setting expectations for one year of study?

[miket12]

I am going to be going to Italy in about one year. I would like to learn enough Italian to do ordinary tourist transactions (restaurants, shopping, directions) and perhaps small conversations. I was hoping to get some advice on whether this is possible or perhaps more.

Some details: I only speak English. I consider myself to be on the lower end of language learners. Some people hear a word once or twice and have learned it; I need to practice/forget/relearn it several times and to be honest I struggle a bit unless I see it written down. For past trips to Italy and France I've used Pimsleur and Michel Thomas prior to trips which I enjoyed doing in my car while commuting, but this was many years ago. And to reiterate the point about writing, I often would need to look up a word in Google translate before I could really understand what I was hearing on the tapes. In the end I was better than someone that didn't know any of the language at all and could do simple things like ask for a table at a restaurant, ask to buy something, etc. These programs were good at delivering some set phrases that I knew reasonably well. The problem was people would answer in their language and I was often completely lost with any reply past one or two words.

My plan is to start with Pimsleur again, going thru the first 2 sets of 30 lessons. And use Michel Thomas simultaneously. Pimsleur now goes up to 5 sets of lessons but based on some reading I've done on the forum I'll pause it for a while after the 1st 2 sets of 30 lessons. I will start with Assimil and then add Pimsleur back in after about another 2-3 months. I'll also use Anki to build vocabulary, adding in words from the programs I've been using and perhaps other sources.

I'd appreciate an advice on the plan above and what level I might be able to achieve.

[golyplot]

It depends a lot on how much time you have available, but that should be more than achievable.

One thing missing from your plan is immersion. You'll probably want to do a lot of listening practice (watching TV in Italian or Youtube videos or whatever you like) once you get past the initial stages. And of course, to practice conversational skills, you'll need to find other people to practice conversation with.

[rdearman]

I am going to be going to Italy in about one year. I would like to learn enough Italian to do ordinary tourist transactions (restaurants, shopping, directions) and perhaps small conversations. I was hoping to get some advice on whether this is possible or perhaps more.

Yeah, the old tourist trap for language learning. That is a gateway drug into the whole "I want to be a polyglot" mindset.

A year would be enough for A1/A2 level. (Using the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) If I were going to start Italian again to be a tourist, this is what I would do.

• Everything you've already said.
• I would construct as many tourist dialogues as I could and memorize them. As you said. (restaurants, shopping, directions)
• I would put some money into iTalki and hire some cheap community tutors to practice these dialogues until I had them down pat. Initially get them to make the dialogues realistic, then to help with your pronunciation.
• I would then get the tutor to throw spanners into the memorized conversations. (Things like; "I'm sorry I don't work here."; "The police have cordoned off the shopping area.") The idea here is to disrupt your flow and force you to create fall backs. e.g. "Sorry, could you say that slower?", "Could you say that into my Google Translate app?"
• From day one I would try to find conversation partners on either https://www.conversationexchange.com/ or https://www.language-exchanges.org/, and I would try to have conversations with them. Make sure that you get your 30 minutes of Italian, and they get their 30 minutes of English. (Although at that level they will get more practice than you.)
• Schedule 1 to 5 language exchanges or tutors per week so that you begin to get comfortable with pronunciation and you begin to "activate" words you know passively from the other study.
• Get some books in Italian (electronic would be the best, so you can click on the word to look up the translation) and read, read, read, read, read. Then read some more.
• Watch Peppa Pig in Italian.
• Put sentences into anki not individual words. It gives the bonus of showing the word in context, and it gives you exposure to other words at the same time. Definitely put all your dialogues into anki.
• Create "islands" you can use to talk about yourself in Italian. "Hello my name is.. I work as a... I have X children... I live in the city... I have a dog..." practice these with tutors or language exchnage partners so that you can reel these little islands off without even trying. (Here is one of the many threads where we've discussed this: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=13221)
• Return to this forum periodically and look through the Italian resources to see if you can tackle something more difficult as you get better.

A year would easily take you into A2 maybe even B1/B2, but it would depend on how much time you plan to commit too. The one thing I have learned about language learning is that it doesn't matter how smart or stupid or talented you are at mimicry, the only thing that matters is TIME ON TASK. You just have to put in the time, and you'll reap the rewards. But if you don't commit to a lot of study time and practice, you will not get to where you want to be. From the start I think you should commit to doing 1000 hours of language study which seems like a lot but is only a couple of hours per day. I could have easily done 3 hours during my commute time, so perhaps you can squeeze in time there as well. Plus anki time, plus reading, plus TV, it will soon add up, and you'll get to understanding it quickly.

As I said at the top of the post, you'll probably get the bug, and you'll want to learn French, and Chinese and Korean and lord only knows what else. DON'T DO IT! Focus on one language until you are what you consider to be "fluent" before moving on to something else. You might want to check the Study Time Calculator for an estimate of how much you should study, but take it with a huge grain of salt.

[Cavesa]

Yes, it is about the real time spent studying, not about the time frame of one year. A1/A2 is definitely doable at a comfortable pace. Even more is doable, but you seem to be in no rush

If I was to start Italian again, with the purpose of reaching A1/A2 in a year and then use it as a tourist, I wouldn't do it in a so complicated way.

-A stardard beginner coursebook. Nuovissimo Progetto Italiano, Nuovo Espresso, or Assimil (if I wanted a bilingual option. But you are not a pure beginner either, so you should do fine with the monolingual coursebooks)
-a grammar workbook, like Una grammatica italiana per tutti.
-pronunciation on my own, repeating after audio, or better with Speechling. No waste of money and time on standard tutoring.
-SRS for vocabulary. Either putting the coursebook vocab to anki or similar tool, or I'd get Speakly.
-enough use of the audio coming with the coursebook, eventually supplementation with further podcasts or something.

