A collections of my “secrets” to speak Italian with confidence. Read till the end.

Step #1

I have a secret to tell you. I was afraid to drive for a long time. I got my license at the age of eighteen but after passing the driving test, I didn’t drive much anymore. I drove very rarely, until I moved abroad and there… I didn’t drive at all for years and years.

Obviously, this didn’t help me and when I got back to driving after many years… my fear was back (in reality it had never left!): I was afraid of busy roads, the trucks that looked too big and I have never been on a highway alone — not yet!

However, I had decided to overcome this fear and wanted to start driving again, despite everything. And so, slowly, one car ride after another, my fear began to fade.

Now I’m not afraid anymore of busy roads or trucks and even though I haven’t been on a highway alone yet, the idea doesn’t scare me anymore.

My fear began to fade with practice. And practice then made me feel confident.

But why am I telling you this story? Because…speaking Italian works the same way!

If you now don’t feel confident and speak slowly or are afraid, it’s not because you aren’t capable or because your memory is poor. You’re insecure because speaking Italian isn’t something you’ve practiced enough… not yet, at least.

However, once you start speaking Italian, often, very often (as often as you drive a car), you’ll begin to develop confidence in speaking it.

One thing I’m proud of is that my students have the opportunity to speak Italian every day, if they want. And we do this through voice chat, because voice chat allows them to talk to me wherever they are.

Some of my students text me on the way to work, on their lunch break or before bed… it’s easy for them to do it because they always have their phone with them!

And how about you? How many times a week do you speak Italian?

If it’s just once in a while, it’s time to increase that number of times. The more times you speak Italian, the more confident you will become at speaking it. Because constant practice is one of the ways that helps you gain confidence.

So this is secret number one: consistent practice… and we’ll discuss in two days with secret number two. 😉

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Step #2

I had my first conversation in Spanish after studying it for about a year-and I remember it was a disaster!

The lady had asked me my country of origin and I answered her with the name of the city where I lived in instead. I got confused and… I ended up preferring to speak to this person in Italian (since she also spoke Italian) rathen than Spanish.

I had preferred to speak in Italian with her because I was ashamed to speak in Spanish. Especially, after making such a mistake.

Do you ever feel ashamed to speak another language, such as Italian? Maybe, you think that people judge you by your accent, that you can look stupid if you make a mistake…?

Well, I thought these things for a long time. But these thoughts didn’t help me at all.

Whenever I thought “I don’t want to look stupid!”, I kept quiet and didn’t try to speak. As a result, I was missing a great opportunity.

An opportunity to practice the language and learn even more.

And one day, I finally realized this: I had to stop thinking this way.

Thinking things like:

• “It’s better not to speak, I don’t want to look stupid.”
• “I’m not sure how to say this, it’s better not to say it.”
• “I didn’t understand what he said, but I don’t want to ask to repeat…I’ll look stupid.”

All these thoughts were thoughts dictated by fear and perfectionism. But the most important thing of all was that…these thoughts were not the truth.

If we don’t understand something, if we ask to repeat, if we get something wrong…it doesn’t mean we are stupid.

In fact, if I now asked you to repeat something you said, would you think I was stupid? I’m sure you wouldn’t!

So the next time you don’t understand something and want the other person to repeat, don’t think “I don’t want to sound stupid” but think “I’m still learning and if I ask for help I can learn even more.” This thinking will help you move forward in the conversation and make progress.

Sometimes people with a very high level of self-criticism (like you or me) create thoughts that do not help you make progress. So we have to learn to recognize these thoughts, let them go, and replace them with more useful thoughts that help us make progress.

Therefore, my question for you today is this:
What useless thoughts — that don’t help you, are you ready to let go of?

Ermy***

Step #3

Do you ever speak Italian alone? Or with your cat, dog or pet?

If so, you’re not alone. I also talked to myself when I learned my first language, English. 

In reality, talking to yourself is a good way to practice, however it has a big disadvantage: if you only talk to yourself (or your pet) you don’t know if you’re really communicating.

I mean: how do you know if what you say makes sense or not?

Language is made to communicate. And if we can communicate the message, it means we are using the language well. But to know this you need another person to acknowledge it.

Sometimes it happens that we don’t communicate well and there is something that we need to correct or that we need to learn. If we are in a conversation with another person (or, even better, with a teacher or a coach), it is this person who tells us what we need to correct.

And this is also how we learn a new word or expression. This is how through the use of language we learn to use it even better. In practice, you learn by talking (and it is precisely on this idea that my unique method Live Italian is based, by the way).

For this reason, an important thing in learning to speak Italian is… having someone else to speak it with.

Among other things, one of my teachers also said it: you need help to learn another language well. You can’t learn it alone or just by talking to yourself or even…with artificial intelligence!

Yes, because the truth is that you can also speak in Italian with GPT chat, which is a nice thing and can be fun but… this prevents you from doing another important thing which is another main function of the language and that is: connecting!

Creating a connection with another person through the words and emotions you communicate through your voice. 

Having a conversation with artificial intelligence may give you a few words, but conversations with a real person don’t just give you words… they also give you emotions, idioms, cultural attitudes, gestures and above all… they help you understand how to create bonds using the language.

And this is precisely why we learn Italian in the end, right? To create connections with real people.

Therefore, today I’d like to invite you to try to communicate more in Italian with other people and to start building these bonds.

If you want, start with me. Send me a voice message in Italian and tell me what you think about this topic. You can record your message here and send it here.

Ermy***

P.S. This blog post is a translation of a series of Italian newsletters that goes out to all my subscribers in audio and written form. Would you like to receive this kind of content in Italian to read and listen to into your mail box too? Sign up here.