No time to read this? Why not find something to study instead? A1 – Beginner/Elementary | A2 – Pre-Intermediate | B1 – Intermediate | B2 – Upper-Intermediate | C1 – Advanced | C2 – Proficiency | What’s my level? | Italian level test
+++
Buondì.
Lately I’ve been feeling my age, which is fifty-eight, and planning for some sort of ‘retirement’, one that will hopefully involve doing less, though having a much-reduced income, too.
Like a lot of people, I once had big plans for life, but as the decades passed, health issues intruded, and the needs of adult children and a succession of rescue animals took priority, they tended to get set aside, if not entirely forgotten.
The plan now is more about downsizing my extensive committments (multiple businesses, multiple websites, etc.) with a view to simplifying things for anyone having to sort things out ‘after’, and making the interim period (days, months, years, perhaps decades) less hectic and more enjoyable.
In the area of Bologna where I live it’s increasingly common for small businesses such as clothing and hardware stores to disappear: first there’s an optimistic ‘business for sale’ sign, then – when there are no takers – an ‘everything must go’ promotion, then just an empty window, until the shutters finally come down and the real estate agent’s sign goes up.
Don’t these people have kids who could take over the businesses they’ve spent their lives building?
Well perhaps, but adult children tend to have their own plans, and besides, the world keeps turning until local clothing and hardware stores are no longer part of it. We have megastores now, and the Internet.
Similarly, at some point there will be no OnlineItalianClub.com. It would only take another stroke, and articles like this one would cease.
But in any case, who uses websites these days? For years now it’s all been apps, on tablets or smartphones. Half the world no longer has a computer and cares nothing of what a website is. If it’s not in the Apple store, it’s already gone the way of bows and arrows.
OnlineItalianClub.com still gets lots of people ‘joining’ of course, and some of them actually read these articles, but it’s a continuing battle to get people to actually use the free materials on the website (and the other websites, see the P.S.)
Beh, grumble grumble, don’t I sound old today? Yeah, I know! Give myself a shake and get on with it, I’m not a quitter, etc. etc.
And yet things move so fast these days (Help! A.I. is coming to eat our livelihoods) it seens crazy not to be focused on an exit strategy. That’s to say conscious, deliberate quitting, rather than the unconscious, accidental sort.
Which brings me to why you should quit studying Italian, or in my case Swedish, French, Spanish and Turkish (I’m pondering learning some German but…)
First of all, many people reading this will have already quit, or never begun.
People tell me all the time that they used to study Italian, and still read my articles, but actually…
Or they sign up for the club (and/or for EasyItalianNews.com, see below) yet never actually put the free resources they are presented with to good use.
That’s what I mean by ‘unconscious, accidental’ quitting, and to be fair, I’m as guilty of it as anyone else.
But there are other club members, surprisingly many, who study and study and seemingly don’t know when to stop.
What follows is for you guys, the language-learning clothes/hardware store owners who open their businesses each day for decades, always confident that their efforts will be appreciated and one day passed on to grateful heirs.
First of all, you do know you’re mortal, right?
That in the end, we’re all dust?
That all that studying, the conjugations, conjunctions and congiuntivi will one day be entirely in vain?
OK, just checking!
So, assuming we’re on the same page here, then whatever ‘studying’ you do is either because you enjoy the heck out of it (like doing crosswords or puzzles), or it’s IN PREPARATION FOR SOMETHING.
That something could be a holiday, perhaps, or retiring to Italy (crazy idea, in my opinion), or understanding Italian operas, or reading Italian books, or having something to do with your day instead of vegetating in front of the TV, or making friends, or a myriad of other reasons.
But either you’re studying for the sheer joy of it, or it’s for something. And if it’s the latter, then – at some point – you should quit studying Italian, ‘punto e basta’.
If you now have enough Italian to listen to operas in the original, or whatever lofty goal you set yourself years back, well then, quit studying.
