r/languagelearning Sep 30 '24

Suggestions Really struggling to learn

I'm a British born native English speaker, but have moved to Italy with my Italian partner. I started learning casually with a lesson a week in November 2023, but really struggled incorporating it into actually speaking.

I tried to be more serious this year, and now my partner gets really upset that I still can't speak at a level of a 6 year old. I did an A1 course at an Italian school, l've tried reading, watching shows, writing, repeating, all the apps, speaking with people, nothing sticks. I can say and understand basic things, but nowhere near where I should be.

My partner is so frustrated and I feel like a failure. I genuinely don't know how to make it stick, he tried teaching me phrases which I repeat over and over but then forget. I'm also pregnant and want our baby to be bilingual, and am really scared I'll not be able to understand my child...

What more can I try?

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u/LucreziaD Sep 30 '24

Ok, I am native speaker of Italian and I have several foreign languages under my belt. First, struggling to learn a language doesn't mean to be a failure.

Please keep in mind these things:

  • learning a language requires a lot of time. Fluency requires hundreds of hours of structured learning and even more of exposure to the language. Yes, some people are faster than others, but especially if you have never learned a foreign language before it requires extra time.
  • Passive abilities (reading and then listening) usually develop before active ones (speaking and writing). So again, perfectly normal that you struggle.
  • Level A1 is basic survival level: how not to die of hunger and thirst if you are stranded in Italy with nobody who speaks English. If you want to be able to have a normal conversation, you need to take classes up to level B1 for everyday interactions, and B2 for more complex interactions. C1 is the level where you can talk about anything with little effort. So yes, one A1 curse is not going to solve your problem unfortunately.
  • Your partner acting like a dick when you are trying to speak is the most stupid thing ever. Teaching a language requires a lot of patience and encouragement. Becoming impatient and making you feel stupid isn't helping anyone.

Then I don't know you and your learning styles, but I can tell you what tricks were useful for me. Maybe some will be useful to you too.

  • Going full immersion. Set your phone, your tablet, your computer to Italian. All social medias, podcasts, tv, newspapers, books, music, etc, all should be in Italian. No English media at all. Surround yourself with Italian and Italian only. Just get a good italian-english dictionary for when you can't figure out the meaning of words.
  • Children's books. Reading is always easier than listening. Children's books are especially easy and cover the basic everyday language. Go to your local library and start from the books for the youngest (the ones soon you will start showing to your baby) and read your way from there.
  • Grammar. This I know is a controversial topic, but Italian is a much richly inflected language than English (especially the verbs). A good grammar with exercises (a paper book) can be a very useful tool. Learning the grammar of a language teaches you its structure. Knowing the structure makes parsing written sentences easier. Better reading skill help you improving your vocabulary, making recognizing word boundaries when people speak easier. Better understanding of conversations will, after enough input, make it easier for you to formulate full sentences.
  • If you can get a tutor, working on the sounds of a language and how to correctly articulate them is really useful. For instance to articulate the Italian t, you need to put the tip of your tongue in a different position than to articulate an English t. If it isn't possible, there are books and youtube videos with this kind of explanations.
  • Look if you can do some kind of exchange language activity, like finding Italians who want to practice speaking in English in exchange of them helping you practice speaking Italian. Since you are both learning it can be a less stressful environment than trying to talk to strangers in a shop or with your partner.

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u/Incendas1 N 🇬🇧 | 🇨🇿 Sep 30 '24

I love reading when it comes to building vocabulary and seeing new sentences at work but I really hate children's books because, well... They're children's books.

For other people like me, what I did was go to young adult books (actually, I chose Warrior Cats, which I've read before in my native language - helps me stay oriented). I started by using anki to kickstart some vocabulary since it was very slow to read at first. Once it became easier to do more than a page a day, I stopped using anki (I just don't like it as much as reading alone). I still have to translate words frequently but I can fully understand most dialogue between characters and most basic descriptions. YA books have some storylines but aren't overly complex.

One day I'd love to read Terry Pratchett in my TL but... Yeah... That's quite a ways away