now, although their listening comprehension isn't bad. I speak Spanish at a high level (lived abroad, wife of 13 years is Colombian) and I'm applying for Italian citizenship, so I figured learning Italian would be a rewarding and fun project. After I get citizenship I'd like to move there, or at least live there part of the year.
I am married to my husband who is a Italian. I move from Vietnam to Piemonte to live with him. Since most people primarily speak Italian and rarely English, it's practical that I need to learn a third language. Also, it's for my citizenship which I will do in the future.
Because nobody dubs Belve in English
My wife is an Italian dual citizen. I'd like citizenship by marriage so I have to learn the language. I'm just starting. It's a lot harder when you're older although not as bad as I thought it would be. If doesn't feel like "torture"
I don’t know very much Italian yet, but I learned last year that my family and I are Italian citizens by descent, so I thought it was only proper that I should at least try and learn the language of this country to which I belong
"torture"? As a Spanish speaker, I find it pretty easy. I found out many Italians consider their language as "the hardest in the world", but many Spanish, french and Portuguese speakers think the same about their languages.
When my great great grandparents came to the United States, they didn’t want to teach my great grandma and furthermore, my grandmother Italian because they wanted them to blend in better. So about 2-3 generations ago, the Italian language was cut off from us. I want to learn Italian so that I can go and see where we came from while knowing it and communicate effectively and correctly. I definitely would not consider learning Italian “torturous” as it will be my second language and I didn’t really care much for Spanish in high school. So this is also more of a second chance to communicate with another population.
1.) I know Spanish already 2.) Voted most romantic language in the world 3.) Cradle of western civilization 4.) I want to learn all romance languages. 5.) Visited the country and I like it enough to live there for a few years, so that's what I am going to do.
i just really like spaghetti alle vongole
REDDIT MODS CAN GO AND FUCK OFF
Beautiful language
Talking to my parents friends and they don't know English
I like the language, but the main reason I'm learning it's because my surname is literally an Italian word so I wanted to learn more
Minchia manco a fa così però, mica è una tortura… ci sono lingue molto più difficili
Cuz I’m marrying and Italian and becoming and Italian citizen…tbh otherwise I wouldn’t lol.
Perché mia compagna è italiana. I sui non parlano né inglese né - ovviamente - svedese. E presto avremo un bambino insieme. Però... devo dire, non è così male. Imparare una nuova lingua è molto difficile ma anche divertente 😄
Perché è una tortura? Penso che la lingua sia splendida. Già parlo due lingue, e l'italiano è un bellissimo aggiunta!
The culture really interests me so I wanted to learn the language as well and if I ever move abroad that’s where I’d pick
While my language learning skills are poor to say the least, Italian is far from torturous. English is probably worse considering our lack of phonetics alone To answer the question, my friend is italian and while she is fluent in English I'd love to meet her and her family one day - all of whom speak very little to no English .... they're also Sicilian but yknow nothing is perfect xD
family members
Because I lived in Italy and didn’t understand what people were saying to me.
We visited family in Italy last May and I felt badly that all the work in communication fell on them. I would like to visit Italy every couple of years and would like to ease the burden on our family and be able to be more independent. If I was smart I would be studying Spanish since I live very close to the Mexican border but Italian is so beautiful and inspires me in a way that Spanish doesn’t.
I would like to expand my horizons for a start. Being fluent in many languages is incredible, and I'm not sure how learning a new language can be seen as torture, really🤔🫣... but to each his own!
In France at high school, we should to choose a language to learn. I could choose between Spanish and Italian. I have chosen Italian and when my professor, an Italian women ask me why, I reply "Because I prefer pasta and pizza than paella".
It was the third language I had to pick up in highschool, because based on some wizard magic, I got selected to learn italian instead of german, latin, spanish, french or russian (ofc after english, the mandatory second language) so I was like, if domeone else can do it I ALSO can and yes can do, thank you. I was practically a brat and being stubborn, so yeah.
Because it’s easier than many other languages and because I’d like to visit Italy someday.
I’m going to Italy in less than a year to study for a semester. The classes are in English but I really want to be able to navigate and talk to people.
