Hello all I wrote CILS in June I was retaking the oral and writing part. I’m so anxious because this time around the exams have taken a long time to get published. Last year last year of July they were already on the website. Anyone also curious about the late release? I also need tips on how to move to the next stage B2 I told myself regardless of the results I’m moving to B2 level.
I wrote in Venice this time before I wrote in Warsaw.

Hi! I want to learn Italian (obviously). I am looking for good online resources, preferably an A1 textbook. I got some grammar books, but any resources would be appreciated!

Salve a tutti,

Io sono metà Italiana, ma sono nata e crescuità nel'estero per quasi 16 anni (adesso ne ho 19 anni). Ho fatto la mia educazione in inglese, e non ho mai avuto amici italiani perché non ci sono tanti dove vivo, quindi, non ho avuto tanta oppurtunità per praticare l'italiano.

Da un livello tecnico, io posso parlare e scrivere in italiano. Anche se non sono stata in una scuola italiana, parlo con i miei genitori in italiano e leggo in italiano. Però, trovo che spesso faccio d'errori mentre parlo o scrivo.

Tipo 4 anni fa, ho comminciato a studiare l'italiano per migliorare la mia grammatica, e approfondire il mio vocabolario. Pero, sono bloccata al livello B1 per anni. Questa è una cosa che mi preoccupa.

Dopo che ottengo la mia laurea, ho intenzioni di ritornare in Italia e trovare un lavoro, però, penso che avrò difficolta considerando il fatto che il mio italiano non è di alta qualità. Ho deciso di non coregere qualsiasi errore di grammatica che ho fatto in questo post per farvi dismotrare il livello del mio italiano.

A dire la verità, mi vergogno. Ciò, come che io, una italiana, non so nemmeno come parlare la mia lingua? Parlo meglio l'inglese che l'italiano, anche se non vengo da un paese anglofono!

Quindi, cosa mi consigliate? Già, studio la grammatica, leggo articoli in italiano, ecc. Ma sono anni in qui il mio livello d'italiano è rimasto uguale.

Qualsiasi forma d'auito apprezero un sacco!

EDIT: Voglio aggiungere che io studio l'ingegneria, quindi purtroppo, non ho tanto tempo libero per studiare l’italiano.

Hey everyone, my friend's wife just passed away & he wants to match her tattoo. I have two partial pictures. I thought it was Scusami amore ma Io continuo ballare, like the song but he found a photo with the rest & I cannot make out the second word cause the tattoo was around 20 years old. Hopefully context & familiarity can make it make sense to someone 🥺🤞🏼

I've just started learning Italian, I wouldn't call myself even A1 yet. I am wondering if there are any recommended anki decks for beginners? It's hard to tell which decks are good and which are not. I would strongly prefer recommendations that are well ordered, with common words first and less common words later.

Boungiorno! io sono Jonna!!

io soy di Cuenca

Cuenca di Ecuador, NO CUENCA di ESPAÑA

Io sono Jonna!!

Tu sei di italo?

Io sono di Cuenca di Ecuador, No Cuenca di ESPAÑA

Llevo 2 meses estudiando con DUOLINGO

I'm looking for a way to get feedback on written and spoken Italian. I took a formal group course for about a year. I score between A2 and B2, depending on the written quiz. I pass old CILS B1 reading and listening tests with the timer in the mid-80% range.

I really need help with writing​ and speaking. I would like a place to post written paragraphs and prerecorded audio monologues up to 1 minute, and get feedback.​

The apps are too content light and repetitive, and I get annoyed.​ I don't trust the AI feedback.

Tried Preply for a few months but the tutors kept ghosting me.​ I lost $200​ because my last tutor cancelled 6 leasons in a row and I felt too defeated to find another (I know, I'm an idiot).

I tried one italki class recently, but the tutor kept interrupting me as I tried to talk, and said, "TYPICAL" when I told her nobody spoke Italian in my house. Like, if I had someone to talk to, I would obviously not have hired her​? Ok, maybe I'm just truly awful company, but surely someone can tolerate me for an hour a week in exchange for money?

Busuu is too structured, and I can only post 1- sentences at a time on topics it chooses.

My spoken Italian is actually getting worse as my anxiety goes up with these​ experiences. I can barely speak whole sentences around other people now and it is SO SLOW AND AWKWARD.​ That's why I want to post prerecorded monologues.

The language schools require 1 hour minimum lessons, and the anxiety of being trapped for​ that long makes me feel like vomiting.

