Marine Electronics

Spoken by over 60 million people, Italian is a romance language that hosts a large number of cultural works known worldwide. Considered to be the closest living language to Latin, Italian's grammar is considerably simpler than its ancestor's.

Reasons for learning Italian range from preparing for a trip to Italy to retiring on the Italian coast. Many others learn Italian because their ancestors came from Italy or because they want an advantage in applying for jobs. No matter what your reason may be for learning Italian, learning a new language is a very rewarding process.

Knowing another Romance language already can greatly speed up your Italian studies. The grammar between Italian and other romance languages like Spanish and French is very similar and almost exactly the same in many cases. If you studied a romance language even in high school, you will find many similarities to help you.

English speakers worldwide think of Italian as a very beautiful language. Unlike English, Italian puts a lot of emphasis on vowel sounds and many Italian words have vowel sounds at the end.

Tricky Italian points for English speakers include determining gender for nouns since words are either of the masculine gender or of the feminine gender. Additionally, verbs are conjugated with very different forms depending on the subject of the sentence.

Similarities, however, include word order. English and Italian have very similar word orders and both are considered to be subject-verb-object languages. You will find that it is very easy to start making Italian sentences even as a beginner.

Italian is a popular language to study so there is no shortage of materials to use for learning Italian. You can choose from computer software programs to traditional style classroom classes. Depending on your ultimate goals, you will want to find the tool that makes most sense for you.

Before you begin learning Italian, you should remember to sit down and make a serious commitment to learning the language. It can be a tough process but if you stick to it, you will be greatly rewarded. On the other hand, don't just simply do grammar exercises and read textbooks, you should also enjoy yourself in Italian, too! Watch an Italian film or buy an Italian language CD. You will find that these activities can be some of the most rewarding when learning Italian.

Author Robertson Kunz has a language learning guide: learn a foreign language fast. Italian learners: learn fluent Italian in 3 months.

If you are thinking about studying Italian, you are probably wondering how long it is going to take you to achieve fluency. In this article, I will explain how you can achieve basic fluency in Italian in 3 months or less by following this plan.

Many people end up taking foreign language classes for years and still cannot hold a basic conversation in Italian. On the other hand, I know of many people who have become fluent in Italian and a variety of other foreign languages in less than 3 months.

Before I reveal this plan, I should note to you that if you already are fluent in another romance language like French or Spanish, you will find this much easier to achieve. Even if you have only studied a foreign language but not necessarily a romance language, you will still get an extra boost. On the other hand, if you have never studied a foreign language before, you may find this a bit hard at first because you are not used to learning foreign languages.

The bottom line is that it is possible to learn fluent Italian in 3 months but it will require a commitment to studying each day.

Let's go over some basic numbers so that you can see for yourself what is required to get to the basic fluency level in Italian.

Many language experts say that in most European languages including Italian, the 1000 most commonly used words make up 85% of common speech while the 3000 most commonly used words make up 95% of common speech. For our basic fluency goals in Italian, we will want to hit the 3000 word mark.

Also, many language experts tell us that in order for an English speaker to learn a European language like Italian, Spanish or French, it requires about 200 hours of active study time.

If you study Italian for 3 months, that means you get 90 study days. Since our goal is to learn 3000 Italian words, that means 33 new Italian words per day. If you study Italian every day for 2 hours, you will get 180 hours of Italian study by the end of 3 months which basically meets the 200 hour mark.

You may believe that learning 33 new Italian words per day is too difficult. However, remember that you have 2 hours of active study each day which means you only have to learn 16 new words per hour. This translates to 1 word every 4 minutes.

Take into consideration the fact that many cognates exist between Italian and English like the English word "international" being "internazionale" in Italian and you will see that you will be able to pick up many Italian words in less than 5 seconds.

Of course, you'll probably have a little less time to study vocabulary since you will want to devote time to reviewing words that you learned on previous days and also look into practicing forming sentences and making sure your grammar is correct. All in all, you should have enough time to reach your basic fluency goal in Italian.

Basically, if you can study Italian for 2 hours every day for a 3 month period and learn 3000 Italian words during that time, you will achieve your goal of basic Italian fluency! Remember that in order to achieve this goal, you will need to stay committed and keep making progress day after day. If you can stick with your plan, then you will be insured Italian fluency success.

There are many foreign languages to learn but if you are considering Italian, great! Italian is the descendent of Latin but is considered to have much simpler grammar than its ancestor. Additionally, Italian is used by over 60 million people so you will have plenty of people to practice with.

Many people learn Italian today for many different reasons. Getting an edge in the job market by learning Italian or learning simply because one has Italian ancestry are two of many reasons. Many people learn Italian for an upcoming vacation or intend to retire to Italy. In any of these cases, learning the Italian language can be a great experience.

If you already speak another romance language like Spanish or French, you will find that Italian is very similar. Many linguists estimate that the lexical similarity between Italian and French is 89% while the lexical similarity between Italian and Spanish is 82%. Even if you have only studied Spanish or French in high school, you will find that the grammar is quite similar and easy to pick up.

Italian is considered to be a very beautiful language. English speakers know that Italian has much emphasis on vowels including the fact that many, many Italian words end in vowels.

Some differences in Italian from English include the fact that there are two genders for nouns: masculine and feminine. It will be necessary to learn which gender a noun is everytime you learn a new noun. You will also find that Italian verbs conjugate quite differently based on the subject.

Word order, however, is quite similar between Italian and English. Both languages are subject-verb-object languages and because the syntax is similar, it will be very easy for you to start putting together your own sentences in Italian even as a learner.

Because so many people are interested in learning Italian, there is a great variety of Italian language learning programs for you to choose from. From audio programs to traditional textbooks, you will never be at a loss for materials to learn from.

Whatever your Italian language goals may be, remember that to succeed in learning any foreign language, you should make a commitment to learning the language everyday and continue to apply effort to your studies for as long as it may take to reach your goals, even years if you are aiming for fluency. But don't forget to have fun at the same time! Make sure to enjoy Italian by listening to Italian music and watching Italian films. These cultural elements can be the most fun and most rewarding parts of learning Italian.