Hand gestures - the silent majority of the Italian language!

As if you didn't already know it, Italians say as much with their hands as they do with their mouths, and any time spent learning Italian would be incomplete if some time wasn't also dedicated to learn the secret code of Italian hand gestures.

I've gathered up a few videos from YouTube to help cover the basics of the gestures commonly used by Italians, so you'll know what to do (or not to do) when you're ready to start talking with your hands.








... continue reading at Fluent Every Year

The 10 most important things to know, to get by in any language

With a little bit of creativity it is possible say a lot with just a little knowlegde. You just need the basics. If you have a solid understanding of these 10 concepts, you can survive on your own and figure out the rest as you go.

1. Greetings
For starters, you should know the standard hellos and goodbyes. All around the world, this is how conversations begin. And being able to greet someone in their language will at least make them more willing to put up with you're improvisational sign language... continue reading at Fluent Every Year

Language learning not a race!

I often see learning advice based on lists, flashcards, progress meters. In fact, some of the most well-known and popular study methods are based on this kind of progress-based incentive. And frankly, it drives me crazy. These methods encourage bad learning habits!

Learning a foreign language is not a race. This is very important to keep in mind, because all of these record-keeping and progress-tracking learning tools have an tendency to rush your study. And web sites like this one can project... continue reading at Fluent Every Year

My visit to Tashkent, Uzbekistan

If my posts have seemed canned for the past week, or if you've noticed a lack of follow-ups on your comments, it's because I've been away for the past week in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

Finding new Internet friends
I've just returned from a place that I didn't even know existed until just a few months ago, and I had an incredible time! Using internet chat to help learn and practice a new language is not only a great way to practice and improve your language skills — it's also a great way to... continue reading at Fluent Every Year

What English sounds like to an Italian

Just a short, fun post for today. This video made the rounds on the internet several months ago, but a friend recently brought it to back my attention, and it certainly seems appropriate now. As I spend my time this year thinking, and discussing, and writing on this blog about what Italian sounds like to me, it's nice to stop for a minute and consider what it's like when the shoe is on the other foot.

An Italian songwriter wrote this song using gibberish, trying to express what the English language... continue reading at Fluent Every Year

The sounds of French

When I first got started this year with Italian, I started by looking for the alphabet and its sounds, and I used YouTube to hear them correctly pronounced by a native Italian speaker. But several of my readers are learning French, and I never really got things started for them. So today I'd like to just explore the sounds of French.

So how does it sound?
When I search for French alphabet pronunciations on YouTube, the first thing I notice is they all seem to match the English alphabet. But I... continue reading at Fluent Every Year

It's easy to learn the Russian alphabet!

In a comment on a recent post, someone pointed out that he was learning Czech and that my Russian posts are helpful even though he can't understand any of the Russian words that I write. Today, I'd like to show everyone how easy it is to learn the Russian alphabet and start understanding those things I write.

It's not hard
The first thing to remember is that, just like anything else, it's really not hard. As I am fond of reminding people, millions of five year olds are learning this stuff... continue reading at Fluent Every Year

Congiuntivo trapassato - the Italian pluperfect

We're at the end of subjunctive week. We've already figured out exactly what the subjunctive mood is, and how it is used. And we've looked at using the subjunctive in Italian with il congiuntivo presente, il congiuntivo imperfetto, and il congiuntivo passato. Today, we're going to finish off with il congiuntivo trapassato.

Il congiuntivo trapassato
Similar to yesterday's past perfect subjunctive, the congiuntivo trapassato, or pluperfect, is formed by applying the subjunctive to the passato... continue reading at Fluent Every Year

Congiuntivo Passato - the past perfect subjunctive in Italian

Subjunctive week continues! We've already figured out exactly what the subjunctive mood is, and how it is used. And we've looked at using the subjunctive in Italian with il congiuntivo presente and il congiuntivo imperfetto. Today, we're going to find out about il congiuntivo passato.

Il congiuntivo passato
The congiuntivo passato, or past perfect subjunctive, is really just the subjunctive form of the passato prossimo. As always, you use either avere or essere with the past participle of the... continue reading at Fluent Every Year

Congiuntivo Imperfetto - the imperfective subjunctive in Italian

It’s subjunctive week. We've already looked at exactly what the subjunctive mood is, and how it is used, and yesterday we took our first look at using the subjunctive in Italian with il congiuntivo presente. Today, we're going to look at il congiuntivo imperfetto.

