To level 3 learners and Rocket mods - especially those who have also learned Spanish

Dear all

Having worked your way through Italian to level 3, how have you found learning the grammar, especially those who can compare it to Spanish?

What method - aside from following Rocket obviously - did you find most useful?

I ask (a) because I'm finding the grammar challenging, and (b) because I've been reading that Italian grammar is much more difficult than Spanish grammar.  I know that some of the answer depends on what other languages the learner speaks, and their native tongue.

Any feedback would be welcome!

Thanks in advance.

Chris

Hi Chris,

My native language is Spanish.  I am just starting level 4.  While a lot of it is similar and knowing Spanish has helped, (specially with the Essere and Stare and the possesive pronouns which you will get to soon!), there have been instances where it has gotten confusing because the courses are in English and it is so different.  To me it the English - Italian does not translate well.  I always need to stop and say it in Spanish in my head and then it makes more sense.

 What I have found very useful is reading simple things.  I got a book called Short Stories in Italian by Olly Richards.  It is not a children's book.  The stories are simple to understand.  They recommend reading them a few times over.  They are about 3-4 pages long.  You get new vocabulary words and you will be surprised at how much you do understand.  

Very helpful, LuzM18 - thanks.  I've heard of Olly Richards, and will definietely check short stories out.

My compliments for translating the English to Spanish then making more sense of the Italian!  I have to really focus on just the English to Italian grammar!

Chris

I don't speak Spanish, but now that I've gone through all of the Italian lessons I'm doing a deep-dive and making my own manual of sorts. 

I learn very well by taking notes, so organizing the content and combining similar topics is working well for me to group concepts and practice beginner, intermediate and advanced concepts in a row.

I divided all the grammar lessons into Parts of Speech, Tenses, Moods, Voices, Advanced (sentense structure and word order), and Vocabulary. Each catergory has it's own sub categories. Doing this let me go through (for example conjunctions) by doing the easy lesson (Neither, nor and more) and then the hard stuff (conditionals) together.

Thanks for your reply, Nicholas.  You're seriously organised and I can see how categorising things would be of great benefit. At the very least, I'll look at creating a types of grammar index based on that, to enable quick reference for review.  Thanks again.  Chris