Italian teacher responds to assumptions about Italian language (eng audio) 

To me Italian sounds like people are singing indeed, somewhat like an opera, the intonation etc, difficult to explain ❤

Thank you so much for posting all your videos. They're very helpful for us, those who study Italian.

Yes, Italian is very popular in Russia. I am from Russia and I have been studying Italian for 2 years. Thank you, Lucrezia. Your lessons are extremely useful.

i would be so interested in a video on dialects!

I'm a beginner, so I struggle with your videos. I'm going to persevere though.

I speak French fluently, not least because my wife is French speaking - we each speak our own language at home, so have our conversations in two languages simultaneously, which also meant our children grew up bilingual. When I started Italian I found it much more regular, but the verb tenses are more or less the same (though Italian seems to use both the subjunctive and the passato remoto/passé simple in a few more situations than French). The other thing I found helpful is that ninety percent of the time nouns have the same gender in both languages, and I still sometimes use one language to cross check the other! Ciao!

I love when you do this type of english videos explainning Italian language 🤓, i'm studying it, can you make a vídeo speaking Roman dialect? Please I want just to know how that sounds in case i meet someone at least i will know what that is

Lucrezia, sei così brava come sempre!👍🏻 Your English is so good!👍🏻

Interesting video! I believe I am intermediate-advance level and I find that you offer a lot of content for my level. Most channels are too elementary/introductory for me. I really like the videos you do in 100% Italian, because you speak at an appropriate speed with a nice variety of vocabulary. Keep up the great videos! P.S.: You speak English so well. Don't let the Negative Nancys of the world bother you!

Hahaha... when you mentioned the "mixing of languages" as dumb... I'm a Mexican-American and in my culture, we speak Spanglish. Where I live there are sooo many Mexican-Americans and we understand each other when we speak both languages in one sentence. (Sometimes we use it as "fill-ins" when we don't know the word in one language... if you know what I mean) By the way, your English is so good!!

Ho comunciato di imparare il italiano un mese fa perché faró un semestre all'estero in Italia quest'autunno. Penso che i tuoi video mi aiutano molto! (I hope that was somewhat comprehensible. I've only been learning for a month)

How many languages do you speak Lucrezia? I speak both Italian and English. Your answers are very accurate. Thank you!

Ciao, Lucrezia. Ho 54 anni. E’ troppo tardi per me? Mi dispiace che io non parlo o scritto Italiano molto bene. Che bella lingua. Tu parli Inglese molto bene!

Thank you so much for you explanation, here in my country there are many dialects.

Mi dispiace ma non ho capito niente 😁. Just kidding! Are you also fluent in other languages? Le français peut-être ? I've noticed many Italians speak French (it's my mother language actually).

BIG thumbs up, Lucrezia! Your level of English is very impressive given the 10% you said you use it. I wish I could speak half of the Italian as you do with English. I’m determined to master Italian and you really make it fun and empowering. Way to go, Girl!

Io apprezzo molto tuoi video imparo moltissimo!!!! però, quando solo parli in inglese a volte non capito tutto. Anche sì io so un po'... La mie lingue madre e spagnolo e me piacerebbe moltissimo che tu scrivessi sottotitoli en italiano quando parli solo in inglese, quello mi aiuterebbe molto a capire le che tu parli, ti ringrazio il tempo è per essere tu stessa sempre, che fai un video... sei molto brava en inglese non ho dubbi, ma non solo io , che sono latina, ti ascolto. Tutti il mondo... Woooowow quello deve essere molto per te !!!!!😄

Hi Lucrezia! I'm a beginner in Italian. I discovered your channel a couple of weeks ago and I find it super helpful. I also started listening to your podcast. Grazie Mille.