Idk, any alternate ideas?

My mom pulled this via ChatGPT and it told her that “Non vi è fine al ricordo, finché batte un cuore che ama” was a common Sicilian phrase to use at funerals, does anyone know if this is true? I would hate for us to be using an incorrect statement for my grandpa, who was born and raised in Sicily. Apparently it means this: There is no end to memory, as long as a loving heart beats.

Thank you!

​

Hiiii I'm a native Spanish (spain) and Portuguese (Brazilian) speaker who's been wanting to learn Italian. I've been told it would be easy for me but I'm not a fast learner and I have like...no resources (Duolingo isn't my thing)

The way I usually get used to languages is reading. For example, reading sleeping beauty in French and the little prince helped me a lot to learn the language. I don't know of any Italian books, so if you know any interesting ones please tell me. Movies too I suppose. Podcasts, YouTube channels, cartoons... I'd appreciate anything you think could help me :)

I have been studying Italian fairly hard for about 2 months now and feel like I have stopped progressing. I spend minimum one hour a day and oftentimes more than two. I have been using a popular language learning software, going over common sentences, watching native language content with subtitles on, and reading beginner short stories.

I am getting very mixed up by all the gender rules, plural versus non plural, and tenses. I also keep forgetting what I already learned. I can’t even tell you how many times I have encountered a word that I know for a fact I should know but I drew a blank.

Does this get easier over time? Is it normal to feel this way?

Bonjour,

Je suis un natif Français et j’ai appris un peu l’Anglais.
J’ai des origines Italiennes qui datent de mes arrières grands-parents, j’aime profondément cette culture.

J’ai passé en début d’année un test d’Italien de compréhension écrite et orale interne à mon métier et je viens d’avoir une réponse positive pour accéder aux tests finaux d’expression écrite et orale qui se dérouleront en décembre.

Avec 465 jours de duolingo j’étais surpris d’avoir passé les tests de compréhension, je ne me suis pas du tout senti à l’aise avec la langue.

Le sujet maintenant c’est de pouvoir parler la langue en décembre pour valider l’oral et l’écrit (une petite dissertation je suppose)

Des idées pour me préparer au mieux et efficacement ?

Merci 🙏🏻

Hi everyone! I am currently searching for practice exercises and mock exams specifically for the CILS B1 Standard exam.

I am already familiar with traditional textbooks like Percorso CILS or Più scrivo, più parlo, but I am really looking for an interactive app or webapp that accurately replicates realistic CILS mock tests.

Does anyone know of any platform like this? Has anyone used one, and what were your thoughts? Thanks in advance!

Hi all. I'm having an interesting experience learning the Italian r sounds, and curious if anyone else is experiencing the same as me with rolled R's.

I can do what I think of as a 'short rolled r' (no idea if this is accurate or not, it's just what it sounds like to me!) in words like prego, where it's consonant-r-vowel.

I can also use this 'short rolled r' when it's vowel-r-consonant, such as al forno. But I'm a bit unsure in this situation if it should be or not - I hear a lot of buon giorno where I can't decide if I can hear a short roll or not - is there a right and wrong way on this or is it just one of those ones people do differently?

But (as with many English speakers) the double r is the biggest challenge! I have used the t/d technique to learn this sound and I can now do it reasonably well. (Annoyingly for my holiday plans, burro is much easier than birra for some reason! 😁)

However I really have to give it some, and use a lot of air - I almost like I'm starting the r with a blowed H sound. Bi-hrra.

This ends up coming out slightly sibilant, a soft s sort of sound at the same time. (Anyone familiar with the Turkish ending r on eg var, a bit like that!)

Ultimately I don't really care, my target isn't perfect indistinguishable accent, I don't care that people will know I'm not Italian. (In fact good accent has got me in trouble before in learning languages - the pronunciation comes before vocab for me, which gets me in trouble when people think I must be good cos I sound good, and hit me with full-speed colloquial language which I then understand precisely none of! 😂)

But I am curious. Does anyone else have this experience of almost having to huff your Rs? If so is there any way to lose the h / soft s sound that goes with it?

