Buongiorno! I came across your website and thought I would introduce myself. I work at Grand Tourist - we are a UK based boutique tour operator specialising in luxury and tailor-made travel. We are very excited about our 2011 Learn Italian in Tuscany programme which takes place 25th June - 2nd July and 24th September - 1st October. Our one week holiday is extremely relaxed and aims to improve your spoken Italian, your comprehension and your confidence. We stay at the lovely I Tre Baroni family-run hotel nestling in the hills over-looking the Arno River Valley and the charming historic village of Poppi. Each day begins with a delicious breakfast, then lessons take place on the terrace. We work with a delightful Italian teacher and there are local excursions and sight-seeing trips every afternoon including visits to a local vineyard and an organic farm. We would assist with transfers to/from the venue. You can see details of our Learn Italian in Tuscany programme on our website: http://www.grand-tourist.com/item/learn ... egory_id=5 If you would like details of the Learn Italian programme sending out to you, just let me know - it would be my absolute pleasure! I look forward to hearing from you - or any of your members - that would like join us in Tuscany for this fantastic week of Italian language, culture and wonderful food and wine. Kind regards Catherine Catherine Heywood Grand Tourist Tel: +44 (0)1829 751038 E-mail: catherine@grand-tourist.com http://www.grand-tourist.com
This is a great way to learn Italian. Learning any new language really requires immersion, and this type of approach combines a holiday with high-quality immersion. Of course, it really helps if you have some basics in Italian before the trip. There are online courses available which will help you to prepare. These vary in quality and you should always look out for those which also contain immersion features, essentially simulating participation in real conversations. For Italian or any other language, learning them as an English speaker means that one of the biggest challenges is going to be the different sentence structure and not the learning of new vocabulary and verbs! Everybody has different learning styles, but I found success inexpensively with this learn to speak Italian beginner's course! I'll be taking a trip to Rome in December and hope to benefit from some real immersion while I'm there!
I recently returned from my first trip to Europe (at 24 I feel I waited too long to visit the Old World but que sera...) I completely fell in love with Rome and am planning a trip to Milan in February, Venice eventually and other parts of Western Europe quite soon. I have a background in French (some high school and college) but I am not really even conversational. I want to learn Italian (with the hope of someday getting a job in Italy, though that is a long way off as law school starts in the fall for me) but I am lost as to the best way to go about this. I see a few different options, each with its own problems and would appreciate advice on the right route to take. 1. Rosetta Stone --> widely commercially available --> every review I have seen on it says not to waste your money on it 2. Middlebury College Summer Language Program --> 7 weeks of total immersion and intense language study --> at about $7500 for one class it is massively out of my price range 3. Local Community College/University Course --> local, affordable (I am in the St. Louis MO metro region) --> i already work multiple jobs at all hours of the day so time for me is at a premium 4. Self Study --> works with my own schedule, at my own pace --> no one to talk with or to push me to work harder in the language study.
This post is a total duplicated of this one: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/t ... ID=1999353 posted in Dec, 2010!!!