Lmaoooooo honestly since I know Spanish and English its very easy to understand italian, like duolingo is basically useless for me. a channel like yours really helps me hear how Italian is spoken regularly/ properly and prevents from talking some wierd spangliano type crap like if I were left alone I would end up making my own language xD

A few responses to the assumptions (as I watch!) - Italian has long words - I am a native English speaker (I also speak french, german and danish to varying levels) and I find myself contracting words like "apparentemente" to "apparamente" because it just feels too long from what I am used to in other languages, so i have to really concentrate to get it right! But I agree German compound words are the longest I know... - Passato Remoto/Congiuntivo - I've been learning italian for 6 months now and I love the congiuntivo, it's so satisfying to get right!! Passato remoto is hard to remember but i don't find it's super hard to use. for me prepositions are the hardest thing about italian (so far...!) - I have never studied Spanish and I cannot understand it very well at all, despite knowing French and (some) Italian Also I think the idiom you might have been looking for is "nothing worth doing is ever easy" :) - at least that's the one I thought of!! Thanks for this video! :)

Lu...you're simply amazing....I'm following you on instagram and I'd like to do a live with you talking about phonetics in the singing and speaking voice...

In English we say "Nothing worthwhile comes easy!'' Mi piace molto il tuo vlogs!! Ciaooo!

Hi Licrezia I'm a beginner in Italian language. Hola Lucrezia soy principiante en el idioma italiano ,mi idioma natal es el español y me gracias a tu canal espero ir aprendiendo más y más. Saludos desde El Salvador 🇸🇻

I would say Norwegian and Swedish are quite similar. Italian and Spanish are definitely different. I found Italian to be grammatically close to French.

So if u studied German, could u make a video for German-speaking learners of Italian? I personally am from Austria and I’m learning Italian in school :) I came to the conclusion that English speakers have a lot of different problems learning Roman languages compared to us

Spero che il tuo canale diventi così grande un giorno! Parlo già italiano, ma mi piace cmq guardare i tuoi video. Tutti devono imparare l'italiano. Sei una brava insegnante :D

You have a strong American accent when you speak Italian. This is the first time I have heard you speak English. When I was studying Italian at Scuola Leonardo da Vinci in Rome in 2012 there were lots of Russian students, mostly young women. Love from Australia. 🌻🙏🦋🇦🇺

I think you should start a new series called "Italian For Opera Fans."

Yeah! Italian is quite popular in Russia 😏❤

Lucrezia, I am very impressed with your English. You have amazing annunciation skills. If only my Italian skills could be as good as my English skills but I still have a difficult time when it comes to making a full coversation. Aiutami per favore. Il tuo amico Vasilio Sarris.

Italian is very popular in Russia.... Hmmm, maybe just as a foreign language learned by many russians. Of course it's not so popular as English, but comparing with other European language it's quite popular, yes. I'm living is St. Petersburg and learn Italian because I often visit Italy and have Italian friends.

I'm begginer, i learn english, spanish, italian, russian in the same time but i have a wayyyy better level in english than the others languages i'm B1, A2 in spanish and A0 in italian and russian too but i have a better russian than italian and i'm an arabic and french native speaker. P-S I looove your channel !

Awesome video! Thank you

Yes, Italian and Spanish have a lot of mutual intelligibility (not total), but it's more true if you can speak one of them as a well literate native. If you just can speak a little Spanish probably you can understand nothing in Italian! I used to be in a holiday with two Spanish girls and we can talk to each other's, but we often have to say a concept many time using different words, a lot of strange synonymous or ancient words to find one who is similar to the other's language.

Heyyyy🎈 talking about Russia, it's 100% true! We adore Italian culture, cuisine, music and ofc LANGUAGE! 😍 btw there are so many unis, where Italian is taught, even in not so big cities like Moscow: for example I'm studying Italian as the second language after English , and I live in a city with 1 mln citizens for the record ✨

Wonderful i love your sobriety in all langages

Oooooh you're speaking English so well ! I've watched you for a while had no idea haha only ever heard you speak Italian

hehe, it's such a joy, when you start learning a language and you watch for example some random advert or some random poster somewhere in the city or a label on something in a store or a road sign in some news in tv and you suddenly notice that you actually understand what it says... it's like a miracle of some sort

would there be one with an italian audio? sto imparando italiano e quindi voglio provare a capire senza sottotitoli! grazie mille :) (i really like your videos btw!!)

