Her English is amazing, as close to native level an L2 speaker can get I would say

Hi Olly. I was very impressed by your ability to speak reasonably fluent Italian even with faults. I think it shows that you have long since overcome the barriers we all face 'becoming a speaker' in another language. I often relate to my students the fact that I left school with a French A level but I couldn't speak the language, then I spent time in France, and after a few months I was fluent. You are still inspiring me, and I am listening and reading Italian daily. I now know I need to book some speaking lessons though, and this will be my goal for the Autumn term. My theoretical Italian is not bad, but I still freeze at the speaking point more than I should. Anyhow, keep up the good work, and as I listen, read and speak over the weeks, I will think of you doing the same. Looking forward to seeing how you do in Italy as well...

I find it interesting that the FSI, after 50 years of intensive practical experimentation, reports that almost all learners find it helpful to drill the more problematic patterns at times so they can achieve greater accuracy. I strongly suspect that for most, a pragmatic mix of input and study is the way to go, at least after the first few weeks. You can't really argue against the primacy of input - it's how best to supplement it with study that's the interesting question. After all, it takes kids around 15000 hours of immersion to reach a decent level in their native language - so we need to find ways to accelerate the process...

This is so interesting, and something that’s so rarely documented. Thanks so much for doing this, Olly! Interestingly enough, your experience with prepositions didn’t surprise me in the slightest, because it sounds exactly concurrent with what Mike Campbell of Glossika has always said: that language tends to come in collocations and thus the best way to learn is ALWAYS with some sort of context (for anyone who’s sceptical of this, think for a moment of the sheer variety of ways you can use the English word “get”…) - I believe Steve Kaufmann has also said very similar things. I’m also curious to know what your plan is for tackling specific weaknesses, like verb conjugation, because my experience with languages like Spanish have also been almost exactly the same. I can understand pretty well, but sometimes just can't produce the correct verb conjugation for whatever reason. How would you approach something like this? Would you isolate each conjugation and put them into flashcards, or just continue the input without worrying too much about it, or some other option...? Grazie molto, e buona fortuna :-)

This is interesting. I'm about an intermediate speaker in Italian after about 3 months of solid studying primarily using Busuu. I can put together a lot of sentences due to my large vocabulary base. I think the most difficult part of learning Italian is verb conjugations followed prepositions. I just need to hear more Italian so it sticks and it "sounds right" as you say. I've only been watching and listening to content (other than my study materials) for about two weeks. I'm hoping that after a month or so it really starts coming together. My vocab count is well over 1200 so I think some verb and preposition drills along with another few hundred words should put in right in early fluent level. Of course, my main obstacle is that I don't have someone to speak to but I hope to fix that as I go along. As a native Spanish speaker I don't think speaking will be my biggest challenge.

Great so far. Keep up the good work!

Interesting to hear the one month recap and looking forward to the next chapter. Verb conjugation drills!!! *shudder*. How the heck are you going to make them interesting? Can’t wait to see this because I’m really falling down in this area and with prepositions too, ¡Buena suerte!

It's interesting to see you experimenting on yourself . Good job

This is a great project! Do you have any videos or blog posts on how you choose your tutors?

Awesome progress, great video, keep it up

6:56 THIS THIS THIS!!!

Olly! That was successful! Keep going! Vai avanti, sei sulla strada giusta :D

Thank you Olly. How can I work against getting blocked when I rispond in Italian?

Where did you found your teacher?

Just curious, how often did you repeat your input materials? And do you repeat them a few times for a certain period of time? Or do you come back to it again after, let say, a few days or a week? Thanks!

Certainly impressive, but I think the Spanish you already know has had a massive impact and I think people should really understand that point. I’m only a beginner in Spanish as my only second language and I was able to pick up lots of parts of the conversation due to Italian using very similar or in many cases the same word. I think this amount of progress wouldn’t happen with someone who’s totally new

Great update Olly! Looks like you've made a lot of progress quickly. I know you were using a lot of downtime to get input in Italian, but about how much time would you estimate daily that you were getting input? I want to pick up some Burmese for an upcoming trip, and I'm looking to experiment with a more input based method as well.

That was interesting Olly. Hearing what you were feeling during your week of, let's call it, testing your Italian. I know what you mean about prepositions, you just HAVE to absorb them in context, in listening to a language. I remember the difficulty I had here the first years. Memorizing lists of anything is simply wrong. I feel so sorry for Italian students of English who are made to do this in schools. Good luck in Italy, BOY am I curious as to where you'll be!!!!

What will be your method / approach to learning the verbs? Sight and sound with stories, or just plain grammar "hacking" or something different?

Do you speak other languages??

Perché non hai parlato in italiano?

How do you say "When are you getting a decent haircut?' in Italian?

質問がある、1ヶ月イタリア語を勉強するどこへに旅行する。お金はどう