Taking classes in Italian

[WolfOfOdin]

So yeah, I'm taking classes in Italian for fun and to expand myself to trilingual, since I have a basic understanding of Latin and a somewhat fluency in Muscovite Russian, though the second one won't help me. Any tips to make this go smoothly?

 

[Covar]

eat lots of pasta.

 

[Cajungal]

I don't know if this works for anyone else, but I like finding (for independent Spanish study) either English videos with Spanish subs or Spanish videos with English subs and focus watch them. It's a good way to keep up with vocabulary and verbs in my down-time. Some things always get lost in translation, but certain words and phrases always start to stand out for me and give me a better understanding.

 

[Covar]

In a similar vein, find the Italian version of Sesame street, or other children's programming.
learned that from the Hulk, and Farscape.

 

[klew]

 

[General Specific]

Remember to add "-A" to the end of english words.

For instance, when introducing yourself you would say, "It's-a me, Mario!"

 

[Cajungal]

 

[sixpackshaker]

Use the Captain Richard Francis Burton Method. Hole up in a room with a prostitute that speaks the desired language for three days/weeks and come out speaking a new tongue. He spoke over 29 languages fluently...

 

[Wasabi Poptart]

Go hang out in the pizza place at the Cardiff Circle shopping center, across the road from Shore Mall.

 

[North_Ranger]

Insult an Italian family restaurant's tiramisú to learn how to curse.

 

[@Li3n]

Watch italian dubbed anime... it's how i did it (ok, to be fair, my language is pretty closely related and i had learned french in school).

 

[Silver Jelly]

Watch italian dubbed anime... it's how i did it (ok, to be fair, my language is pretty closely related and i had learned french in school).

But... italian dubbing is one of the worse dubbings in the world!

 

[North_Ranger]

Watch italian dubbed anime... it's how i did it (ok, to be fair, my language is pretty closely related and i had learned french in school).

But... italian dubbing is one of the worse dubbings in the world![/QUOTE]

It can't be as worse as the Polish dubbings. One time, when I was in Krakow for a week, I happened to see FernGully on local telly. It was dubbed by a single, James Earl Jonesesque-voiced man with the English original just barely audible in the background.

 

[Silver Jelly]

Watch italian dubbed anime... it's how i did it (ok, to be fair, my language is pretty closely related and i had learned french in school).

But... italian dubbing is one of the worse dubbings in the world![/QUOTE]

It can't be as worse as the Polish dubbings. One time, when I was in Krakow for a week, I happened to see FernGully on local telly. It was dubbed by a single, James Earl Jonesesque-voiced man with the English original just barely audible in the background.[/QUOTE]

O_O

I had forgotten about countries that have not exactly dubbing, but more like voiceovers.

And speaking of ferngully, here's a bit of trivia: the spanish version is dubbed by just one actor doing all the voices.

His voices for both main characters are awful...

 

[@Li3n]

Watch italian dubbed anime... it's how i did it (ok, to be fair, my language is pretty closely related and i had learned french in school).

But... italian dubbing is one of the worse dubbings in the world![/QUOTE]

You should have seen our dubbing in the 90's... i think it was just one guy reading a synopsis or something... duck dodgers stunned me when it 1st showed up, as the dubbing was incredibly good (and i actually prefer it to the original english, but that's because Mel Blanc being dead).


But the idea was that hearing the language helps a lot with learning it... and as i recall they weren't mangling their own language (i would not be surprised if our dubbings where done by monkeys in the 90's).

 

[North_Ranger]

There was one dubbing company here in Finland that was infamous for offering children's programming dubbing that sounded like everybody was just phoning in:


- Embedding disabled, unfortunately. Click on the screen and watch... at your own peril.


- Embedding disabled, again. God, the first one makes my ears bleed even now...




Let's just say all of these clips sound like William Shatner singing. While stoned. With a coconut crab having a vice-like grip on his balls. It's that bad.

 

[Silver Jelly]

Man, that almost looks like parody dubbing!