Three months in and I'm still overheating my brain every time I use an adjective. Each word, many forms. No matter how hard I focus, I still sometimes pick the wrong one.
Please tell me this becomes automatic at some point?
I travel a lot and I've always been learning languages on the side (learning Italian at the moment).
At some point I started wondering if there's a way to turn that into an actual career path rather than just a hobby. But every time I research it, the obvious options come up: translator, teacher, interpreter.
Are those really the only paths? What are other, more "exciting" and niche options? And what are the positions that won't get replaced in few years?
I took Spanish classes for a few months a couple of years ago, never got far, then dropped it.
Now I'm learning Italian from scratch and I'm genuinely having some problems.
The words are similar enough that my brain keeps pulling Spanish instead of Italian. It's so funny, because most people say knowing a similar language helps. Not for me though.
How about you guys? Knowing a similar language helps or makes things harder for you?
Even though I'm just a beginner in Italian I feel like I can understand a lot, but when I went to Napoli I couldn't catch a simple word. Which Italian accent do you most struggle with understanding?
Casually went down a rabbit hole while learning Italian.
The English word 'umbrella' came directly from Italian 'ombrella', a diminutive of 'ombra', meaning "shade" or "shadow." Which itself traces back to the Latin 'umbra', same root as 'umbrage' and 'adumbrate'. The literal meaning embedded in the word is essentially "a little shade."
That's exactly what it was for. Umbrellas existed in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, and India for thousands of years and it was about blocking sunlight, not water.
When the word first appeared in English around 1600, first recorded in the letters of John Donne it still referred to a sunshade. The use of umbrella for rain came later, once the it reached northern European countries where the sun was considerably less of a problem.
One other interesting detail: men in England didn't want to carry umbrellas well into the 1700s because it was considered a feminine accessory. The traveler Jonas Hanway is credited with normalizing it for men around 1750, and for a while umbrellas were informally called "hanways" in his honor.
I don’t know why I assumed learning Italian pronunciation would be a nightmare, it’s honestly the opposite.
I'm a month into learning Italian, and it has been the least of my problems. What you see is literally what you say, vowels are consistent, and once you learn few rules, like "ch" making a hard K sound etc., you can read almost anything out loud. There are some other aspects I struggle with for sure, but for a month in I'm genuinely happy with where I am.
How has it been learning for you? I feel like we all talk about mostly our struggles, but I want to hear, what was easier to learn than you expected?
A quick story for solo travelers planning a trip to Italy.
I didn't plan to learn Italian. Downloaded a few apps a few weeks before leaving, mostly because I was going solo to smaller towns in Italy and got nervous about communication.
Started in Rome where English was fine, at least in the touristy spots I was in it was no problem. But then I went down south, traveled all the way down to Catania and I can tell you, everything changed. My broken Italian changed my trp and helped me more than expected.
The way people treated me was genuinely so warm. Even with my few phrases locals probably couldn't fully understand, everyone I stopped and asked something tried to help so much. There was this one older man who tried giving me directions for a solid few minutes but I only knew "avanti" so I just nodded and smiled the whole time lol.
All of this to say, if you're planning to travel solo into more local and less touristy places, learn the basics, might change your entire trip for the better.
Started learning Italian few weeks ago. Went to Italy last year and I fell in love, I knew maybe 50 words. Being a grownup and a beginner in something is so weird.
But there's something about Italian that makes me want to learn it. Three weeks in; I know few more words, I can introduce myself. I can order coffee. I understand maybe one word in eight when someone speaks to me, and can't say any proper sentences but oh well. I'm still excited.
I guess for people that started learning later in life, how did you do it? I feel like I'm too old for any type of school textbooks. I already started watching some show in Italian, so I hope that would help. I will appreciate any tips.