LEARN ITALIAN
BY
BIANCA VANNUCCI
MAY, 2007
It is important to learn Italian for many reasons:
- If you ever want to visit Italy, it definetly comes useful since most Italians know some, but not a lot of English.
- It is a very old, complicated language, that comes from Latin and Greek, and it could help you understand other languages better, or even enrich your English vocabulary.
- Many great work of arts were made in Italy, and many very important books were written in Italian, and never translated.
- Italy is a very artistic country, and knowing the language might help you to understand some of the art.
Is learning Italian hard?
It is a very common question, and there is no specific answer.
It might be easier for you to learn Italian if you know or studied Latin in school. It also might be easier if you know French or Spanish. Italian is much more complicated than English because of verb conjugations and such, but the pronounciation makes a lot more sense.
A is pronounced AH, E is pronounced EH, I is pronounced E, O is pronounced OH, and U is pronounced is UH.
The vowels are ALWAYS pronounced this way, and there is no exceptions. All the consonants are always pronounced the same too, excpet for G, and C which are hard Cs and Gs next to A, O and U but soft Cs and Gs next to E and I, unless there is an H in the middle of them, which would make it hard Cs and Gs even next to E and I.
Some great ways to learn Italian, are the following:
Learn Italian thanks to this BBC website
Learn Italian online with elanguage
Learn Italian sea-side in Italy