Quit with the grammar exercises and vocabulary lists, stop going to lessons, and in the time you’ve freed up get on and enjoy life!
A common objection to this argument?
But I haven’t ‘finished’, I still don’t understand ‘everything’, I still can’t… and so on and so forth.
Fine, if you don’t want to quit studying Italian, then don’t. Just be conscious that it’s the studying itself that’s the goal, not something that comes ‘after’.
There’s no ‘after’, at least not for you.
This is not a religious polemic, by the way, so please don’t write in to chastise me. If you believe in heaven, or your religion’s equivalent, then fine. But there’s nothing in religious texts – as far as I’m aware – to suggest you’ll need Italian when you get there.
So there you go. Be a strategic thinker about your language learning.
When it’s time to quit studying, quit studying. Or do less of it. Or study some specific element that interests you particularly.
Studying doesn’t have to go on for ever, that’s my point.
Learning, on the other hand…
The current state of play with my Swedish is that I never, ever study. Haven’t for years. I did a few months of the basics from a book, then just took it from there, with conversation lessons online, reading, listening to the radio, and so on.
Yes, I’m well aware of my frequent, multiple errors, and conscious that – were I to actually study – I could improve the quality of my spoken/written Swedish and potentially understand written and audio texts with greater ease (as I would know more words etc.)
But I don’t bother, because I’m learning anyway, just by listening to the radio most days, and chatting to my conversation partner once a week.
It’s no miracle language-learning solution, but it is deliberate and sustainable.
More importantly though, I quit studying Swedish (many years ago now) because I felt I had ‘enough’, so the resources to do what I wanted to do. Understand a bit, chat a bit, read a bit, feel a little part of things.
The studying was the introduction to the language, not the whole learning path.
These days when I need some company, so switch on the radio, it’s as likely to be Swedish as Italian (point of principle, I never listen to English, except TV).
When I was in the stroke ward of Ospedale Maggiore back in 2021 (my claim to fame: Ayrton Senna was treated there after his fatal crash at Imola), I remember listening to Swedish radio on my headphones/smartphone to block out the hospital noises, and because it was familiar.
Italian hospitals never serve coffee for breakfast, by the way. It’s tea or orzo, only. Another reason not to consider retiring here!
If I’ve inspired you to consciously and deliberately quit studying Italian, then good. No need to feel bad about it. There was no finish line in any case. Just stop and go do something else.
Or perhaps you’ll reflect on WHY you’re doing what you’re doing, what you get from it, and consider whether there might be better options…
Either way, the clock’s ticking, so enjoy,.
Alla prossima settimana!
P.S.
And here’s the usual reminder to read/listen to Tuesday’s FREE bulletin of ‘easy’ Italian news (I already complained about the ship picture, to save you a job.)
The regular text + audio bulletins are a fantastic, FREE way to consolidate the grammar and vocabulary you’ve studied, as well as being fun and motivating!
Take a look at their website to get started on improving your Italian immediately!
And/or get all three text + audio bulletins of ‘easy’ news emailed to you each week, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, subscribe (they really are FREE) by entering your email address on this page and clicking the confirmation link that will be sent to you.
+++
OnlineItalianClub.com | EasyItalianNews.com | Shop (ebooks) | Shop (online lessons)
Kelli says
Charge an access fee or subscription for access to the website. Please don’t
just shut it down !
Colleen says
I love learning-NOT studying Italian. I began by wanting to know exactly what I was singing when I was assigned Italian songs & arias. I was already enjoying listening to the language. Then i subscribed here and I started watching Italian movies ( no subtitles) and listening to RAI and youtube -on subjects I already knew about. Crochet, cooking, gardening -music-whatever conversations interested me. I may never actually speak Italian- but I love reading and listening. When I visited Italy I was able to get along pretty well. Italians are forgiving if the grammar isn’t quite right. I lived in France and spoke French fairly fluently, ..
Thank you for this club! I enjoy your Newsletters! I was especially grateful for the book club !
Mayken says
Daniel, are you alright?
