The Top 5 Reasons (Excuses) I Don’t Study My Italian Like I Should or Dante Lead Me from the Inferno of the Conjugated Verb to the Paradiso of a Native Speaker
I confess I don’t spend as much time as I should studying my Italian and these are My Top 5 Excuses.
5. I Have Too Many Italian Language Books
After years of study I have collected a library of Italian language books. With so many I have a hard time deciding which one to focus on.
4. I Want to Know the Reason for the Rules
There’s really no reason why Italians speak like they do. Sometimes there are illogical rules for learning a language and it does no good trying to analyze them. Accept the idiosyncrasies of Italian grammar and syntax and move ahead. Retaining over them is counterproductive to learning any language.
3. Complacency or a Feeling of Quiet Pleasure or Security
I’ve been studying Italian for some time and although I started later in life I’ve been able
to master the language to an upper intermediate level. I manage to make my way around
Italy saying sono perso (I am lost) and getting directions without too much trouble. In fact my Italian family and friends tell me that my “Italian is very good” meaning that I speak in more than the present tense. I don’t define myself as fluent to do so would mean that I have a command of the language as I well as I do English. I take comfort in the fact that there doesn’t seem to be a universally agreed-upon definition of fluency. Depending on your source it is described as anything from being able to order food to the language ability of a native speaker. I am beyond a novice and although I still need to tote a my pocket dictionary around, I can survive in an immersion situation i.e order food, give and receive directions, take a taxi and drive in Italy, make reservations and pay off a parking ticket.
2. Not Enough Time
I never seem to have enough time to study. A pathetic excuse because studying a language today has never be easier. Smart phone apps and internet connectivity make learning a language accessible to everyone any time, any place with as much or as little effort as you want.
1. I Spend Far Too Much Time Making Excuses for Not Studying My Italian
I need to forget about the reasons why I don’t study as much as I should and use the time spent making excuses learning one new word a day in a stimulating way like
▪ using a new word in a sentence
▪ looking for grammatical variations of the word
▪ associating words with other usage and situations
You may not be able to learn as much as you want or hoped for but whatever you learned is more than you knew before.