That's it. The dialogue memorisation partially happens while studying, so no need to emphasize it separately so much. No need to pay for tons of Italki tutors just for the pronunciation and for beginner language. No need to waste time on finding conversation partners for such basic stuff, you can practice this without any problem yourself.

Books in Italian are nice, but more important at the B and C levels, not necessary for a beginner. The same applies to tv series and such stuff. Great, but accessible mostly to people already speaking a related language, and not that important at A1. (And honestly, I'd rather get the most "boring" textbook on the planet than use Peppa Pig). But if you want to use something, there are graded Italian readers for learners with audio, those can be nice as a supplemental exercise too.

Honestly, it doesn't need to be complicated. Just complete a coursebook and supplement it in the areas it is weak at. I just don't think whether Pimsleur and MT are worth redoing (I am in general not a fan of these courses, I think there are better things to do these days), but they could be nice as review at the beginning of the year.

[einzelne]

Lot's of useful recommendations here. Here're my 2 cents.

It really depends how deep you want to go. For some basic interactions, 2 months would be more than enough to reach A2 level. But be prepare that without training your ear, you would probably understand only "yes" "no" "may be" and "dunno" in response to your questions. (and be prepare that you'll probably forget your language quite fast after the trip without practice)

The most important part in conversation is not aural comprehension not production. To train it, you need to have a vast passive vocabulary and trained ears. Pilmsner, Assimil and Michel Thomas won't cut the mustard. You won't get enough exposure. You need to add a bunch of adapted books with audio and some unadapted podcasts/video with real speech. But than again, it really depends on your goals. The excitement of having basic interactions with natives wears off after a couple of days, while having sophisticated interactions requires a lot of time (and probably money) investment.

[Lisa]

Personally my priority is always vocabulary. With vocabulary, you can produce questions and understand answers even if your grammar is limited to very basics. With Spanish I thought my problem was the sounds and speed, but it turned out that as my vocabulary grew I could understand so much more. Even children's books use a whole vast lot of words, and while you can guess at them reading, when listening there isn't time to think it over before the next word comes along.

Anki or similiar with audio is a great way to get the sound of the word tied to the meaning as well as the written form (you'll need some audio when learning vocab to avoid learning e.g. wrong c/ch pronunciations - that tended to trip me up in the old paper days).

Also, I would recommend getting an italki tutor or a language partner to force you to produce sentences in real time, before you get very far along in anything; I'd start that right away, if possible, even if only sporadically. I was quite advanced at reading and understanding spanish, and could talk to myself, before I got an italki tutor... to find out that producing coherent sentences in new situations with strangers listening... well, I was quite bad at it, for all my other skills. Conversely, I could chatter away in what amounts to heritage German with low vocab and grammar (I could barely read at all) - it was surely atrocious but it was understandable. Practice and work on the specific skill you want to have, not the skills that are easier to work on...

[golyplot]

One thing noone has mentioned yet is to prepare for disappointment. Realistically, no matter how hard you work, you're probably going to be doing most of your interactions in English when you get there.

[Cavesa]

One thing noone has mentioned yet is to prepare for disappointment. Realistically, no matter how hard you work, you're probably going to be doing most of your interactions in English when you get there.

That depends on where exactly is OP going. Italy is a much better place in this sense, than for example France. Getting out of the most obvious tourist places is easy, because in Italy almost every village is beautiful and historical And the Italians are less obsessed with switching to bad English than the French.

At A2, there should be no major problem with this in the usual interactions, unless OP really lets it happen. That's the issue. But yes, it is better to prepare a better level of the language and to prepare to be assertive enough.

[Kraut]

I am going to be going to Italy in about one year. I would like to learn enough Italian to do ordinary tourist transactions (restaurants, shopping, directions) and perhaps small conversations. I was hoping to get some advice on whether this is possible or perhaps more.

Here is one more suggestion: since your activities are focused, you could language-wise focus on practising the very themes/registers.
I get a lot of interesting content from reviews in Tripadvisor that I translate and sometimes even learn by heart. For most of the things that you will do in Italy you will find reviews, comments and opinions by natives. You can study what customers have said about their stay in the hotel you have in mind, visit restaurants that are recommended ....

Here is an example in Spanish, somebody had inquired about public transport in Valencia, comment by a lady in Tripadvisor:

Los taxis se paran a mano alzada en la calle, aunque hay sitios donde tienen parada y veras que están aparcados en fila. Has de coger siempre el primero de la fila. Son vehiculos blancos con el distintivo de TAXI en la parte superior, con una luz que si está verde indica que estan libre, y son legales y seguros. Todos cobran las mismas tarifas.
En cuanto al autobus se puede pagar el billete al subir, al conductor y su precio es de 1,50 euros.
Existen unos bonos de 10 viajes que cuestan unos 10 euros y se compran en estancos y algunos kioskos.

If you prepare the trip that way you will be more confident and pro-active when dealing with the natives.
The "Edge Browser" has a good reading tool.

[Lisa]

One thing noone has mentioned yet is to prepare for disappointment. Realistically, no matter how hard you work, you're probably going to be doing most of your interactions in English when you get there.

That depends on where exactly is OP going. Italy is a much better place in this sense, than for example France .

That was exactly my experience. All 20 years ago, but in tourist areas of italy most didn't speak english but were happy to attempt to speak/understand my Italian and respond such that I could understand, after a just few weeks with a paper book -- certainly including the OPs goals of restaurants, shopping, basic conversation (where are you from, what do you do, do you like...). In southern france... nope. Even though my french was more advanced (reading, at least). I've never quite forgiven the french language for that experience.