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.

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.

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.

For English speakers, Italian is often remarked to have a “pleasing” sound to it, most likely due to its great use of vowels and especially its use of vowels at the end of words. Unfortunately, this stress of vowels also means that listening to Italian seems like an incomprehensible stream to most English-speaking Italian language learners just beginning their studies.

Italian differs from English in that nouns are split into two genders, masculine and feminine. Also, English speakers will find that Italian has verb conjugations that are quite different depending on the subject of the sentence.

However, comforting points include the fact that Italian word order is very similar to word order in English. Italian is also a subject-verb-object language like English so English speakers will find it very easy to begin creating new sentences in Italian.

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.

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

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