I’m a bit worried about you after reading this newsletter.. It sounds like you’re suffering from depression. At any rate, it sounds very gloomy.
Please do take good care of yourself. And don’t shut down this website, or stop writing the newsletters. (Though a little more cheerfulness would be nice.)
I belong to the group of students who have not reached their defined goal yet, and who also enjoy the ride. I’m looking forward to each lesson with one of your teachers, and to hopefully attending your school for a week next year, and to mastering the challenge of verb tenses (yes really), because I love languages and I love that Italian is so much easier than Russian (I only gave up on that after a long fight and two language-school trips there in the long-ago days when you could still do that) , and I’ve loved Italy for a long time and hope I’ll get to go there many times (but not retire, I’m fine here in France).
I had so much fun there on a five-day trip (including two days on trains, with delays and cancellations and all), asking people “Please let me practise speaking Italian with you”..
I don’t use your free resources much, apart from EIN (thank you for that!) because I get good material from my teacher, and every once in a while I’ll buy and read one of your easy readers books (thank you for those too!).
So please don’t stop, there are students out here who need you and your resources!
Lynne F says
Like Colleen I love learning as opposed to studying. Studying conjures up the idea that it is something you do to pass an exam. Whilst learning, I see as a key to open up doors. to discover new things. Through my learning journey I have acquired many new skills, discovered talents I didn’t know I had and gained the confidence to move beyond my comfort zone, This journey has taken me to different places, sample different cultures and meet different peop[e
Linda says
Thanks for another thought-provoking article. (And fancy Italian hospitals not serving coffee with breakfast… How’s anyone going to get better…?)
Peter Salmon says
Life moves on, and I can well understand you looking to the time when there’s no longer an OnlineITalianClub. Meanwhile, it’s a great resource – I made good use of the listening/reading exercises in the past. And the Italian history summer series were great. I always enjoy your articles. It’s taken a while for your message to be hammered in. But now, yes, I’m content to have no ‘goals’ for learning except to ‘learn’ in a way that’s stimulating and enjoyable in its own right. The crucial thing is that ‘lessons’ with my on-line teachers are rewarding as conversations – we can talk about the two nations’ politics, or our lives, or about Italian novels that they’ve recommended to me and that often we’re both reading at the same time. Even occasionally puzzling out grammar can be fun for it’s own sake, especially when it’s bizarre. Maybe I’ll interact more easily the next time I’m in Italy, but I know that’s not the point. So thanks, Daniel, for the club, and I’ll enjoy your articles and encouragement while it continues.
Helen says
Due to the fact that I’m recovering from a hip replacement op (2weeks ago) and I m spending a lot of my time asleep or just thinking, I’ve only just read your email. I always listen to EIN, I look forward to your now weekly emails and have a ‘lesson’ most weeks with one of your teachers. It’s because of you that I listen to RAI radio, have enjoyed films in Italian, read books in Italian, made an Italian friend whom I have met in Italy twice and meet up with often via Skype and really, just enjoying everything Italian Please don’t stop your emails, EIN or anything else you do for the club.
Ebrar says
Thank you for this piece (and the website and EIN – I regularly listen to it-). It was a fun reading and opened a room to reflect on!
Gretchen Whitford says
Great read, it helps me to put my reasons and learning Italian into perspective, and to enjoy the process. Thank you!
Chris Jolley says
Thanks Daniel, I do love your weekly blogs, grumpy or controversial or whatever they may be. This week you wrote the best line ever for me, which mi ha fatto ridere….
Quote.. “This is not a religious polemic, by the way, so please don’t write in to chastise me. If you believe in heaven, or your religion’s equivalent, then fine. But there’s nothing in religious texts – as far as I’m aware – to suggest you’ll need Italian when you get there.”
BUT, what about hell?? Maybe some of us ought to read Dante ‘cos he wrote a lot about it in Italian, I believe.
