ItalianPod101.com Blog

I had been to Italy many times to watch Grand Prix and then in 2005
I won a trip to vist the Ferrari factory. On that trip I met a very
nice Italian Lady. Life does not always turn out the way we plan it
and I never managed to get the Ferrari, but I did get the girl.

I only knew a couple of Italian words such as ‘Aqua’ and ‘Grazie’ and
so on and learning a language was very intimidating for me. But in
August 2007 I decided to give it a try and found the first 6 months were
very hard and I gave up many times, but then in April 2008 I discovered
Italianpod101.com.

Although I tried a number of other Italian podcasts, I found that Italianpod101.com was easily the best, the lessons were presented in a way which was very efficient and easy to learn. I wanted to increase my vocabulary as much as possible and it is a great help to listen to audio lessons on my iPod whenever I am on-the-go. I am not looking to have a degree in Italian or to write or speak perfect Italian but I do want to be able to communicate in Italian with native speakers. That’s why I still get a great degree of satisfaction when I see my steady progress as I learn Italian using Italianpod101.com.

There is an old saying, ‘There is no such thing as a bad student, just
a bad teacher.’

Do you know what it’s like to have six smiling people sitting in a circle around you while you look up an Italian
word in the dictionary? It’s an ETERNITY.

Then once you say the word and acknowledge the nods, you have to launch another search while the anticipating people wait. It is a bit stressful, so I decided ‘next time I will be able to carry on a conversation.’

I tried a year of basic Italian at home at a local college and that helped, but I needed a more flexible method of study
without deadlines and without competitive quizzes and tests. I found Italianpod101 through a search of the word “Italian” at the iTunes website. It led to the podcast site and it was ‘free.’ I found that the daily dialogues were short, easy to download and the study plan was perfect for my time frame.

I followed the study approach suggested at the web site and kept drilling myself, almost to the point of memorizing the
dialogue. I learn best by rote, like learning the words and tune of a song. Italian is such a melodious language that it is almost a form of music. Pretty soon I was able to speak the phrases without the herky-jerky hesitations of recitation. I found a couple of terms like ‘allora’ and ’secondo me’ and began to fill in the pauses between sentences.

By no means am I fluent but, heck, I am barely fluent in English! I can honestly say this, however: on our last trip to
Italy I was a bit of a hero. Our relatives loved the fact that not only was I studying their language I was actually able to communicate.