Spanish is one of my native languages (if learning it since age 4 and living life and doing a big chunk of elementary school in a Spanish-speaking country qualifies). From there, I took Italian lessons for a year when I was 11 or so, and still I actually remember some of the main points. I've learned French since high school (2 'serious' years of study for a high school type class), then retook it as self-study 10 years later that and learned it to a high B2 in speaking, C1+ in passive skills. Learned Portuguese to low B2 in an intense burst of 8 months or so. As a result, I've delved deeply into romance languages, so I'm well-versed in the features of these languages.
Then, as everyone else in here, I have a decent experience in this language learning thing.
I may have a chance to be in Italy for 2 or 3 months for a project at some point this year. This project is not any sort of life-consuming matter in reality, so I will be lucky enough to have decent free time on a daily basis. I think you now know where I am going with this?
Italian is a language I always have vowed to reclaim, not only because I did learn it to some type of speaking level when I was a boy, but because my mother paid for those classes during a time she could have saved that money for other things. I feel a moral obligation to restore it and beyond. I have had this goal for years, but been busy with other priorities. Given all of the above, I don't doubt I can learn Italian to whatever level I wish, if I put the time and effort. Yet, given my linguistic background, I probably don't have to approach (re)learning Italian the way I have studied Chinese and Korean, that is to say, from scratch and with a very methodical step by step approach. I think I have sort of forgotten how to best learn a closely related language, or perhaps better said, I don't have much experience here (since I learned French as my first self-taught L2 and didn't have a clue, Portuguese is a bit of experience but I didn't really change much in my approach).I don't want to waste time doing things I perhaps don't need to do.
I hate suggesting I can take short-cuts here, I don't believe in that even with all the supposed advantages I have pointed out above, because a 2nd language is still a 2nd language. But surely I can and maybe should do things more boldly and diving heads-on, no?
If you were me, how would you proceed if you were in Italy, with whole afternoons and evenings "mainly" to yourself? Should I immediately dive into native content from day one? If yes, should I put more time on listening or on reading? Should I talk from the get-go or wait (again, I will only have 2-3 months). Studying much Italian before actually arriving is not a real possibility though, for various reasons. I know it would be best to do all the passive stuff as much as possible before, and then take advantage of the speaking environment, but I won't have much of that prior practice. I actually feel more lost in this scenario than in Studying Chinese, Korean, or Hindi, where I have my own ways. French and German I did similar to Chinese, as they were my first self-studied foreign languages therefore I didn't really know what I was doing for a while.
I would like to take full advantage of this opportunity if it materializes. Anyways... thoughts? (I hope so!, and thanks in advance)