Great in from Panama and y native anguage is Spanish and my second language is English and now i would like to speak Italian

Here in Veneto many immigrants speak the local dialect, that is still widespread.

it comes from lazyness and disrespect all latin languages are different so study them properly in latin america so many of my spanish friends don't want to take the time to learn portuguese because they have the mistaken impression that you can show up in brazil and speak spanish and everybody is going to understand becuase the languages are close.and it doesn't work

Very true about it being a long journey to learn a language. I think it was Luca who said it's a marathon not a sprint.

Hi Lucrezia, tell me where did you learn your beautiful English?

When people speak Italian, even after learning all these years the words sound longer than they should, like it is out of sync. Its's hard to explain, but I will usually catch some of what is said, while thinking the other half is a separate word, or one word is; two. However this is my own fault, as I have studied grammar with minimal listening, or speaking which creates trouble when saying these longer words. Onto the translations of words: Saying; fire alarm is very confusing, or hard "il campanello dell'allarme anti-incendio" like is that really correct? Or is that like an official word? Is there a shorter way to say fire alarm? Even the word for hangover is "postumi della sbornia." These make me understand why some of the natives use English in Italian, except a native speaker would get over this by creating slang for those words which makes me still disagree with the use of English. I understand scientific, or technological words, as well and even foreign borrowing like "collant" because we do the same in English however we would never replace the word beautiful with Bella, and if you look at the argument in songs we do the same, as the Italian artists which again is more subjective, and for the creativity of the work rather than to sound cool.

For people who live abroad and have Italian heritage, would you recommend they learn the dialect their family speaks?

Last jear I was walking to Rome and had begun to learn Italian half a year before. At first I just understood very much but couldn´t express myself, but in Rome finally I was speaking Italian very fine for like 10 month studies. Not at all fluent, but I understood most things if not said super fast. On this path I was speaking to a guy and couldn´t understand anything he said, I guess it was a strange dialect. I just moved on after him not changing anything on his speech. I also was able to hear some reginal dialect variations, it was funny in the north the said grazie almost like the spanish gracias but gracie. i´m mainly watching this chanell not to loose all of the italian I´ve got. I also had one time they spoke to me with voi, like I was more than one, I guess thats a regional variant of a polite version, because in my studies I learned Lei as the polite version. I often misspoke in italy and used spanish words or if I was thinking of an word I also often used english words of Latin origin and used them just pronunced a bit more Italian, but they understood and it was most of the time working. For me the main difference between spanish and italian is the pronunciation. Yes, there is sometime different grammar. Yes, there are some similar words with different meaning, but all in all it´s widely mutual intelligible, acording to my expieriences or what native Italian or Spanish people said to me. Especially if you know how the changes between Italian and Spanish work. I think it´s more easy for an Italian to understand a Spanish than for a North German to understand a Swiss German.

Your English is amazing! (I was an English/Dutch teacher until my retirement).

Hi lucrezia lam a beginner and love your channel , can you give me some tips on how to be good at it . thank you for any help paul x

I think German is easier when it comes to spelling, I'm a native English speaker though so everyone will have their own perspective on it. All languages take work, too many people like the idea of knowing many languages, but they don't like the work which is necessary to achieve it. The goal is always more attractive than the drudgery of making it happen, that's true for everything, it's like they say, it's easier to enjoy a meal than to prepare it.

how are you house today l many to speak Italian Thank so much

One of the main reasons I chose your channel at first was that you didn't have a video on hand gestures!!! It reminds me of the touristic thing about Londoners using rhyming slang. Ugh. The most distinctive thing I've noticed in Italian is the habit of starting words with s followed by a wide variety of other consonants. Is it fair to say you use s in the way we use 'un' in English? Eg, sfortunato?

I’m a beginner. Probably even before a beginner really 😂 just have some phrases down, but isolated phrases no real understanding of semantics and grammar.

