Is it possible to learn conversational italian in a little less than a year??

Question

im argentinian and i speak spanish but i live in the united states so i also speak fluent english. ive also studied french so i know the basics of that. i study art history and i want to do an internship at the peggy guggenheim in venice next summer but i need to know italian.

can i learn italian in less than a year without a teacher or classes???

Answer 1

I learned Italian fluently both written and spoken in 9 months, but that was living with an Italian family, in Italy, and attending language lessons there, as well as high school.  You must got to the place to learn the language- it might take you 5 or 6 months to get the language down well-by yourself, your Italian will never be as good as it could be.

Answer 2

Hi,,,, you are going to be Fine !!!!

I went the first time,, had had spanish in high school,, like a gazillion years before,,,and picked Italian up ,,no sweat......its easier to pronounce also.. you dont trill your R's.....

Go and have a great time...... I have been back and love it each and every time i do.........

Answer 3

Honestly I would recommend taking a course, alot of Spanish words are similar to Italian but to have to study in Italian take a course!!

Answer 4

Yes, you can learn conversational Italian in under a year, especially with your background in related languages.  It is definitely beneficial to take a few classes before you go to learn the basics, I'd bet you'll be surprised at how fast you pick it up.  When you get to Italy you'll learn more in a week than the previous year in the classroom.  there is no substitute for speaking and listening to the language all day every day.

Answer 5

Hi Lola P,

My native language is Italian. Like you, I live in the USA and speak fluent English. I'm also fluent in Spanish (virtually bilingual) but to tell you the truth, it took me a few classes and lots of practice with native speakers to achieve that. Italian and Spanish are quite similar as far as vocabulary, grammar and syntaxis rules are concerned. But I highly doubt you can learn Italian in less than a year without a teacher or classes. Yes, you can learn some basic Italian, but if you don't have a teacher who corrects your mistakes, you may learn it the wrong way and you will get so used to it that it will be harder for you to relearn it correctly.

I'm an art student as well. If you want, I can help you, but I'm afraid I can't do much on the internet.

Why don't you take an Italian class at your college/university? It will at least give you the basics. Then, when you are in Italy, listening to Italian 24/7 and speaking it, you'll pick it up almost without realizing it.

Good luck!!!

Answer 6

holy c**p...

I think we might be sisters separated at birth... I'm also from Argentina, I live in the US (I moved here 6 years ago), I'm starting my art history class in a little less than a month, I studied French (so I also know the basics.. haha, like "je ne se pas!" I'm just kidding..), and I'm trying to learn Italian (as of right now..) so I can move to Italy (but would like to go there for an art summer program next year.. except that the place where I wanted to go is in Milan)..

I'm completely serious, this is crazy.

Anyways, back to your question, what I'm doing is checking out Italian courses and books from the public library, and also watching Italian TV (you can watch some shows on youtube.com like le iene, which is the Italian version of CQC) so it helps you get used to the way people speak, and gives you a rythm as to understanding what people are saying..

Here is a video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=rDlkH9Oov0M It's really easy to follow, and I like to watch random shows because they don't dumb it down like they do in videos made to learn Italian... plus, you also learn some slang. :D

Answer 7

if you go to italy, you can.

Answer 8

italian is a very difficult language....hard to tell if you will.......maybe living in here? anyhow, as usual will be difficult to speak, to understand instead, it will be easy for you. i suggest you to start reading the news every day at www.tgcom.it