Hello all,
I am struggling mightily to learn Italian. I"m sure its me and not the language, well pretty sure. I have studied Fluenz, taken small group classes at the Italian Cultural Center in our city, traveled to Genoa and attended "A Door to Italy" subscribed to Italy Made Easy and taken on line private lessons. Its been a struggle, off and on since 2015. My wife started when I did and promptly left me in the dust. My brain cells must be dead. Need to vent.
Things that I have found to be deadly to learning:
1. Gaps in studying. We had a health scare that became front and center for a while.
2. English is supposed to be a very difficult language to learn and I'm sure it is but when you have English as your native language, it is much harder to, I think, to learn other languages too. For example, if I spoke Spanish as my native tongue, I think Italian would be much easier to learn.
3. All rules have exceptions, and all exceptions have rules.
4. Pronunciation, pronunciation, pronunciation. I's are E's?
5. Learning by using grammar. I have to admit English in high school was a fun subject because of the novels we read but labeling different parts of sentence structure, ouch. who came up with this stuff?
My grandfather emigrated from Holland. He did not speak English like so many people who came through Ellis Island. Somehow he learned the language without knowing what an indirect object pronoun was, so maybe there is hope?? Thanks for reading.
I am struggling mightily to learn Italian. I"m sure its me and not the language, well pretty sure. I have studied Fluenz, taken small group classes at the Italian Cultural Center in our city, traveled to Genoa and attended "A Door to Italy" subscribed to Italy Made Easy and taken on line private lessons. Its been a struggle, off and on since 2015. My wife started when I did and promptly left me in the dust. My brain cells must be dead. Need to vent.
Things that I have found to be deadly to learning:
1. Gaps in studying. We had a health scare that became front and center for a while.
2. English is supposed to be a very difficult language to learn and I'm sure it is but when you have English as your native language, it is much harder to, I think, to learn other languages too. For example, if I spoke Spanish as my native tongue, I think Italian would be much easier to learn.
3. All rules have exceptions, and all exceptions have rules.
4. Pronunciation, pronunciation, pronunciation. I's are E's?
5. Learning by using grammar. I have to admit English in high school was a fun subject because of the novels we read but labeling different parts of sentence structure, ouch. who came up with this stuff?
My grandfather emigrated from Holland. He did not speak English like so many people who came through Ellis Island. Somehow he learned the language without knowing what an indirect object pronoun was, so maybe there is hope?? Thanks for reading.