You're very competent, I'm glad I found you on RU-vid, Lucrezia

Tu hai torto, parlero italieno è trei facilo, ilo fauto solamente ciangiere E a la fino dei moti en A, S en I et aggiuntero O si la moto encora termina en consonanto. (Compare my hopefully correct translation: Tu hai torto, parlare italiano è molto facile, bisogna solo cambiare E a la fine delle parole in A, S in I ed aggingere O se la parola ancora finisce in una consonante.) French and Italian are definitely related on a grammatical and vocabulary level, but it's nowhere as close as, say, Spanish and Portuguese, or Italian and Neapolitan.

Can lhep you please help me

My friend Francesca is from Avellino and she says you speak with a neutral dialect. I also speak Spanish and I agree w/ you that Spanish and Italian aren't that similar. I have noticed that Francesca understands me when I speak Spanish better than when I speak English.

Your videos definitely help me. But, I'm not 100% sure what level I'm in... I understand almost everything you say in the vlogs but speaking it would take longer for me to do. Maybe I'm about a intermediate-advanced learner

i lived for two semesters in italy (one in rome, one in sicily) and my main assumption is, that italians are always talking shit about somebody :'D

I am biggenery

Having watched many, many of your videos in the last 3 years, in Italian... and now hearing you speaking English... it's almost like "hey, I can finally understand Italian perfectly!!!"... uh, no, wait, she's speaking English this time 😀

pourquoi non français nous qui ne comprenons pas l'inglish on fait quoi

I like your accent a lot

My Italian assumption: No matter how much you study or learn Italian, you will NEVER sound like a native. Change my mind.

My big problem is how to pronounce GLI and when I ask my Italian friends they say to me that they can't help me because it's their mother tongue they don't know how to teach it

Prima di tutto, Lucrezia, come sempre, hai fatto un gran lavoro. Perdonami per darti il tu. Non sono maleducato, pero', ho quasi sempre 70 anni. Penso che il galeteo italiano dica e' OK. THIS COMMENT IS FOR NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKERS (I AM ONE) who are attempting to teach themselves Italian, who are not trying to learn Italian in a college setting. I spent many years buying different books, different CD programs, heavily marketed programs too, like the Rosetta Stone--which I sent back shortly after buying it. Lucrezia's advice is wonderful. Truly, the "Cliff's Notes" grammar book for Italian, is: Living Italian, A Grammar Based Course, by Maria Valgimigli. IF one doesn't remember grammar terminology well, the best book I ever found is: English Grammar for Students of Italian, by Sergio Adorni and Karen Primorac. [I have no connection to the companies nor the authors for either of these books.] I would recommend to native tongue English speakers that they do some research on Steven Krashen's theory of second language acquisition (especially comprehensible input). It will help you think about your approach to learning a new language. Emphasizing grammar rules will destroy your enjoying learning Italian. That said, without a skeleton, i.e., a grammatical understanding of Italian, one necessarily is a jellyfish. Lucrezia is absolutely correct that the subjunctive (il congiuntivo) is not dead--but, that doesn't mean that Italians generally themselves use it correctly, but, trust me, they do use it. The BIG problem English speakers will have is that the subjunctive results in essentially 4 verb tenses that don't exist in English, and these 4 tenses are for each and every Italian verb. (Technically, it is a "mood".) Just don't fear you can't communicate without understanding it. I could say that if viewing Italian as constructing a 10 story, high rise building, the subjunctive and the conditional in Italian are the top 2 or 3 floors. You can't get to them without the lower floors. You will find inhabiting the Italian language within the first 7 or 8 floors wonderful, even if you never finish out the building. If you want to inhabit the penthouse, learn both the subjunctive and the conditional. FINALLY, if you have a foundation in Italian grammar--let's even assume you are quite good at the grammar--yes, you must speak it, but, find some Italian language youtubes that you enjoy listening to--I suggest no longer than 15 minutes in length--that you have a sense of at least 60 or 70 % of what is being said. If you don't know all the youtube shortcuts to pause, repeat, back up, go forward, change speads, etc., you can find them easily with a google search. After listening several times, when you come to vocabulary you don't know, find it with various online dictionaries. You will have issues if the speaker uses the subjunctive a lot if you don't know how it works. If the speaker does, try find something simpler. But, if you then use an online or hardcopy dictionary, you can fill in some vocabulary gaps. If you find something you enjoy listening to and you do it over and over and over, and understand what is being said, you are rewiring your subconscious mind, impregnating your mind, so that when you do actually want to speak, words are there you weren't aware were there. These are my subjective opinions. We each find our own way to do the things we love to do.

