Learn to Speak Italian

Although Italian is spoken by about 63 million people worldwide, unlike many of its Western European neighbors, Italy itself is the only country where Italian is the main language. This means that unlike Spanish or French, you will find Italian useful pretty much only in Italy. That being said, Italian is a wonderfully romantic and poetic language and whether you want to visit Italy, read original Dante or just love to eat Italian food, Italian can be useful (and totally impressive) language to learn.

Grouped as a Romance language along with Spanish, French and Portuguese, Italian is actually the most closely related to Latin in terms of vocabulary out of the four languages. Unlike the other Romance languages, Italian has also retained the contrast between short and long consonants which existed in Latin. Vowels in Italian are clipped while consonants are given more weight and double consonants even more so. While there is no tonality to the language, Italian is very musical in nature. Because of its strong ties to Latin, Italian is a language most quickly learned by those who have either studied Latin in school or already know another Romance language.

Of course the best way to learn Italian is to go to Italy. But if you cannot make it there, or want to learn some basics before a trip, taking some sort of introductory Italian course at a local community college or getting conversational Italian lessons through a program like Berlitz can be a good way to start. You can also hire a private tutor or instructor and/or join a local Italian conversation group. From there, the best way to quickly pick up on Italian (or any language for that matter) is to totally immerse yourself in it. Travel to Italy and try to use your Italian (however limited) as much as possible. Eat, sleep and dream in Italian. A few weeks speaking Italian on a daily basis with native speakers is worth a year or more in the classroom. Of course, if you don't have the opportunity to travel and immerse yourself in order to learn Italian, programs like Rosetta Stone can help you work on your pronunciation and accent while learning vocabulary and basic grammar.