What's the simplest way I can teach myself, bearing in mind I live very close to a town with a massive older Italian population. -- Lozzo Suzuki SV650S K5 Honda CBR600 FW trackbike Yamaha SR250 Spazz-Trakka Suzuki GSXR750 L Suzuki TS50X Suzuki TS50X
Make friends with the Italian OAPs and talk to them - ask them to tell you how to say stuff in Italian.
I did an Italian night school class for a while prior to doing a couple of trips. Came in useful when discussing SO Gilera parts with dealers in the Milan area. The teacher was a very attractive Sicilian woman. She made just words like two thousand eight hundred and sixty three sound sexy. Packed it in when it got serious, with grammar, tests and the like. One of those teach yourself tapes (yes it was that long ago) played in the car was fairly useful for learning basic stuff. -- +----------------------------------------------------------------+ | Pete Fisher at Home: | | Voxan Roadster Gilera Nordwest * 2 Yamaha WR250Z | | Gilera GFR * 2 Moto Morini 2C/375 Morini 350 "Forgotten Error" | +----------------------------------------------------------------+
Start from the most important things: http://www.alternative-dictionaries.net/dictionary/Italian/ (it's just a small extract and it does not include regional variations). SD
Take some kind of class: a teacher can correct things early on rather than let things get ingrained; watch movies with subtitles and try to make out the connection between the writing and the words, they also help you get the feel of the language; if you can get hold of them, try flicking through Italian papers and magazines (sport and bikes?). And remember: Italians speak English like that, because they speak Italian like that.
Grazzi[1] [1] Same in Maltese -- Lozzo Suzuki SV650S K5 Honda CBR600 FW trackbike Yamaha SR250 Spazz-Trakka Suzuki GSXR750 L Suzuki TS50X Suzuki TS50X
There's actually very little Italian in Maltese, it's mostly Arabic I'll tell my sisters and cousins you approve. -- Lozzo Suzuki SV650S K5 Honda CBR600 FW trackbike Yamaha SR250 Spazz-Trakka Suzuki GSXR750 L Suzuki TS50X Suzuki TS50X
He lied, it's a semetic language based mainly on Arabic with Italian, French, Greek and Turkish influences, amongst others. -- Lozzo Suzuki SV650S K5 Honda CBR600 FW trackbike Yamaha SR250 Spazz-Trakka Suzuki GSXR750 L Suzuki TS50X Suzuki TS50X
Fucker! -- Lozzo Suzuki SV650S K5 Honda CBR600 FW trackbike Yamaha SR250 Spazz-Trakka Suzuki GSXR750 L Suzuki TS50X Suzuki TS50X
Yea, agreed. The classes usually come in 12 week blocks so they're not too much of an imposition if you don't like it after a term. I took some after I came back from Italy. Very useful. I used them to improve my written Italian. P.
I did an evening class for a year but I probably remember more from the first half of the first (of six) CDs of a Michelle Thomas audio course[1]. The reason I never progressed was laziness, but be warned, Italian has about 5 different ways to say 'the', which is just mental. Still, it's a pretty logically constructed language. [1]Available from Amazon or by emailing me.
Michel Thomas. I used to have the French one, but I've lent it to somebody. I used to have a quite good book about Italians, but I lent that to someone as well.
Thta's fucking class, never seen that before -- Lozzo Suzuki SV650S K5 Honda CBR600 FW trackbike Yamaha SR250 Spazz-Trakka Suzuki GSXR750 L Suzuki TS50X Suzuki TS50X