Beginner, french living in sicily, love your chanel!

Sono l'unico italiano a guarda sto video?

alcol! alcol finisce con una consonante :D

Ciao professoressa!!! Tu sei veramente brava!!! It was great to see you speaking English... Maybe someday you will study Portuguese (my mother language)... O português é a língua para falar com Deus e os anjos do céu... 😉😊😁

I try to write as much as I can in Italian . I could even find some Italian to whom I write alot thus it helps me so much cos it brings confidence to myself and the more I write the more I learn

Hi Lucrezia ,l.m so glad I've discovered your channel..I've always considered the italian language so beautiful and I hope I'll be able to learn it..Grazzie mille Greetings from Greece..

i’m a beginner 😊

Il mio padre quando sta in Italia sempre parle in francese, sempre ho un po' di vergogna XD. Pero generalmente funziona. XD

Parla alcuni dialetti?

Grazie mille! I found oit this videos really help me, and altho i'm not comfortable writing in italian i still like to practice my listening skills by listening your videos.

hi and thank you for welcoming me to your channel. Now stop being sooooo drop dead gorgeous. I can't pay attention to what you are saying because I am mesmerized by your beauty, :-D

sono un beginner

How dare you speak in English. 😂 I speak Spanish and I did think it would be similar. It makes it easier pronouncing the words but it’s definitely not the same. 👍🏼

I love your English accent!

I love how it sounds, I love how you explain it. Grazie Millie per questo video

You are strange., I learned a lot of Neapolitan (dialetto) thanks to Mare Fuori, then Pizzofalcone, Mina Settembre, etc. and I have never lived in Italy and I wouldn't make a caricature of them. In fact, Spanish helps because they say tengo fame, in Spanish tengo hambre, ven aca (it sounds exactly the same as Spanish) I like it assai. On the other hand, you say computer, but with Italian pronunciation. You say week end but you pronounce really badly. Let me tell you that Spanish helps a lot. I think you have no idea what you are saying.

Interesting video : as for me (french), italian is quite easy but of course like every language, it takes time to learn it and the best way to speak it fluently would be to spend à few months in Italy.

I'm from Russia and I'd like to learn Italian. But I can't say that it's popular here. There is too much people here so of course in Russia you'll meet more lovers than in other countries

Could you maybe do a story on Instagram sometime with Roman dialect? I live in Napoli so I love hearing other accents and dialects. It's so interesting!

That flex at 13:14 🇷🇴💪

Hi Lucrezia! It was interesting to hear you speak in English because I could get a better grasp of your overall speaking style (understanding English well and being a beginner Italian student). It was also fun to see your "Italian personality" (I don't like stereotyping but of course the cultures we've been brought up in do affect our thinking and communication style) come through better this way, some how.. To me you seem very strongminded, rational and precise which was really cute to see for me :) I'm Finnish myself. In my country people often use softer, very subdued expressions. Thanks for fantastic videos. Keep it up!

Amazing channel, great content, you make Italian easy to learn., my first language is Russian, although i was born in Latvia, currently located in Portugal, learning Portuguese and Italian at the same time, i wish there would be a teacher, just like yourself for Portuguese language, you are amazing, grazie mille Lucrezia!

I hope I’m not making a caricature when I speak Italian. I kind of decided that when I’m speaking Italian, I shouldn’t feel embarrassed because it’s really part of who I am now.

It would be nice if you did a video about the languages you speak and how you learned them! In italian so we can practice! I speak brazilian portuguese (native), english, spanish and I just started italian classes officially last week (after a few attempts of learning from apps) Thanks for the video! Ps. You should try Portuguese!!!

