Learn The Language
Every advise that we gathered from watching YouTube expats started with – “Learn the Language” so we bought some books, and started researching how to learn an language. We are no strangers to the task, James speaks German and learned English and some French in school, while Lori speaks English and learned German by living in Germany for 4 years. She also taught German and English for a while. But it’s been 25 years since we hit a book to learn a language.
Duolingo
We signed up for the family plan of Duolingo, and have been using the app for 6 months now. This is not a review of Duolingo, but… we find it ok to learn some vocabulary, and practice speaking and listening. But the limitations are quickly reached. We are both old school learners, we need books and index cards, and we want the Grammar explained – something Duolingo does not do. Another big thing for speakers of Germanic languages (yes that includes English) is the need to learn conjugating verbs. Duolingo doesn’t do a great job for that.
Example: lieben - loving - amare
German English Italian
Ich liebe I love (io) amo
Du liebst You love (tu) ami
Er/Sie/Es He/She/it (lui/lei)
liebt loves ama
Wir lieben We love (noi) amiamo
Ihr liebt You love (voi) amate
Sie lieben They love (loro) amano
Classes and Online Tutors
We decided to supplement our Duolingo with some native tutors, but even in the Metro City of Atlanta we failed to find a course in Italian. So we went the online route via zoom/skype.
1st Tutor Attempt: German/Italian speaker who lived in Italy
We found this lady on Facebook advertising for a new course; we called her and she sounded nice. She was cheap, was going to have a small beginner group, and we thought what can possibly go wrong.
This can go wrong: She didn’t use a textbook, she introduced two irregular verbs including conjugation in the 1st lesson, her course group included various level students, us being the only novices (the others were clearly A2 or higher level). We asked for our money back at the end of the 1st lesson.
2nd Tutor Attempt: Professional Company in Italy
Next we signed up for an online course with a professional Italian language school based in Italy. Taught by experts, with admin staff – and yes, we were assured they use a textbook, which we bought, and yes, this is a beginner course. We nailed it this time. Did we?
No, another failed attempt. Our teacher didn’t use the textbook, instead send us emails with pictures of pages from other textbooks. All the other students in the course had already taken at least one course, knew each other, and were months ahead of us. While we were saying “mi chiamo Lori, come ti chiami?“, they were introducing themselves in paragraph long sentences. In the first lesson, 70 new words were introduced, including conjugations. We asked for our money back the 2nd lesson.
3rd Tutor Attempt: Professional Private Tutor
Group classes with different level students didn’t work for us. So we decided to hire a private tutor. She was a language teacher living in Rome, lessons via skype. Another textbook to buy, plus an exercise book. Only us two, our pace, our course. The perfect solution.
No, and again, it didn’t work. The textbook that this teacher was using was again all in Italian. We had to spend a good amount of time each week with google translate just to understand the questions that were being asked in the exercises, and we were not sure that we got them right. The book itself was terrible: Yes, it had soundbites on video links that were very realistic – including traffic noise on a poor reception cell phone call simulation. Not only did they speak realistically fast (WAY too fast for week 2) but we could not hear them. The page breaks were a joke – for example they had the pictures on one side, and the dialog on the next page turn over. There were fill in the blank parts in the LECTURE part of the book (not exercise!). The headings and grammar explanations were in high level Italian, which we had to translate using Google Translate just to find out what they were talking about. Most of the class time was spent going over our homework, and little time was spent learning new material or actually speaking/listening. Most of the homework was spent translating the questions. An utter waste of time and incredibly frustrating.
In desperation, we searched for a classic American style college textbook from the time before you had to buy the package with access to the website and the online videos etc. (which costs hundreds of dollars). We found a widely available cheap used textbook which looked perfect for us: Each chapter has a vocabulary list and a grammar section, plus exercises with English instructions. We ordered an extra copy of the book for our teacher in Rome. Then August came – Ferragosto – where Italy goes on Vacation, including our teacher. In the middle of August she wrote us that she would no longer be teachings us. No explanation given. I guess she didn’t like our textbook.
Solution – DIY
So for now, its just us two. We are writing index cards, follow the textbook, do our Duolingo. We found an elder Italian expat couple in our community in the North GA mountains, and we tried to talk to them in Italian, but we are still way too beginner to be able to have any conversation. We can order a coffee – the rest will hopefully follow.
Don’t Panic
We are not worried. We’ve done this before. Lori moved to Germany as a teenager without speaking the language, and ended up spending four years there, and loving it so much, she got a Master in German Literature back in the USA afterwards. James had the lowest possible English Language Proficiency passing test score to enter an American University – and ended up 7 years later with an MBA and a PhD. We are not afraid and we know we can handle this.
And now there are wonderful tools to help out: We traveled to Italy for our scouting trip without any Italian knowledge. We used google translate, and we were able to shop, we even got a SIM card; google maps showed us the way, and we bought our home with the help of a translator.