Il congiuntivo imperfetto
The congiuntivo imperfetto, or imperfect subjunctive, describes an uncertain verb action that was ongoing in the past. It is formed with the following endings:


 
-are
-ere
-ire


che io
-assi
-essi
-issi


che... continue reading at Fluent Every Year

Congiuntivo presente - the present subjunctive in Italian

It's subjunctive week. Yesterday we looked at exactly what the subjunctive mood is, and how it is used. Today, we're going to take our first look at how the subjunctive mood is used in Italian, with the congiuntivo presente.

Il congiuntivo presente
The congiuntivo presente, or present subjunctive, describes an uncertain verb action in the present tense. It is formed with the following endings:


 
-are
-ere
-ire
-ire (2)


che io
-i
-a
-a
-isca


che tu
-i
-a
-a
-isca


che... continue reading at Fluent Every Year

What exactly is the subjunctive mood?

The subjunctive is one of the many grammatical features that has mostly disappeared from English, but which still comes up in just about every other language you'll encounter. Today, I'd like to start by talking about what the subjunctive mood is, and where and how it is used.

The subjunctive mood
The Subjunctive mood is used frequently in other languages. It expresses doubt, uncertainty, hope, fear, possibility, opinions, etc. Basically, it describes any verb whose action is not certain.... continue reading at Fluent Every Year

Some additional thoughts on Esperanto

My recent challenge to become fluent in Esperanto in one week seems to have drawn a lot of attention. What's most interesting to me, though, is that the majority of the feedback I've received has been in regard to my disappointment in the language and its community, rather than my learning style or my results.

I'm receiving a lot of emails, chats, tweets, and blog comments from Esperantists who seem to have taken some sort of offense to my opinion that Esperanto is a very good language for talking... continue reading at Fluent Every Year

The magical aspects of Russian verb construction

Last week, I took a moment to discuss verb aspects, in hopes of clearing up those scary words perfective and imperfective. Today I want to share the amazing formula with which Russian verbs become perfective or imperfective.

Very aspects are largely an afterthought in Latin languages, and almost always a complete mystery in English, but they are so important in Russian that they literally affect every choice of every verb you ever use. This is one of the many details of Russian that tends to... continue reading at Fluent Every Year

Interesting facts about the Italian language

When you begin a goal — especially one with a defined time constraint — the first priority is always getting straight to work, which is exactly what I did with Italian. Once I had clearly defined my goal, I set my self out toward doing it. Now here I am, more than two months into learning the Italian language, and I haven't really even taken the time to smell the roses. So today, we'll just look at some interesting facts about Italian, and we'll get back to the details of speaking it... continue reading at Fluent Every Year

Perfective and Imperfective - verb aspects demystified

I've already talked about several language concepts which seem to give English-speakers trouble when learning a foreign language, but there are still more to discuss! Today, I would like to discuss the difference between perfective and imperfective verbs.

Perfect doesn't mean flawless...
If we hunt back to its Latin origins, we find that the word perfect meant "complete," and that's what a perfective verb describes: an action that is complete.

When you say, "I washed the car", you are referring... continue reading at Fluent Every Year

Language is a means, not an end

As the saying goes, life is a journey, not a destination. What's important is not where you're going, but what you do along the way. And the same thing goes for learning a language. There will always be more to learn, you can never know it all.

As children we start talking even knowing only a handful of words, and yet we credit children with having an incredible way with words. This is because they don't wait until their vocabulary feels sufficient, they simply say what's on their mind. And... continue reading at Fluent Every Year

What a difference one little "S" makes

I recently discussed the meanings of some common Italian prefixes, but I intentionally left out perhaps the most common of them all. (And that was promptly pointed out in a comment!) Rest assured, I did that intentionally, because I felt it was important enough to have its own post.

Its just a consonant!
One of the most widely used of all Italian prefixes is nothing more than the letter s-. Perhaps this isn't so strange to me after all that I've learned from Russian prefixes, but I can still... continue reading at Fluent Every Year

Making mountains out of molehills

I said recently that you can do more with a 100% comprehension of half the vocabulary, than you’ll ever do with 50% comprehension of all of it. Today, I want to give some real life examples of how you can be creative, and make yourself understood with a solid understanding of essential vocabulary.

First, what is essential
What is essential vocabulary? It's the words you need to understand in order to ask about other words, and to understand the answers you get. That's it. Seriously, that's... continue reading at Fluent Every Year

A top-notch online German dictionary!

