Secret no. 2 is a rather obvious one, but often overlooked.
The Second Secret of Learning Italian
Have you ever signed up for a fitness club membership in January, only to have given up going by March? (In fact, the fitness club industry bases its entire business model on the expectation that you will do just that – they sell many more memberships in the new year than they actually have space for, knowing that you will lose interest fairly soon!)
Motivation, then, is the key. If you have a REASON TO LEARN, your chances of mastering the Italian langugage are much higher. Italy is full of Polish cleaning ladies, FIllipino maids, North-African drug dealers and Russian domestic assistants (apologies to anyone offended by these sterotypes), who all speak Italian fluently because it is essential to earning a living, and who probably never attended a private lanaguge course.
Actually, language learning is a NATURAL human talent, and seems to happen almost “by magic” when we NEED to do it. Think of people who live in countries which have many languages in common use. African or Indian citizens with no more than a primary education, but who speak the language of their tribe or community, plus the langauge of the country, and maybe an international language (English, French) as well. If they can do it, so can you!
What does this mean for me?
First, you CAN learn Italian. Second, BE PATIENT, it’s going to take a while! Third, if you don’t have an obvious motivation (like being married to an Italian), FIND REASONS TO NEED THE LANGUAGE.
Read more: Secret no. 3