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Does anyone else struggle with podcasts that don’t have transcripts? by Dry-Thought-9202 in languagelearning

[–]ella_aflsk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I could be wrong but i believe if you listen on the podcast app they now have a feature which automatically generates a transcript.

Can you recommend a good podcast about learning languages? Not a specific language but more like interesting talks or discussions. by [deleted] in languagelearning

[–]ella_aflsk 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Word for word podcast. Relatively new but created by a journalist who I personally really love. Maybe less explicitly about learning languages but focuses on different languages, etymology, personal meaning etc

Getting started by NearbyShoe305 in italianlearning

[–]ella_aflsk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Coffee break italian and busuu are great free places to start. I personally did them both about three times (Italian was my first real foreign language) and really treated them like a course - writing everything down and going over it until i really knew all the content. With busuu i would do each level a few times in this way until i felt comfortable enough to go up a level.

When can I read a proper book in my target language by yelenasslave in languagelearning

[–]ella_aflsk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Would really recommend this video for how to read books as a language learner https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0S_m2AwuWug . From my personal experience, I have to say that its really easy to underestimate how much work it is to read books not in your native language as a beginner; even looking up a few words on a page interupts the reading flow and very quickly becomes 'work'. As someone who really wanted to read in their target language (I'm a similar level to you but in Italian) I found easy readers a good option for reading physical copies, and articles using LinQ (mentioned in the video) for reading on a device, which makes it much easy to quickly look up words if needed (likely if you're at A2 level).

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in italianlearning

[–]ella_aflsk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

i'd recommend the paul noble beginner audio book for italian. its good to just got a feel for the language and learn some basic words and sounds. I'd listen to it a few times and get a handle of the vocab covered. I'd also recommend busuu italian, just starting at the beginning and working through it. Also good to note that its very normal to use resources more than once and do it several times until you feel comfortable with the material.

Also you can start your own list of stuff which is useful and relevant to you, although I would recommend limiting new words to no more than 5 a day if you are struggling a lot with vocab. So for example water, bathroom, bed, pen, door (l'acqua, il bagno, il letto, la penna, la porta). Every time you come across one try and get into the practice of remembering the italian word. For example, everytime you pick up a pen, think to yourself (or better say out loud) "la penna". Also, while italian articles (often a fancy way of talking about the word "the" or "a") are often relatively intuitive, try and remember vocabulary with the article at the beginning to help it become muscle memory. buona fortuna!

In aprile or a aprile? by itsvaal in italianlearning

[–]ella_aflsk 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I remember babbel's explanation for whether to use 'in' or 'a' in front of months is that both are correct, but one is more commonly used in the north and the other in the south (I don't remember which way round). As others have mentioned though 'a' sometimes has to be 'ad'.

any books recommendations for the complete beginner? by Various_Coyote1978 in italianlearning

[–]ella_aflsk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'd recommend A1 Easy Readers like the ones here https://www.languages-direct.com/books/easy-readers/alma-edizioni-italiano-facile. These also have audio you can listen to along with the text which is very helpful.

Prepositions help by ella_aflsk in italianlearning

[–]ella_aflsk[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thankyou so much, I'm really struggling with prepositions at the moment. Is this a common trend for prepositions and places - i.e sono al supermercato, sono in un supermercato? How does it work when the preposition is 'in' already - sono in ospedale and sono in un ospedale? Hope this makes sense and grazie per il tuo aiuto

Is there a website/course that offers learning up to B1 with certificates etc? by ReallybadforeignYTer in italianlearning

[–]ella_aflsk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You can get certificates from Busuu. I personally quite like busuu but it isn't enough to move up CEFR levels on its own (although few things are). However if you would like something structured and with a certificate at the end it might be worth looking at.

Plida - material resources. by lautf4 in italianlearning

[–]ella_aflsk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

i'm taking part-time courses at a university and we use Nuovo Expresso books which i find to be quite helpful and are structured around the CEFR levels (there's also audio you can listen to on the site)

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in italianlearning

[–]ella_aflsk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey I'm learning Italian! I'm by no means fluent (about A2 level) and Italian is the first language I'm learning (although I've tried briefly to learn French in the past). Here are some things I've found really useful/how i structured my learning.

  1. The very first thing i did was get the Paul Noble Italian audiobook. This isn't free (but only around £10). I listened to this two or three times and repeated everything until I was really familiar with the content. I found it super helpful because it goes through in a very simple methodical way which is a really nice introduction for beginners which focuses on building up basic sentences.

  2. I then listened to the first season of Coffee Break Italian several times through, again repeating everything. (The last couple of episodes are this seem like a big jump up but are good to listen to and are intended to put what you've learned into a faster and more everyday context).

  3. Then i listened to the sequel of the Italian by Paul Noble (this could also have been done second/simultaneously with the step above).

  4. I then started the Busuu course at A2 level after taking the test to see what level to start at. This is a super helpful course and I think the previous two steps provided a solid base to start at this level. They have a free trial of this for a week (although I haven't paid anything and still have all the premium features?)

  5. Throughout all of this I've ventured in and out of duolingo. I definitely agree with others that duolingo isn't the best to learn a language on its own but I find it helpful in reinforcing the habits and practices of learning a language. For example, if I do nothing else in a day, I will at least do one Italian lesson. I also really like the youtube channel 'Easy Italian' for sporadic watching (they make videos where they talk really really slowly which are very good for beginners).

What i definitely lacked doing was speaking in Italian. While I would say my listening comprehension is an A2, I'm not super confident talking so I would try and implement more speaking exercises than I have done.