I learned Italian without studying or going to classes

I learned Italian without studying or going to classes.

You could do it too if you follow this advice.

I'll tell you exactly how I did it.

It all started a few years ago.

When I moved to Berlin to work in the Spanish Embassy.

I was already passionate about language learning.

I could already speak English, German and a couple of other languages as well.

But I hadn't developed the Natural Language Learning system yet.

Like many other people, I had been trying to learn languages going to classes and doing grammar exercises.

This was a slow and boring process.

But by that time, I had discovered Input Theory and I had started to spend more time reading and listening to the language, instead of doing exercises.

This was much more effective.

Like I said, I had moved to Berlin to work there.

I didn't know anyone outside work.

I wanted to make friends.

I was living in big, international city with people from all over the world.

I didn't want to waste the opportunity to learn more languages.

I saw there was a German-Italian language exchange every Sunday in a café.

I had nothing better to do Sunday afternoon so I decided to attend.

If you can speak Spanish, speaking Italian shouldn't be that hard. Right?

After all they're very similar.

Turned out it wasn't as easy as I thought.

True. I could understand quite a lot of what they were saying.

But I wasn't able to say anything.

On hindsight, that's not surprising at all.

"You just need more input" I told myself.

I had recently discovered Krashen's Input Theory and I was a believer.

All I needed to do was to read and listen to a lot of Italian.

So I started to listen to podcasts.

No. Not "Italian for Beginners" type of podcasts. That's boring.

Podcasts by Italians for Italians about topics such as history, travel or cooking.

I did the same thing with books and articles.

I went straight into authentic materials, using a translator for the words I didn't know.

In just a few weeks, understanding Italian became as easy as understanding Spanish.

I was listening to podcasts and reading books about Roman Empire or the Sicilian Mafia.

No difficulty at all.

Speaking was a completely different thing though.

I kept going to the Sunday language exchange.

And every Sunday I was able to say a little bit more.

But progress was very slow.

I just wasn't able to think fast enough.

I needed some other tool.

And then I had an idea.

I started taking notes during the meetups.

I started writing down the things people talked about.

The things I would like to say but wasn't able to say.

Can you guess what I did with that?

Exactly, I created my first Language Islands.

Groups of sentences about specific topics.

Translated, memorised and practiced at home.

So that in the next conversation, you are able to say everything you want to say.

My speaking skills improved quickly after that.

Every Sunday I could speak much more.

And I came back home with more ideas for topics to prepare for next time.

I had just found the formula for success in language learning.

The only thing I needed to do was to continue reading, listening, preparing sentences and speaking regularly.

Eventually I stopped needing the prepared sentences because speaking became easy.

And that's it.

I have been to Italy on holiday a couple times since then.

Speaking the local language fluently when you go on holiday is really satisfying.

Feels like having done your homework and showing up to an exam really well prepared.

When I was a kid I was a bad student and never did my homework.

So it's nice to be good at things now and able to learn any language.

Anyone can do it, it's just a matter of strategy and discipline.

You can learn any language with this system.

Some languages are more difficult and you will need other techniques as well.

I have tutorials on how to memorise vocabulary.

Or how to learn a different writing system.

But for an easy language like Italian, this is enough.

The only thing you need to do to learn is to read, listen and speak regularly.

As long as you have Internet access.

You can do all of this anywhere, on your own.

Want to learn ANY language in 3 months?

Join the Natural Language Learning course.

Best,

Mikel