Does anyone want to learn Italian?

[spacedonkey]

I've decided to set aside one hour a day to learn Italian. I've got the Michel Thomas course and the Hugo Learn Italian book. Does anyone want to join me and practice on here?

Not altogether sure what the "ci" does in that sentence. Should it have just been "è un giovane squisito in Cuba Libre."?

Far too advanced for me!!! Going have to go and learn a lot more before I can talk about sexy men!!!

Hey, I'm using the babelfish translator there wobbly, not doing it all by myself!

I know, but am going to have to learn the grammer for myself - every time I try to translate something in babelfish I translate it back to check it and it's nonsense!!!

Top tip for using babelfish. Try saying the thing you want to say in several different ways and make it as simple as possible. Per esempio, I'll start off with "we can speak", then I'll put in "we can speak about young men", then I'll add in the adjectives, and that way you can see how the sentence builds up and where the words go.

Ah right, thanks sd!

I do like to learn the grammar in a more structured way though, so IKWYM

before a pedant jumps in there, I know "young" is an adjective! But "young men" is one word in italian!

Preferirei il Hugh bello Jackman, non il giovane squisito dalla Cuba Libre.

I finally got a sentence together with babelfish - must learn the Italian for things like sexy, lusty etc etc though!!!

LOL sd!!

spacedonkey: be careful with babelfish - it's very poor at translating any idioms (i.e. phrases where the whole phrase means something different from the individual words) and also at translating words which have more than one meaning.

Saying that though, ciaou, bella!

SP - I've noticed!!! Have to be very careful which words to use, else when I translate it back it makes no sense at all!!!

Ma non avete visto il giovane dalla Cuba Libre!

(I think that's the wrong form of "you" I've used there but Babelfish only uses the formal version)

yeah I have noticed that SP, that's why I reduce the sentence down to its simplest possible form and avoid anything idiomatic

will get me book out later and start doing it properly

I will also have a look around for any online learning resources and post them here

\link{http://perso.wanadoo.fr/babel-site/italian.htm\here is a simple guide to pronunciation and some basic grammar}

True sd but Hugh is so gorgeous it's hard to imagine much better - babelfish couldn't handle this and I couldn't think of a simpler way to say it that babelfish could cope with!!!

ciao tutti, come stai?

Oggi sto lavorando, stasera io imparerò l'italiano.

(con grazie a Google)

Gingerbells - piacere!

that first line should be:
ciao tutto, come è voi? (plural 'you')

buon giorno! sono bene.

io devo lavorare nella casa oggi. ma non e interessante.

Brava gingerbells

ché shame feastofstevenmom. questo è molto più interessante.

It is no good just using babel / google though, we need to start with the basics.
Who has the Hugo book?

I do.

I had the BBC Italian tape too.