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Available tools and how to use them
Well, what is really difficult for us is to explain bout our unique
features as there are so many! Anyway, let's take a look at
the basic innovations:
- REALISTIC APPROACH
As explained at lenght in the About page, we
won't lie to you by saying that, with us, you are going to learn Italian
in a matter of days, weeks, or even months. Studying a language like
Italian involves give or take 2,000 hours, so achieving the desired
level of proficiency depends on you allocating enough time resources to
fulfil the requirements of a proper study of Italian (or any other
language, for that matter). So, if you manage to study Italian 8 hours a
day, it will take you less than a year to attain your goal. On the other
hand, dedicating just a couple of hours per week, will let you achieve
your purpose in 20 years or so! This is what we call realistic
approach, and it is important because unless you have realistic
expectations, you won't be able to obtain the desired level of success,
and you'll get frustrated. And frustration is the Number 1 Enemy
of effective language learning.
- PRONUNCIATION GUIDE
Although Italian is usually considered a language offering no problems
as far as pronunciation is concerned, we beg to differ! And we can
support our belief by pointing out to the fact that most non-Italians
who live in our country do not have a correct pronunciation of Italian:
for instance, they usually fail to detect where the right stress should
be placed in a word, as, unlike Spanish, Italian marks the stress only
if it falls on the last syllable. Difficulties in pronunciation are also
compounded by the massive influx of English words into Italian (all of
them retaining the original spelling), which means Italian is no longer
a language where you can take for granted that a word will be pronounced
exactly as it is spelt. And that's what makes our Pronunciation Guide
invaluable. Thanks to it, you will always know how to pronounce a word
or sentence perfectly, even without listening to the audio file which
accompanies all of our resources. The transliteration system used in our
Pronunciation Guide is conceivably easy, dispensing of special signs and
making use of an easy-to-remember set of conventions. For instance, word
stress is marked by à, è, é, ì, ò, ó and ù (màno, bèllo, méno, dìto,
nòto, móndo, tùbo), the GL sound becomes lh, the GN sound nh, the SC
sound sh etc. So, the sentence ti auguriamo di imparare l'italiano
perfettamente becomes "ti auguryàmo di imparàre l'italyàno
perfettaménte". Easy, isn't it?
- WORD-FOR-WORD TRANSLATION Our
key resources have a unique helpful tool providing you
with a total understanding of the Italian text: the word-for-word
translation. We do provide a good English translation of the Italian but
sometimes that is not enough to warrant a 100% understanding of why the
Italian words need to be translated in a good English which seems
completely different from the original. For instance, if we say
- HORIZONTAL AND VERTICAL (TABLED) PARALLEL
TEXTS As we provide a lot more information in our resources
it is absolutely crucial that we have an adequate layout. Well, we
have two! Check them out...
photo credit:
Rete Studenti Massa
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