So I haven’t had time to go through all of the pages from the 1965 US Foreign Service guide to speaking Italian and I was looking for a way to work on my Italian in my spare time. I’m lucky enough to have a giant data plan for my Palm Treo Pro and sometimes like to surf YouTube while waiting to pick up my kids from their various schools and extra-curricular activities.
Punching in “Italian Phrases” into the YouTube search box the Italian 101 series from The Travel Linguist as the top result. The coolest thing is that they have lots of these. Each course comes in three levels and they have courses titled Common Words and Phrases, Greetings, Directions, Dining, Shopping, and Safety. Each video runs from between 2 to 10 minutes and is perfect for watching on my phone.
I’m finding that it’s actually easier for me to pick up intonation and accent when I can see the face of a person speaking the language. The other nice thing that this series does is have one person say the phrase very slowly and another person repeat the phase at full speed. Once so you can learn to say it, and once so you can learn to hear it. Smart.
Common Words and Phrases Level 1:
See the more videos after the jump –>
Greetings Level 1:
Dining Level 1:
The Travel Linguist also has a website where they sell books, videos, and DVDs.
Best Italian language resource online – great job! Please include me in your youtube updates. Grazie!