Learning a little Italian … Duolingo or others??

Hi, would love to learn just a little Italian, enough to say hi, order a beer or food, ask how they’re doing, just v basic and simple stuff.

Am started with Duolingo which started well, but feel I’m forever ordering an ice-cream! Are there other free apps that are worth a look?

Cheers

Surely all you need is “ciao” and wave your arms around?

Afraid I don’t have a recommendation but Duo is rubbish as a quick learning tool for a trip IMO.

I also used it to learn Italian and spent so long learning about apples, newspapers, writing, reading and all the variants of boy/girl/man/woman. Yet knew nothing about how to ask for things or any useful phrases at all really.

It’s probably much better for learning the language as a longer term project but for what you want, nope. Useless.

I wish I could stick with Duolingo, but the whole run of days thing, the gamifying of learning, the eggs or whatever it is the rewards are and the general feel makes my teeth itch – if anything it turns me into a learning refuser! Clearly works for some, but not for me.

Interested to see what else is recommended.

Agree re Duo, engaged me at first but then found it irritating!

Ignoring my semi-facetious reply above: I’ve also been using Duolingo to learn German. It’s fun, but yeah I agree with the other couple of comments: it’s not great for actually learning the language. And it’s very American.

As a Duolingo user who got fed up knowing how to say the bear likes red pizzas, I asked on here. The best suggestion for me was Language Transfer. I found it really good even though I knew a little German already.

Duo is rubbish as a quick learning tool for a trip IMO.

If you are talking about a couple of weeks before a trip then this might be true, but almost anything will be useless that this timescale.

Personally I’ve found Duo great. I have been using it for about 4 years in which time I’ve learned enough Spanish to get by very well in Cuba from zero, enough Italian to get by from zero, a lot of German from GCSE+.  And in about a month enough Japanese to understand the basic sentence construction, pick out some messages on bus and trains and (my highlight) ask if the bus I had got on was going to the station!

So it’s not perfect but it is very worthwhile and will really help you get your ear in for how a language sounds and works.

Surely all you need is “ciao” and wave your arms around?

Rome wasn’t built in a day. But maybe it would have been if Italians didn’t talk with their hands so much 🙂

I like duo as well, pretty much the same reasons,it’s teaching you how to read and write the language as well as speak it,which is probably not what you want for a holiday.

For a holiday you only need a few phrases and tbh if the conversation gets beyond your polite phrases you’re screwed anyway.

You – ‘How are you ?”

Waiter – “I’m actually pretty down as my wife ran away with the bomba man and the bank is repossessing my scooter and my boss has cut my hours” 🙂

In an local accent and a few choice words that you won’t hear in most courses 🙂

Currently in Italy trying to learn the language a little.

Duolingo is a bit shit.

It’s not often I need to buy a skirt (gonna) or a jumper (maglione)

Best way with any language is to live it or at least hear people speaking it.

Join a language class, eat at an Italian restaurant, watch Inspector Montalbano.

My duo lingo moment was in a queue in a very English Spanish enclave in the post office when the post lady said (in Spanish)to the annoying English customer complaining about the post,that he was the problem.

I burst out laughing and he turned around and asked me if I spoke Spanish, obvs I said no 🙂

It’s a nice moment when you start ‘getting it’ as it’s a hard infuriating slog.

ooooh i know the answer to this.  for what youre looking for, Language Transfer is definitely the answer!

https://www.languagetransfer.org/italian

i use this method to learn greek, its waaaay better than duolingo which as youve found out is limited to testing you on what pink elephants drink on a tuesday rather than actually teaching you to talk to people.

its free, you can download it all to your laptop/phone, or stream, whichever you prefer.  cant recommend it enough.

hope that helps

I’m two weeks into Italian Duolingo for a fortnight in Sicily in July. Just want to be able to say a few basics in bars and restaurants, get the bus to Mt Etna etc.
So far, fun but repetitive. I don’t mind the daily reminders…otherwise i don’t think I’d be diligent enough. I’m enjoying it enough to keep going.

6 months into Duolingo learning French.  I now have all my French colleagues send me emails and messages in French and can read them almost perfectly.  I can sit in meetings and understand a good proportion of what’s being said, if it’s straightforward and delivered rather than multiple conversations.  I can ask for things in French, understand the reply and respond again.  This is usually my test.  If they don’t switch to English on the first or second reply, I’m starting to get it.

it’s also makes me think more about other languages.  I’ve just been to Germany and it’s surprising how much easier it is to make sense of things despite it being a completely different language to French, it’s still somewhat closer than English.

My kids are learning along with me, but at their own pace, which is also fun.

it’s a thumbs up from me.

I’m also using Duolingo to learn French, 263 day “streak” for me. It’s beginning to click, slowly. I think it’s good as a learning tool IMO.

Also used language transfer which is excellent.

Linguaphone do an “All Talk” package which is audio only and covers all the useful phrases you will need. I bought the French one years ago and can’t remember how much it cost then, but now it’s £100 so not bad value I think.

Also, Google Translate is great for translations for any sentence you can throw at it.

Also looked at Babbel and Rosetta Stone.

J-R

Full Member

Duo is rubbish as a quick learning tool for a trip IMO.

If you are talking about a couple of weeks before a trip then this might be true, but almost anything will be useless that this timescale.

No, probably 2-3 months of doing at least one exercise every day.

@ElShalimo absolutely nails it with the comment about bears 😂

“Das Bär ist schön” well yes, that’s massively helpful. I’m nearly fluent now.

Berlitz (I think) used to do little phrase books for various languages that would probably work great in tandem with Duolingo.  I’ve used those before and the only thing to watch out for is you need to learn a few of the possible answers in advance before you ask any questions otherwise you won’t understand what is being said to you 🙂

but otherwise great.  I think Lonely Planet had something similar

Frankie Detorri. There you go – a little Italian. 👍

Diligently learned Japanese every day for about months on Duolingo before our trip there last October – it was a bit useful for the basics but conversations were a bit beyond me. I asked our hotelier in Shirakawa-go if he liked the snow and he told me it meant lots of work.

If I’d needed to ask where Professor Smith Korean class was or if he liked big tasty eggs, I’d have had it covered. 🙂

I quite like the gamification, but YMMV. 🙂

My best success with Italian was Earworms. Basic tourist stuff,  set to music.

I found Babbel better.  Duolingo – for Spanish spent ages try to get me to ask for an apple which I got bored of.  Babbel seems to start with typical tourist asks and move on from there.

I currently have a 550+ day streak learning Italian on Duolingo. I feel only recently did it start to teach me useful everyday phrases. Prior to that I used Paul Noble’s audio book, this actually taught me a lot. But you have to sit through the lessons and speak out loud for it to work. I used to do this on a drive to work I no longer do. Pimsleur is also similar, perhaps better than Paul Noble. Again you need the time each day to do it. Duolingo has been good for a bit of learning everyday.

If you want Paul Noble or Pimsleur for free, sign up for a free trial of Audible

I went to Italy for the first time in January and knew about three words when I left home. The translate function on an iPhone is brilliant and what I used to teach myself the essentials (ordering beer and food in a ski town). If you know any French or Spanish you’ll pick up the basics easily enough – Italian has lots of similarities. Apparently dialects vary wildly though, so don’t be surprised if you get funny looks!

One thing I would recommend is learning how to ask if they serve any food without red meat, cheese, or bread 😂