Learning stuff I do,
I read out loud to myself along with your son while he reads EIN, it can very difficult to keep up with him, but with 3 times a week practice over the 9 months since I thought of doing it, I’m getting much better. It seems to help with my confidence in speaking, and my ability to get my mouth round the words.
Here in the UK we were recently sacked from having Eurosport to watch the Giro d’Italia on (corporate greed in spades), so I’ve taken to watching it live through a VPN on Rai 2. Great Italian listening practice, 3 hours plus of constant talk, beautiful countryside to look at as they pass through, and quite a lot of repetition to help you remember some of the words. (3 weeks of the Tour de France coming soon on Rai 2! )
If you like discovering Italian places, another great programme on Rai is Linea Verde. I’ve been watching it for 3 years off and on. At the start it was just pretty pictures mostly, but now I can understand a lot of what they are talking about. It’s a wonderful insight into Italian life and beautiful places that you could visit, instead of the Vatican or St Mark’s Square, or the “tourist forsaken” Rialto bridge.
Stop studying Italian….yes, learning… never, so I can at least say “buon giorno” at the Pearlies!
I’ll keep enjoying your great site until you retire or I’m a goner.
Daniel says
Some great tips there, Chris. Do something you enjoy, do it over time.
Watching cycling is a great idea because, as you say, it goes on for ages, there’s something to look at, and lots of repetition. TV is a great idea in general. You might need to explain what a VPN is though…
Thanks for contributing!
Mary Wilson says
Thank you Chris for mentioning ” Linea Verde.”
I completely agree! Watching, reading, “doing ” something in Italian that you enjoy makes learning really easy … and there are so many things that fall into that category : following a recipe, listening to music, watching a film, reading a book, following sporting events etc,etc. I too have a VPN, but there are also lots of things to access on YouTube.
I avoid anything I really wouldn’t go for in English, but I do give soaps and discussion programmes a go. You never know…sometimes I do get hooked in.
Finally I have to admit that I really enjoy Italian pop music. I recommend taking a look at the three entries in Italian from the 2025 Eurovision song contest (Non volevo essere un duro/ Caffe macchiato/ Tutto Italia). I guarantee they will make an impression!
Lucinda says
Great idea to read along out loud with Easy Italian News!
I’m going to try to add that to my current method: (1) listen without reading to see how much I can comprehend just from listening, (2) listen while reading to see how far off I was from just listening, (3) translate a few words that seem important but that I’m unfamiliar with (or that sounded like something else so led me down the wrong path).
Adding another time through trying to read out loud along with “the news announcer” seems like a great addition!
And similar to your Rai 2 experience, the past two years I’ve watched all/most of the San Remo Music Festival on RaiPlay . . . so hours and hours of italian music and speaking with no translating captions . . . By the end of each festival I really have Italian on the brain 🙂
So I agree . . . I’ll never stop learning . . . whether it seems like “studying” or not 🙂
Lucinda in New Jersey, USA
Mary Wilson says
Oops Daniel! Lucio Corsi’s song is called “Volevo essere un duro”
Patricia Wond says
I loved this song and was disappointed that it didn’t win.
Chris Jolley says
Thanks Daniel and to Lucinda and Mary for joining in.
A VPN is a Virtual Private Network, easy to get, I use Express VPN as it was reviewed as the best for getting Italian TV. But there’s NordVPN too. You have to pay a subscription, monthly or annually (which I do as it is SUCH great value for learning Italian).
What it does is to put your IP address in Italy to avoid being barred from Rai (or Mediaset if you’re desperate!) as the BBC does if you leave England.
I’m mad about Italian pop music too with 82 songs on my Spotify playlist. It’s a great way to get repeats of words and phrases. Caparezza (clever intelligent rap type music), Vasco Rossi (good rock guitar) and try this one from San Remo 2018.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bfYQZPLCEA an amusing video about il congiuntivo!
Another favourite programme of mine is L’Eredità, on every night on Rai 1, a quiz show and it is very popular in Italy, I even had a conversation with a restaurateur in Rome about it! The joy you can get if you get an answer right!
