live in italy for at least several month and learn the language

I’ve already traveled to Italy, picked up a few phrases and words on the tour, fell in love with the country. Fell into complete disgust with America. Since the trip, I’ve listened to a CD to learn italian, but I feel my knowledge of Spanish, may interveen with learnign Italian. I could either go further with Spanish, or learn Italian and have troubles distinguishing the two.

It has been always a wish of mine to go to Italy, as it’s wonderful country and I hope it will be fulfilled next year! I am trying to find some simple job and live there for some time. Of course first of all I wish to improve my language knowledge, but Italy is also a place, which makes me happy and I simply change there a lot. I start being more open to others, smile more, laugh more, I become much more confident. I really I hope I will find peace of mind and happiness there too.

I lived in Sicily for 3 1/2 years and I loveeeeeeeeeed doing this. Fortunately (most of the time) my husband’s career takes us many places and this is my far the best place we have lived.
When learning the language from the locals, be sure that you are learning Italian and not Sicilian—there are subtle differences that can get you into trouble.

Most English-speakers go to Florence or Sienna, and consequently those towns are boiling over with English-speakers who never learn a word of Italian. Consider going to Rome or Sicily or a less-famous part of the country…the further you get off the tourist track, the more friendly/curious the locals will be.

I spent seven months in Florence and didn’t learn as much as I should have because the school I went to wasn’t very good. It was small, which was what I wanted, but the people who ran the school really had no idea how to teach. The intro levels were fine, but after that, all we did was sit around and read aloud.

My advice is to get recommendations before you sign up. (In my case, I had to pay the entire tuition up front.)