A language learners’ forum

golyplot wrote:When I was researching Italian, I saw a lot of people saying it was less regular and more difficult than Spanish, and they weren't kidding. Italian is crazy!

As if having four endings wasn't enough, half the words don't even follow the normal o/a/i/e pattern. And there's a lot of random spelling changes too between the different declensions of a word. How do you all keep track of it? Just brute force practice?

I am a Spanish native speaker, and if anyone thinks because they are native Spanish speakers that Italian language is a piece of cake, they are wrong.
Italian is very complex. It isn’t easy for Spanish natives. Apart from tons of words shared between Spanish/Italian, the grammar possesses a challenge. Moving beyond beginners level, it is necessary to study the grammar. If a Spanish speaker lives in Italy, that may be another story.

In case anyone is looking for free Italian TV shows, I recently discovered that Monster Allergy (Italian cartoon) is on Youtube. I've watched five episodes so far and I like it. My only complaint is that the image quality could be better - there's a lot of noticeable jaggies.


https://www.youtube.com/user/MonsterAllergyIT/videos

golyplot wrote:In case anyone is looking for free Italian TV shows, I recently discovered that Monster Allergy (Italian cartoon) is on Youtube. I've watched five episodes so far and I like it. My only complaint is that the image quality could be better - there's a lot of noticeable jaggies.


https://www.youtube.com/user/MonsterAllergyIT/videos

Golyplot,

Thanks for the tip.

I love to see my daughter watch monster allergy show; my daughter was heartbroken when Netflix took it out. She loved the show. I use a dedicated Italian IP address, via TorGuard, to trick Netflix and get the Netflix Italian.

I am sure that my daughter will be happy to rediscover “monster allergy,” and hopefully, motivate her to learn some Italian. I speak to her in Italian all the time. And I want to believe that some Italian is sinking on her little brain, just because it is everywhere here at home.

By the way, I unlocked the RAI TV with a dedicated Italian IP address.
I paid two years upfront, but I got an Italian dedicated IP that is exclusively for my use. I can watch Netflix Italy and unblock the Rai TV.
I will cost you $$ but to me, it is all worth it.

https://torguard.net/

mentecuerpo, Dd they let you pay with a non European credit card? An Italian friend and I both tried to pay RAI a few years ago and they wouldn't take our US credit cards.

lingua wrote:mentecuerpo, Dd they let you pay with a non European credit card? An Italian friend and I both tried to pay RAI a few years ago and they wouldn't take our US credit cards.

No, you get a free account for Rai tv.
No need for credit card.
All you need is a dedicated Italian IP address, but it has to be "a dedicated" IP.
If your IP address is out of Italy you will not have access to most content, if you use a general IP address provided by hidemyass, or tunnelbear or any other, it wont do the trick. You need a "dedicated" IP address.

On the other hand,
At one point I had a subscription to https://www.nowtv.it/
I could only log in with the dedicated Italian IP address.
To open the account, I used my American Credit Card but my Italian friend used his information to create the account, including his tax code (or something like that).

I watch this series on Yabla Italia, but you can find it on youtube.
Clear standard Italian.

provaci ancora prof! 7

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... ora+prof+7

I am reading this book in my Kindle: La Promessa del Buio, by Riccardo Bruni (amazon publishing).
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CLHsIbILDA

It is approximately 9 h 30 minutes to read as per my reading speed detected by my Kindle. I have 1 h 30 m to go (capitolo 19: Estate,1992- Qualche ora prima); I hope I will finish the book by tomorrow.

Here is a review I found on YouTube about the book:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gf7mZ3Pv4Y

What I like is that the YouTube blogger speaks clearly, and you can see her mouth making the sounds as she speaks.
What she says about the book describes it perfectly. It is like three stories in one. The first 12 chapters are not very interesting, but around chapter 14 and on, it gets much better as the drama begins to unfold.
It is a good read. I would say medium difficulty for me; I am just reading it extensive style. There are many words that I don't know, but I get the gist of it.

If you want to learn about anything in Italian, google: Corso di ....

For example, I like photography, so instead of watching a video in English, I learn about photography in Italian.

https://www.occhiodelfotografo.com/comp ... e/2013/01/

I got the idea from this:

I found this video about extensive listening, all in Italiano.