6 Tips on How to Speak Italian Fluently

By Ben Schmidt Aug 13, 2022

Italian is one of the most important European languages. There are between 70 million and 125 million Italian speakers around the world.

Although the rules of the Italian language are similar to those of other Romance languages such as French, the number of verbs in it is less compared to French and Spanish. No doubt you know some Italian words, such as “spaghetti,” “pizza,” and “Ferrari.”

If you want to speak Italian fluently, you are in the right article.

Fluency is the ultimate goal of learning a language. We don’t study grammar or memorize words so that we can fill the gaps or match phrases. We do it to be able to communicate with others clearly and effectively. But getting to fluency takes work and knowledge about the best ways to do it.

How to Speak Italian Fluently

Here are some tried-and-true tips that can help you speak Italian fluently:

Start on the right foot:

From the very beginning, your goal should be not scoring high in classes but being able to speak Italian fluently. This means that you shouldn’t worry too much about making grammatical mistakes.

Polyglots, experts in learning languages, will tell you that grammar will be acquired sooner or later, primarily through immersion. So be bold and speak Italian as often as you can, even if all you know is a few selective phrases.

You should also practice pronouncing each new word well. Then you can put it in short sentences and repeat it. Don’t wait until you’re able to formulate long and complex sentences but are hindered by weak pronunciation.

Listen as much as possible:

What if I tell you that you can study Italian and advance significantly toward fluency by watching movies? Awesome, right?

It’s because movies contain authentic examples of Italian in use. You’ll be able to listen to native speakers without ever having met an Italian.

The language in movies is also more natural and life-like than the one in textbooks, which can sound stilted. Movies abound with cultural information too. So you’ll learn about factors that play into effective communication other than the language itself.

Songs are also great for improving your listening skills. They’re less dense and usually slower-paced than dialogue. In addition, the smaller number of words in them makes it easy to fully translate lyrics, especially since you can find lyrics on the internet, unlike movie scripts. Songs can also help you practice pronunciation by singing along.

Listening lets your brain subconsciously pick up sounds and patterns and internalize the grammatical rules. Of course, adults’ brains are less able to do it than children’s. This is why adults need to supplement their listening by studying grammar, vocabulary, and phonetics.

Read as much as possible:

You can start reading books when you have a sufficient repertoire of words and phrases. Yes, entire books. But don’t rush it and start with ones directed at adult native speakers.

Children’s books are a more excellent option if you’re a beginner. But if you’re an intermediate learner, you can read middle-grade or young adult books. Their vocabulary is less advanced than adult ones. As you read more and more, however, your vocabulary will expand.

A great way to make this happen faster is to write down unfamiliar words and their definitions in a notebook or flashcards. Then you can revise them and make them more deeply entrenched in your memory. Eventually, there will be no book you cannot read, except specialized ones.

Practice speaking:

Speaking is a skill, and it needs practicing to improve. One way is to speak into a microphone and record yourself. Replaying the audio will help you recognize your errors and learn to avoid them later. But a better way is to have someone to talk to.

Partners can identify mistakes that you may not be aware of. And their ability to understand what you say, as indicated by how they respond, is a good measure of how well you convey ideas.

Having a partner is especially important if you’re learning on your own. Students who attend courses can use the language, albeit limitedly, and they receive feedback from expert teachers. But even they need someone to help them get a taste of what it means to have a real conversation.

The best partners are native speakers. If you know anyone who fits this description, invite them and let the conversations drift naturally.

If you don’t live close to any of them, however, you can always find ones on the internet. For example, if you’re into games, go to an Italian Facebook group for gamers and share your passion with them. Perhaps you’ll find friends and begin video calling them. There are also apps that match learners with the native speakers of their target language.

Keep learning words:

Fluency means the ability to communicate comfortably and effectively. This can only be possible if you’re equipped with the basic tools for communication. A decent repertoire of vocabulary is one of these tools. You obviously cannot talk about something in another language if you don’t know what it’s called.

As I mentioned, translating song lyrics and reading books at your level are great ways to expand your vocabulary. You can also use language-learning apps, which organize lessons according to learners’ levels.

Another advantage of these apps is that they help you memorize words and grammar through games, which is better than memorizing them through boring repetition.

People also like to use flashcards. They have a pleasant appearance, and they physically divide information into digestible chunks that are easy to memorize. We all prefer that to subsequent pages of uninterrupted words.

Make Italian a part of your daily routine:

The key to language acquisition is to commit to learning every day. Of course, this means you should set a reasonable daily goal that suits your schedule. Ideally, it would help if you spared an hour a day for studying Italian. And by studying, I don’t mean studying.

You don’t have to be reading from a textbook, for example. You could do anything mentioned in this article, from watching movies to reading for pleasure, which would be even more effective. A good idea is also to switch your phone’s language to Italian.