A few weeks ago I was contemplating to start
learning Italian amidst my learning French. Anyway, after reading some encouraging comments and experiences, I decided to
start learning Italian a week ago and I thought I'd share my
experience so far.
One of my concerns was the similarity between the two languages. I was worried that it would set me back. However, so far, I can say that my French benefits me instead in learning Italian. I struggled a little to get used to some differences, but nothing major. Just common challenges one usually finds when learning every language. I found that I was able to skip some grammar explanations that are similar to French and, instead, immediately focus on some details that requires more attention. I try to post one Italian notebook on italki every time I finished a lesson from my grammar book. These notebooks are filled with mistakes, which is not surprising, but at least I get to immediately put my Italian to use. It's something I wasn't able to do when I started learning French (since my previous language was English so I needed a lot of adjustments to switch from English to French). I also found a website that compares French and Italian, which comes in handy.
As for my French, I decided to put it aside for the moment. I still learn it but I mostly focus in Italian on daily basis. I learn French mainly on weekend. And because I've finished my French grammar book, most of the time I just try to practice by reading and writing.
In a nutshell, I'm glad that I don't have to start learning Italian from square one, thanks to my French. So I plan to continue learning this way while taking into account that I still have a long way to go and there are many things that need improvements. I thought I'd share my experience as a reference if anyone wants to try to learn more than one languages from the same roots, at the same time.
One of my concerns was the similarity between the two languages. I was worried that it would set me back. However, so far, I can say that my French benefits me instead in learning Italian. I struggled a little to get used to some differences, but nothing major. Just common challenges one usually finds when learning every language. I found that I was able to skip some grammar explanations that are similar to French and, instead, immediately focus on some details that requires more attention. I try to post one Italian notebook on italki every time I finished a lesson from my grammar book. These notebooks are filled with mistakes, which is not surprising, but at least I get to immediately put my Italian to use. It's something I wasn't able to do when I started learning French (since my previous language was English so I needed a lot of adjustments to switch from English to French). I also found a website that compares French and Italian, which comes in handy.
As for my French, I decided to put it aside for the moment. I still learn it but I mostly focus in Italian on daily basis. I learn French mainly on weekend. And because I've finished my French grammar book, most of the time I just try to practice by reading and writing.
In a nutshell, I'm glad that I don't have to start learning Italian from square one, thanks to my French. So I plan to continue learning this way while taking into account that I still have a long way to go and there are many things that need improvements. I thought I'd share my experience as a reference if anyone wants to try to learn more than one languages from the same roots, at the same time.
No comments:
Post a Comment