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There are many foreign languages to learn but if you are considering Italian, great! Italian is the descendent of Latin but is considered to have much simpler grammar than its ancestor. Additionally, Italian is used by over 60 million people so you will have plenty of people to practice with.

You may be interested in learning Italian for a variety of reasons. Perhaps you are going on a vacation to Italy or intend to live there. Maybe you have Italian ancestry or plan on getting a job that involves work with Italians. Whatever the reason may be, learning Italian can be a very rewarding experience.

If you already speak another romance language like Spanish or French, you will find that Italian is very similar. Many linguists estimate that the lexical similarity between Italian and French is 89% while the lexical similarity between Italian and Spanish is 82%. Even if you have only studied Spanish or French in high school, you will find that the grammar is quite similar and easy to pick up.

For English speakers, Italian is often remarked to have a “pleasing” sound to it, most likely due to its great use of vowels and especially its use of vowels at the end of words. Unfortunately, this stress of vowels also means that listening to Italian seems like an incomprehensible stream to most English-speaking Italian language learners just beginning their studies.

Tricky Italian points for English speakers include determining gender for nouns since words are either of the masculine gender or of the feminine gender. Additionally, verbs are conjugated with very different forms depending on the subject of the sentence.

Word order, however, is quite similar between Italian and English. Both languages are subject-verb-object languages and because the syntax is similar, it will be very easy for you to start putting together your own sentences in Italian even as a learner.

Italian is a popular language to study so there is no shortage of materials to use for learning Italian. You can choose from computer software programs to traditional style classroom classes. Depending on your ultimate goals, you will want to find the tool that makes most sense for you.

Whatever your Italian language goals may be, remember that to succeed in learning any foreign language, you should make a commitment to learning the language everyday and continue to apply effort to your studies for as long as it may take to reach your goals, even years if you are aiming for fluency. But don’t forget to have fun at the same time! Make sure to enjoy Italian by listening to Italian music and watching Italian films. These cultural elements can be the most fun and most rewarding parts of learning Italian.

Author Robertson Kunz has a language learning guide: fast language learning. Italian learners: learn fluent Italian.

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