Julie says
Hi Everyone,
My comment is a bit off topic but hopefully a bit of a ‘pat on the back’ for those who are discouraged by a perceived lack of progress in their language learning journey.
7 years ago my husband and I retired to Italy (Crazy yes, but eventually brilliant and joyful!) and we hear and try to speak Italian almost every day, but, and here is the thing, we don’t seem to be improving!! Why? we study, we take lessons, we read, we listen to Italian TV and radio. It’s a mystery. So for every language learner out there who is frustrated at the slow pace of progress, don’t worry. Unless you are studying for an exam or test, what you do is enough. You’ll get by, The Italian folk here about (Puglia) are kind when we butcher their language, will always try and use a bit of English to us, and are generally happy with a game of ‘guess the mime’ when language fails.
So I guess what I’m saying is that what ever you do, it’s enough!! NEVER will you have to speak PERFECT Italian and its OK not to, according to my hairdresser most Italians don’t speak proper Italian and mix in slang, dialect and gestures in their daily life (as do English speakers) So just relax and enjoy – ‘piano, piano’ our neighbour says. Its a good philosophy.
Daniel says
Some very encouraging advice for club members, Julie. Thank you!
As regards:
“we don’t seem to be improving!! Why? we study, we take lessons, we read, we listen to Italian TV and radio. It’s a mystery.”
Nope, no mystery at all!
The most obvious explanation, given the information you provided about your situation, use of Italian, and attitude to it is…
… you’re not being objective about your progress. That’s to say you’re not measuring how much you can do today with how much you could do a year ago using a reliable and unchanging yardstick.
Basically what’s happening is that as you progress (and surely you have progressed and are progressing), your expectations about what you could potentially achieve extend closer towards goals like ‘effortless’, ‘accurate’, ‘fluent’, and so on, whereas previously you’d have been good with ‘can get by most of the time’.
It always seemed to be the case when I was teaching Italians English that the most advanced students were the most dissatisfied with their level. They couldn’t understand EVERYTHING, they made MISTAKES (for God’s sake, how stupid of me!)
Simple solutions to the feeling of ‘not learning anything’ just require some element of measurement over time. Think a beginning runner who hopes one day to run a marathon. Recording times, recording distances, noting injuries, etc. would all help keep track of progress.
For language learning, exams are good for this, as are materials or books graded at specific levels (you started at A1 but now can understand B1 and hope to reach C1 etc.), or simple yardsticks which can be objective (how many minutes it takes to read an article in a newspaper) or subjective (score yourself from 1-10 on how hard you found it.)
All that said, you seem perfectly happy the way you are. The tips above are more for people who aren’t yet sure that ‘what they do is enough’.
Thanks for contributing!
Michael says
Ciao a tutti!
Daniel: I love your newsletters.
In the spirit of “the club vibe” mentioned elsewhere recently, I thought I’d join the comment thread of this recent popular post :-), with what seems like a new question, or at least a question that is hard (for me) to search for useful advice upon.
I am going to need to speak some polite but informal German in the context of a summer camp in about six weeks. I had 3 years of German about 30 years ago, so I’m hoping it will dust off nicely. I thought “Maybe this is a space for an app, just to refresh on some basics and vocabulary”, and went to my app store and got a couple apps, but since my phone is fully set to be in Italian (great for forcing me to learn!), the apps all assumed I am a native level Italian speaker (I am not yet) who wants to learn German, while I speak English natively.
I’d put my Italian skill around A2 for speaking/writing, B1/B2 for listening/comprehension (lots of musica pop Italiano, RAI thru VPN, EIN, and fumetti di Paperino).
So here’s the question: who among you would care to describe the successes and pitfalls of your experience trying to learn a third language, in a second language (that you are still at an intermediate level)? Would you wager for or against the success of me, an english speaker, using an “app” in Italian to dust off my basic German?
Thank you for all you give to this community, Daniel –