8959 Helping newcomers to italy.

Well I for one could do with all the help I can get, but how would this work?

[quote=giovanni;84375]I do like the new look,so was thinking,how about some of our more fluent Italian speakers/writer helping out newcomers with basic Italian reading or writing or both ?

Maybe giving up an hour or so every week so people can practice and have their grammar corrected?. Now i would offer myself, but as you can see i have a battle just making my English readable,although i could teach you how to speak napolitan dialect.. that goes down well up north....:smile:[/quote]
lol I could do with some help with Italian. For Christmas got a CD called Italian for Dummies :wideeyed: and even thats not helping me :laughs:

Well the grammar side of it wouldn't be so bad,It would take someone with a good understanding of Italian to write a paragraph or sentence, in English on this board and then those that wanted to attempt a translattion could do so.

The idea is a day or two later that person would then show what the translation really is, and those that had attempted it could see how it was done or where they had gone wrong.Something along those lines.

I mean it could even be a paragraph out of an Italian paper[in Italian] Which could be studied,then a translation could be added a day or so later.

The good thing is you do your work on your own computer, really no need to post here unless you want to,and then you ask questions as to how and why if you know what to.

Not too sure how one goes about the pronuncation bit, but its possible.

The idea is to offer help,everyone learns at different paces and it can be daunting for some to work face to face,also using tapes or cd's doesn't alway offer you the back up to ask questions why, or how.

Its just a thought, but we do need volunteers to help.

As a former teacher of Modern Languages (not Italian) I agree with the idea that the more you practice them, the better it is. The problem would be to try to successfully implement the idea and getting enough volunteers with the right kind of knowledge to monitor the section.
If you want to improve your skills, have a look at the excellent LANGUAGE section in the Italy Magazine. Plenty to work with there and all very well explained.
Another idea would be to buy some easy Italian readers, specially prepared to help people with comprehension. During a recent trip to London, I bought for my husband "EASY ITALIAN READER" by Riccarda Saggese, a three-part text for beginning students from the Easy Reader Series published by McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0-07-143957-9 and he is delighted with it. There are excellent comprehension exercises and glossaries and the readings use contemporary language. I strongly recommend it and it is not expensive, in pounds 7.99, USD 11.95 and CAD 15.95. Money well spent.:yes:

One of the biggest problems I have is the structuring of sentences, I will certainly follow Gala Placida's suggestions, but if there are volunteers to help with what Giovanni has suggested that would be brilliant

Regarding Italian pronunciation for native speakers of English, this link may be of help:

[url=http://www.phrasebase.com/forum/read.php?TID=9993&page=1]ITALIAN PRONUNCIATION - *** With audio files in streaming[/url]

[quote=Gala Placidia;84542]As a former teacher of Modern Languages (not Italian) I agree with the idea that the more you practice them, the better it is. The problem would be to try to successfully implement the idea and getting enough volunteers with the right kind of knowledge to monitor the section.
If you want to improve your skills, have a look at the excellent LANGUAGE section in the Italy Magazine. Plenty to work with there and all very well explained.
Another idea would be to buy some easy Italian readers, specially prepared to help people with comprehension. During a recent trip to London, I bought for my husband "EASY ITALIAN READER" by Riccarda Saggese, a three-part text for beginning students from the Easy Reader Series published by McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0-07-143957-9 and he is delighted with it. There are excellent comprehension exercises and glossaries and the readings use contemporary language. I strongly recommend it and it is not expensive, in pounds 7.99, USD 11.95 and CAD 15.95. Money well spent.:yes:[/quote]
I find it easier to understand when speaking directly to people, possibly because of gestures and facial expressions. will check out the language section here. thanks
Joan

[quote=Joan;84580]I find it easier to understand when speaking directly to people, possibly because of gestures and facial expressions. will check out the language section here. thanks
Joan[/quote]

You are right, the best practice is communicating with other people, because that is the essence of language: communication. All the rest are just aids to improve your skills.
There are other problems, though. Few people tend to correct you if you are saying things the wrong way, unless you are in a classroom situation. And you will never know whether you expressed yourself correctly.
For this reason, a combination of different types of practice may yield better results than direct practice.

Another useful link:

[url=http://www.gwc.org.uk/ModernLang/hotpot/Italian2/GrammarIndex.html]Italian Grammar Home Page[/url]

OK, what a fool i am! looking for the news links at the top of this site,and there in big letters.."langauge" Looks ok for starters, too advance for me....

