If You Think Like an Italian, You Will Speak Like an Italian

When learning to speak a language like a native, you will need to forget your native tongue. Spending time in Italy speaking only Italian will help you speak as a native. If you want to read Italian, you can pick up an Italian newspaper and read the section that interests you most. The goal is to increase competency in Italian. To do that you must learn to think like an Italian, which means you will need to take off the training wheels so to speak. Get rid of those helpers, which are holding you back and hurt more than they help.

For instance bilingual dictionaries are a crutch. If your goal is to speak Italian, speaking English to your friends will be a waste of your time. You don’t want to make grammatical comparisons between English and Italian because it won’t help you achieve your goal. Every language has rules and forms, which are unique and sometimes illogical. If you want to speak with competence, translating back and forth in your head before speaking or reading is a fool’s errand, which will not get you anywhere.