I am a big fan of WordReference, as most of you already know, but I saw this web site mentioned in a post by Benny after the first week of his three-month mission in Germany. After having a look, I thought it was a great tool to add to the language-learning arsenal, and worth a mention here.

Dict.cc - it's not for idiots
So, getting straight to the point, the web site is Dict.cc. It's an English-German online dictionary, and a lot more. The site is really focused on helping English speaking people... continue reading at Fluent Every Year

My "complete world traveler" language list

I've often dreamed about being able to go anywhere and talk to anyone, hoping that one day I would eventually become something between polyglot and omniglot, traveling freely throughout the world on my own terms. Not long ago, I came across this post at I Kinda Like Languages, and it got me thinking about what my list would look like.

Rather than basing my studies on complete speculation, I prefer to have some data to support my expectations. I recently found this cool interactive map of the world's... continue reading at Fluent Every Year

Busuu - another social tool for language learning

I have already shared several free online language learning resources in previous posts, but there are always more to try. Recently, someone pointed me to a new one which I hadn't heard of yet, called Busuu. I tried it out, and today I want to share with you my thoughts.

So what is it?
Busuu is another language learning web site that uses a social network to outsource corrections. Just like LiveMocha, they give you the exercises but the users are responsible for the feedback, corrections, suggestions,... continue reading at Fluent Every Year

What to do when the free lessons run out

When we first got started this year, I recommended using LiveMocha to jump-start your learning. At this point, depending on what language you have selected, some of you might be coming to the end of your LiveMocha programs. If that's the case, you are now faced with the dilemma of finding new learning materials, and of keeping yourself motivated.

If you've selected a language for which LiveMocha only offers one or two courses — of if you're just having a hard time and need extra help —... continue reading at Fluent Every Year

Quanto si può imparare dalla lingua italiana in due mesi?

Io ho stato scrivendo sulla lingua italiana in questo blog due settimane. Quanto ho imparato? Molto! Il mese scorso, ho scrivato alcuni paragrafi nell'italiano. Questo mese, io scriverò tutto il post sul blog in italiano!

Non fraintenderete - io ancora ho bisognio di usare il diccionario a WordReference.com, e io ancora verifico tutto lo che scrivo nel Google Translate, ma io lo scrivo nell'italiano e io lo scrivo mi stesso. Io solo lo scrivo nel Google Translate per verificare coniugazione... continue reading at Fluent Every Year

Quanto si può imparare dalla lingua italiana in due mesi?

Io ho stato scrivendo sulla lingua italiana in questo blog due settimane. Quanto ho imparato? Molto! Il mese scorso, ho scrivato alcuni paragrafi nell'italiano. Questo mese, io scriverò tutto il post sul blog in italiano!

Non fraintenderete - io ancora ho bisognio di usare il diccionario a WordReference.com, e io ancora verifico tutto lo che scrivo nel Google Translate, ma io lo scrivo nell'italiano e io lo scrivo mi stesso. Io solo lo scrivo nel Google Translate per verificare coniugazione... continue reading at Fluent Every Year

Andrea Bocelli now gives me Italian and German!

One theme I really like to emphasize is using music to learn. In fact, one of my most popular posts was the one about learning Italian from Andrea Bocelli. Using music to reinforce your vocabulary is great because it makes learning fun. That's the most important thing, because if you don't enjoy it, you're not going to do it.

Well how could anyone not enjoy this?



For me, this is particularly enjoyable, because it gives me a chance to continue to learn Italian while also mixing in some German!

Here... continue reading at Fluent Every Year

Prefixes in Italian

Prefixes are one of my favorite parts of grammar, because understanding them helps in building the web of knowledge that makes learning a language easy and interesting. I've already talked about the super-logical system of Russian prefixes and those super-simple Esperanto prefixes. Now it's time to find out how much we can learn from Italian prefixes.

This is not meant to be a comprehensive list, but it's certainly a good start. Any time we can look at how a language works, it helps to build... continue reading at Fluent Every Year

Esperanto one week later - am I fluent?

One week ago, after taking a brief look at Esperanto, I made the comment that it looks so easy that I could see how it's possible to be fluent in one week, which led to my one-week Esperanto challenge. Now, one week later, how did it turn out? Am I fluent?

I have not been able to find anyone to talk to, so the truth is, I don't know! I have a high comprehension rate when I watch YouTube videos, and I've spent a lot of time chatting in Esperanto without need for a translator or dictionary, but... continue reading at Fluent Every Year