A few years ago we were going to reims,now the wife can get by on here french,but me not a word.Our computer had a french programme on it, so thought it might be usefull to pick up a few words.
One of the lesson involved ordering food and drink, there in black and white it said to order a coffee with cream[meaning a milky coffee]all one had to say was "un creme" or in our case "du creme".Which is exactly what i did in the first cafe we came to, They were the only two words i used on that trip as clearly the french don't understand there own language!:reallyembarrassed:

"moved to italiauncovered.co.uk"

Jim has had some success sleeping with his iPod (no laughing now) set to play his basic vocabulary/grammar lessons, that I downloaded from various websites -- take a look at [url=http://www.about.com]Welcome to About.com[/url] and search Italian language, there are literally dozens of free downloads in mp3 format. As Jim is dyslexic, reading & writing in any classroom format is a true waste of time -- he learns best by listening/repeating -- when he uses the iPod on the bus, he always gets a seat, probably because he seems insane, muttering to himself "buon giorno", "caffe lungo", "vorrei un cornetto", etc., etc. While his grammar is basic, his accent and pronunciation are coming right along!

Just as an aside, we took our builders and geometra out for lunch, some cockle type shell fish came up and we asked the table ( 15 bods) what they were called , after 20 minutes it was decided that they did not know the [B]Italian [/B]name for them,,,,,as they only spoke dialect .....:laughs:

Probably Vongola, like small clams and very nice.

A good book to get to help with some of the dialect problems in Macerata and Fermo areas is
Il Dialetto Fermano Maceratese. It does help with some of the dialect differences. ISBN 88-7969-225-9. It is written by Dr Siliquini in Amandola, cost 12 Euros.

I've found it helps to watch a favourite film with the Italian soundtrack rather than English. Often, the film is one I've watched several times with the English soundrack so I know the script/story very well. Of course, if your DVD doesn't have an Italian soundtrack, this won't help! I sometimes put one of these (or an Italian language film) on before I go to sleep and set the TV to switch off at the end of the film but I frequently fall asleep before the film finishes so it doesn't do much for following the story!

Going back to Giovanni's original post, I think it is a good idea. I am OK with listening and reading Italian. Speaking I can get by with, but writing is where I struggle so something like this would help.

[quote=Geotherm;84656]Probably Vongola, like small clams and very nice.[/quote]

Nope , they were like little snails, with a tomato sauce, you had to use a tooth pick to get the little ******s

"moved to italiauncovered.co.uk"

Lumache (not got an 'n' in the middle). But probably the ones deborahandricky ate were from the sea, and I am not sure whether lumache would work for them. I've eaten them, but it always seems impolite to ask something which you are about to consume what it is called...

[quote=Charles Phillips;84705]Lumache (not got an 'n' in the middle). But probably the ones deborahandricky ate were from the sea, and I am not sure whether lumache would work for them. I've eaten them, but it always seems impolite to ask something which you are about to consume what it is called...[/quote]

They were from the sea..........and I always ask a lobster its name before I eat it..........strange they always have the same name .......[B]YOURS [/B]:laughs:

did you mean to say something lol
didnt understand a word of it
:no:

be sensible or leave ah

[quote=Technically Blonde;84413]Well I for one could do with all the help I can get, but how would this work?[/quote]
Hi Tech, I thought living in Puglia would have made it easier to learn or does the dialect make it impossible?
Anastaisia used to do quite a few things on here to help members to learn Italian. You could always pop over the road and ask if she would again, even I might try a little harder if she did but she's a cantankerous old bat and will probably say no! :nah::laughs::laughs::laughs:

[quote=Joan;84734]did you mean to say something lol
didnt understand a word of it
:no:[/quote]

What was hard to understand :eeeek:

I have come to the conclusion that there is no easy way! Some people are good at languages and some aint - me included. I think the small group weekly lesson is good (with a good tutor), particularly if you do the homework and sadly there are just some things you've got to learn like a parrot, the dividends will be reaped later in the learning process! Of course living as much as possible in Italy and speaking what you can at every opportunity helps no end. The Italians, God bless 'em are delighted when you try and are very patient. I've been subjected to a number of text books and the best in my opinion is the latest edition of Living Italian by Maria Valgimigli. Hope this helps.

A little trick I used to teach my language students. Try to build the language you are learning into your daily life. For instance, when you look at your watch, try to say the time also in the language you are learning. If you are buying something, ask yourself how would you express yourself if trying to do it in Italian, in this case. Don't rely on the exercises you are given in the classroom, try to start "thinking" in the other language. And you will certainly see results. Elliven, it is true that some people are more gifted than others when it comes to learning a foreign language, but, with lots of patience everybody can do it. My oldest student was in his mid seventies and he went on to university to continue his studies. He used to say that his memory was not very good, but he persevered and succeeded.

Having lived here for 18 months now trying to learn Italian this would be my advise :

I hate to say it but watch Italian TV and find the progs with Italian subtitles , at first will be very hard work but slowly both your pronunciation and vocab will improve.
Ask italian friends to correct you [U]sometimes[/U], otherwise they are probably too polite to correct you and you will think all is OK.

If you have Italian partner only set aside 5 minute Italian sessions as much longer starts a fight.
I think you really must have a good grammer book to understand all the pronouns and correct order of things.

Once you have learnt Italian then move to a small hilltop village and start all over again.
Steve