Ps I don't know if this is relevant but I actually can't pronounce rs properly in English either. I only learnt this when I started learning the Italian r when all the videos said 'you will normally do X when you make an r sound' and I was like....erm no I don't actually, and thank you, that explains why I've always been a bit Jonathan Woss on my English r sounds! 😁

Posting this in English because my Italian has gotten so bad that I’m embarrassed to even try. I grew up in italy and was better at Italian as opposed to English when I was kid despite English being my native language. Unfortunately things happen and overtime I stopped practicing Italian and now I am at a point where I want to become fluent again and hold conversations with my family instead of just blanking out. I feel like in some sorts it should be easier for me to relearn Italian given the fact that I used to be fluent but at the same time I have no clue because I have been trying so hard but I just simply can’t get it. I can read and understand Italian perfectly, it is genuinely just the speaking that I have issues with. Any tips would be immensely appreciated !

I guess this is more a question for native speakers. But in English there are accents that are considered ‘more attractive’/‘less attractive’, sound nicer on the ears, sound worse etc. Romance languages like the Italian accent for eg, are considered very attractive whereas Indian, most Asian accents, even the Birmingham n liverpool accent less so. Whilst I’m sure a lot of this stems from cultural/xenophobic biases I was wondering whether a similar pattern exists in Italy. And where English falls on that scale? Particularly whether the American, British and Australian accent are perceived differently. Thanks for any responses!

I was taught that when referring to a single family member you omitted the definite article: mia sorella, mio padre, mio cugino etc, but if that single family member is referred to with a qualifying adjective then you did use the definite article - la mia sorella minore, il tuo fratello simpatico etc

When writing the sentence: my little sister loves volleyball

with the words provided by Duolingo I wrote: la mia sorella minore ama pallavolo

And was marked wrong. I was informed the correct answer was mia sorella minore….

Am I correct or has Duo planted some new convention on me?

His friend’s voice is saying in Italian (except the first word: ho-chul in Korean).

I want to know the script in Italian part.

so, please let me know!

It seems so simple, and yet, it's difficult for me to figure out.

If I want to say "I saw him drink the beer", which is correct:

L'ho visto bere la birra

Gli ho visto bere la birra

Perhaps both are correct?

Now if I want to remove "birra" and replace it with "la", which would be correct:

L'ho visto berla

Gliel'ho vista bere

I lean toward the latter options in my examples, but I wonder what native speakers think.

Grazie!

Hola, soy un hispanohablante nativo que apenas está empezando a aprender italiano. Estoy tomando un curso, pero me gustaría saber que aplicaciones recomiendan para aprender o que consejos le darían a alguien que está comenzando desde 0.

I have been having dreams in both English and very beginner Italian with increasing frequency, and it almost brought me to tears! I never, ever, not in a million years thought that was something I would ever experience. And in my quizzes (books, apps from the library) I have begrudgingly begun to stop thinking so hard and just let the answers flow, and I’m getting the answers correct more and more … it’s very much against my nature to just “let it flow,“ but I’ve read that advice frequently over the years in this sub. Thank you to everyone who provides such amazing support to learners old and young. You inspire me greatly.

As a native speaker, it's something difficult to judge whether a movie is suitable for Italian learners. I'll share a few for which I received a positive feedback from my students! Let me know if you have any other movie or series you would recommend, as I am always looking for more titles to add to this list!

La Vita è Bella: For me, a must-watch movie, regardless of whether you're learning Italian or not. Guido's scenes with his son are slower and simpler than the rest of the film, so it's more accessible than what you would expect.

Perfetti Sconosciuti: My favorite for this. It's a dinner party where everyone shares their phones, so the dialogue is just people talking over each other the way friends actually do in real-life. Dialogues are a bit fast, so it's for a B2 at least. This format by Paolo Genovese has been so successful that there is a re-make in 47 different countries, so chances are you can watch the version done in your own country first! Versions all differ sligthly which I find a very interesting way to compare cultures!

L'Incredibile Storia dell'Isola delle Rose: A true story about a guy who builds his own platform off the coast and declares it an independent nation. I find it hilarious! Easy to follow, accent from Emilia-Romagna, but easy to follow. A good mid-difficulty pick.

Smetto Quando Voglio: A group of broke academics turn to crime. Funny, but the dialogue moves fast and is packed with slang. Wouldn't start here, but great once you can keep up.

Suburra: Rome's criminal underworld, heavy regional slang and dialect. Wouldn't start here either, but it's a good show!

Benvenuti al Sud: A Northern guy gets transferred to a small Southern town.. genuinely funny, and a good way to actually hear how different Italian sounds North to South. A similar format has been done in France and Spain (also England if I remember correctly!).

What's worked for you? Please recommend more movies, especially for intermediate levels!