Ciao a tutti! Mi chiamo Merri e vengo dalla Australia. Parlo appena l'italiano...
But I want to learn! Obviously I won't be able to speak fluently without living in Italy or having someone to converse in Italian with, but I'd like to be able to speak conversationally and understand the basics. I also feel like my brain is very sluggish lately and I need to make it work again!
So I thought signing up here would be helpful. Just reading through threads and trying to get the gist of things. If people don't mind, I'd like to TRY to reply in Italian... but I'm pretty sure I will make a lot of mistakes. I hope that's okay and not annoying for people. At the moment, I'm simply trying to form coherent sentences by using the help of an online language dictionary! Sometimes a daunting task to say the least. The more I do it, the more it makes sense though.
twinkledee wrote:Ciao a tutti! Mi chiamo Merri e vengo dalla Australia. Parlo appena l'italiano...
But I want to learn! Obviously I won't be able to speak fluently without living in Italy or having someone to converse in Italian with, but I'd like to be able to speak conversationally and understand the basics. I also feel like my brain is very sluggish lately and I need to make it work again!
So I thought signing up here would be helpful. Just reading through threads and trying to get the gist of things. If people don't mind, I'd like to TRY to reply in Italian... but I'm pretty sure I will make a lot of mistakes. I hope that's okay and not annoying for people. At the moment, I'm simply trying to form coherent sentences by using the help of an online language dictionary! Sometimes a daunting task to say the least. The more I do it, the more it makes sense though.
Hi Merri and welcome. Nice to have you onboard. You will find you can learn a lot from reading through the Vocab and Lezioni boards.
Sure, have a go at using Italian - if you feel confident enough at present. Otherwise just ask questions - no matter how trivial or silly they may seem to you (they will not be to us since all the non-Italians have been in a similar situation to yourself and remember only too well how strange things seemed. So, don't be afraid to ask. There are a number of extremely helpful Italians here and some of us non-Italiansn also have a passing grip of the language!!
haha Elena, yes I guess it's good to know other people have the same problems!
Thanks, Peter. I have looked at the vocab boards - I only read the first little bit today and spent time reading the pronunciations out loud. Not that many people have actually heard me speak Italian yet, but I must say I feel more comfortable speaking it than other languages (hopefully I'm saying it correctly!) I learnt German in school for 6 years and never really mastered how to pronounce the words. I find it's a lot more difficult to get out than Italian words are. German seems to come from the back of the throat area whilst Italian uses the tongue more.
Now, I just need to come up with lesson plans for myself! Still wandering around aimlessly at this stage, hehe. But I'm determined!
Mi chiamo Merri e vengo dalla Australia. Parlo appena l'italiano...
I hope that's okay and not annoying for people. 
At the moment, I'm simply trying to form coherent sentences by using the help of an online language dictionary! Sometimes a daunting task to say the least. The more I do it, the more it makes sense though.