I'm a quarter Italian with my maternal grandmother being 100%, but my family was "New York Italian" for several generations before that. It's the only cohesive part of my ethnic identity, since my other 3 grandparents were generic working class mixed white (bit of Irish, German, English, Dutch, etc). I crave a bit of connection to my family's history and just latched onto the Italian quarter. Also and as such, I wanted to learn Italian as a kid, but my mom was *not* supportive. She kept pushing me towards Spanish as being more practical to learn. As an adult, I'm being a bit vindictive and vain by learning Italian now. I've always wanted to. Finally, I've been planning a trip to Italy since I was 15. I really want to see Rome and Tuscany. There's always something though. The current hold-up is the whole fascism thing, but as soon as y'all oust Meloni and her ilk I'm looking forward to enjoying that long overdue vacation. While there, I expect whatever Italian I have learned to come in handy.
because i was bad at latin and really liked the renaissance 🤷🏼♂️
If italian is torture i dont know what arabic and chinese are
I love languages. Am I good at learning them? I don't think particularly excel at it but that's hard to say because my fixation on things tends to be very fluid. I was learning German and Polish before starting Italian (I put those two on hold). I find it pretty enjoyable. And why Italian? Non io so. Lol. I'd love to stick to it because I want to go to Italy (was there as a little kid and don't remember much) and explore the italian cuisine by Italian people (and not local "Italian" restaurants). Also, I've heard that Italians are super friendly when a foreigner tries to speak their language and not just all English. Don't know if that's true so I'll have to find out for myself.
I started learning it because it was one of the only two languages offered for year 11 at my school. It was between Italian and Greek, and... I figured my Greek stepmother could help me if I ever wanted to learn Greek. So I did Italian. I really enjoyed it, and that was the first class I ever consistently got >90% or even 100% on exams. In year 12 I was the top of my class. That had NEVER happened before. Figuring things out made me feel smart. I enjoyed the language, and trying to speak it too. I graduated high school in 2016, but I've still kept up trying to learn.
Just around the sound part, it's one of the most beautiful languages I've ever heard. It sounds so much nicer than any other one. Also, it's not that difficult, depending on your language background. I'm a native and B1 Spanish speaker, so everything I learn is very simple and it clicks really quickly. idk where torture comes from lol, it's actually not that bad.
I am going to study in Sicily soon! But its just a beautiful language overall and I am excited to read dante's works in italian.
In New Jersey it’s mandatory to take at least two years of a language in high school and my options were Spanish, Italian, or Latin. My family has Italian ancestry so it was a simply choice. I stuck with it through the end of college mostly as a way to fill extra credit requirements & because I planned on studying in Rome. When I studied abroad it was incredibly helpful - I was able to actually talk with people when their English wasn’t great, and I played translator for friends that didn’t know the language.
All'inizio della pandemia, ho deciso di studiare una nuova lingua e ho scelto l'italiano perché suona bello, mi piace la cultura, e siccome parlo il portoghese fluentemente (i miei sono brasiliani ma sono nato e cresciuto negli Stati Uniti), la grammatica non è così dificile per me. Capisco bene ad esempio l'uso del congiuntivo perché esiste anche nel portoghese.
Because I said I'd go to Italy and try my luck at dating. Men in our country doesn't seem interested in me. At 30, I can't quit now, been saying this to everyone for years. If I do manage to finally go on my trip to Italy and it doesn't pan out, at least I'd be eating delicious food as I walk the street, probably looking like an idiot because I also happening to be crying. At least I'd have pastries to keep me company as I wallow in self pity and despair 😂😂 But you know, gotta keep the faith 😂😂
also italian, also agree. ONLY italians speak italian, 85M speakers who almost exclusively live in italy, while spanish has 600M speakers worldwide. Even french has more second-language speakers than italian, by nearly 4x as much.
Please be fair to yourselves! Spain, France, Portugal, England, all of them colonized countries at one point. This certainly had a hand in the number of Spanish-speaking people and I'd bet it's the same for others as well. As far as I know, Italy never colonized other places. And when Italians sought refuge in other countries, fleeing from war, they were forced to not teach the language to their children in fear of persecution. The total number of speakers is more complex than simply whether a language is popular or not.
1) most of my ancestors come from Italy (64% Italian per 23andme) 2) I love the country’s history, culture, and beauty, and would like to not embarrass myself if I need to speak it when I eventually visit 3) I took Latin for 6 years in middle/high school, so I have some sort of foundation in Romance languages. Plus, I just want to know another language. Languages are fun, I think it’s good for one’s brain, but, America being so large and spread out, we don’t have a need to know another one other than English.
because my father's italian, I have citizenship, and even if I dislike the culture, I love the things this second nation has granted me. It's the bare minimum of respect to learn it.