I took three years of Spanish in high school and it somewhat helped me in Italy. I am part Mexican (mother’s side of the family) and part Italian (father’s side of the family). I spoke a blend of Spanish, English (American English), and the very little Italian I know. I feel awful if I came off disrespectful to my Italian culture. I want to relearn Spanish, learn Italian, and then French.

Brava! I am a native English speaker who learned to speak Spanish fluently and lived in Spanish speaking countries for ten years. Then I decided to learn the language of mio nonno. My experience is that Spanish helped a lot because the verb structure and pronunciation are very similar. But, I agree with Lucrezia that they can be quite different and, yes, it requires work.

Ciao Lucrezia! I'm from Poland and here Italian is also very popular. I'm so happy that I've found your channel! I've been learning Italian for about 8 yrs and still do. But I don't have a possibility to have a conversations with native Italians, just my polish teacher, so I was looking for Italian RU-vid channels and that's how I've found you ;) In Poland many people think that Italian is easy language. In fact pronounciation is very similar to polish but it has a completely different grammar, tenses etc. And a lot of exceptions (which is not as surprising since in polish is even more🤣)

Grazie Lucrezia (da Italiano) ! Se un giorno gli "stranieri" capiranno l'Italiano come cultura contemporanea, e non solo come rappresentazione sterotipata, sarà grazie a te. Dovrebbero farti cavaliere del lavoro, per il grande impatto che hai. Queste cose come spiegare che è difficile, ma che ogni cosa worth it richiede impegno, che non si può essere superficiali (e forse un po' "arroganti") nell'equiparare lo Spagnolo all'Italiano, che è un classico di certi stranieri, che il congiuntivo non è un nemico, ma anche tutti gli altri vlog dove immergi chi ti segue nella realtà quotidiana, con grandissimo garbo, e intelligenza, sono importantissimi. Sei molto calma diplomatica, corretta, chiara, ma anche molto chiara su chi siamo davvero. Oltre lo sterotipo. Grande lavoro, grazie a nome di tutti gli Italiani che ti apprezzano e ti seguono. Sei anche una eccellente vlogger. I tuoi followers già ti fanno mille complimenti, meritati. Aggiungi un apprezzamento da chi è nativo Italiano, vive a Milano, e capisce il grande impatto di quello che fai. Vali tu da sola più di un intero "Ministero del turismo". Salutone.

Your English sounds so natural. I have known Italians who seem to add an Italian “e” sound at the end of an English word, particularly if it ends in a consonant. I have not noticed anything like this with you. Where did you learn such good English? I love your channel, your Italian is like music to the ear.

I'm not sure if this has been said, but there are many of us "Italians" who were raised or even born in other countries, who only ever learnt or heard dialect. For me, I learn Italian to be able to communicate with all Italians not just those of a small village in the south. I make this point as I know many Italian people throughout the world that face this issue and learn Italian for this reason. I also support the point you make, that it is not worth learning dialect, unless you have mastered standard Italian. Anyway, great video thanks.

Ciao Lucrezia sonó d’accordo Con tutte le cose che hai detto. Io imparavo Italiano quasi 20 anno fa. Purtroppo non ho l’oppurtunita di parlarne molto! In questo momento sto imparando lo spagnolo, e E vero che ci sonó tante cose simile con le due lingue ma I aggetivi sonó completamente diverso. Grazie per i tuoi vídeo! Saluti dall’inghilterra!

I'm curious if learning certain Italian dialects is important to Italians? Sicilian and Neapolitan are of particular interest for me. I do want to learn the "core" or standard Italian first but do Italians think it's important to learn multiple dialects? Thanks in advance. EDIT: Wrote this while the video was playing, caught up to your comments on dialect. :)

I am fluent in English and Spanish and i definitely think learning Italian from my Spanish perspective is easier but only compared to English. It is not as easy as people think! A few words and phrases you could figure out reading but not speaking. Glad i found your channel!

Lucrezia, your English is truly amazing!! My Italian has gotten rusty but I'm always thankful that I can come to your channel to review or simply hear spoken Italian when I need to. :)