I don’t have many opportunities to practice speaking in Italian – during the lessons there is no time to speak, I have to read, listen and do exercises.
My Italian friends speak too fast, I’m not able to follow their conversations.
I understand a lot while listening, but I don’t know how to put my knowledge into practice.
Can you relate? Do you feel like you want to speak more Italian, but you don’t have many opportunities? Are your conversational lessons not enough and your Italian friends are impatient when you get stuck and look for the right words? There’s a way to practice speaking that does not require a teacher, Italian friends, or even lessons. Wonder what it is?
It’s true that as a language learner you have a lot of opportunities to read in a target language – books, magazines, or even social media posts, and many to hear a language – radio, films and series, YouTube videos. But often you leave practice speaking to the weekly lesson with a teacher. During the lessons, you often feel a bit stressed and overwhelmed, so you don’t even remember your mistakes or things to improve.
What if you could speak on your own? If you could control your mistakes and self-correct? What if you could prepare words and phrases before speaking? If speaking would become less stressful and more comfortable? How to practice speaking yourself?
How to practice speaking Italian on your own?
There is a way to practice speaking on your own that I find efficient with my students and myself, and that’s recording your voice when you speak Italian! In this post, I wrote why you should start recording your voice in order to improve your speaking in Italian.
Before you say: ‘no way, I hate my voice and feel uncomfortable when I hear myself speaking’, I’ll give you some tips that make the process easier for you:
- start with reading a text instead of your words
- make some voice warm up to feel more confident and powerful
- give yourself time to get used to your voice
- start with writing what you want to say and then record
- listen to your recordings and make notes of what you want to improve
Like a lot of things in life, this process requires time and working on your own, but it’s worth it.
Tools you need and steps to do in order to practice speaking
Once you decide to record your voice when you speak Italian, here are some things that you will need:
- a phone with a voice recorder
- a paper
- a pen
- a dictionary
Steps to do:
Step 1: Decide what you are going to talk about. Below, you’ll find a list of topics you can talk about.
Step 2: Prepare a script of what you want to tell. Use a dictionary if you need it. If you feel good about not taking notes, go directly to step 3.
Step 3: Record yourself when you talk about a topic
Step 4: Listen to the recording
Step 5: Take notes of what you want to improve. Pronunciation? Vocabulary? Grammar?
Step 6: Record yourself once again with corrections and improvements
Step 7: Listen to the recording once again
In the beginning, it can take time, maybe 30-40 minutes but once you get familiar with this technique, you can record yourself speaking Italian when you have a walk in the park or get stuck in a traffic jam. Isn’t it a great tool?
Topics you can use to practice speaking on your own
- Com’è andata la tua giornata?
- Qual è una cosa della tua vita che smetteresti di fare se potessi?
- Immagina una conversazione al telefono: vuoi prenotare un tavolo in ristorante.
- Incontri un amico che non vedevi da tanto tempo. Salutalo e chiedigli come va da lui.
- Dov’è nata la tua passione per l’italiano? Perché hai deciso di studiarlo? Racconta.
- Cosa ti piace di più nel tuo lavoro e cosa non sopporti invece?
- Stai sui social media? Come influiscono sulla tua vita?
- Fai gli auguri di compleanno a tua zia.
- Il posto più bello che tu abbia mai visitato?
- Condividi la ricetta per un piatto che è la tua specialità.
I use voice recordings as the main tool in my courses and programs, look at what my clients tell about this method:
Thank you, Agata, for the opportunity to be a part of the chat. To be honest, I must admit that it was kind of a challenge to me because I’ve always been afraid of recording voice messages and I wanted to change it. Now I’m really happy because it was a huge pleasure to try it and study Italian that way. Thank you for all your corrections and tips. I liked how you explained periodo ipotetico, even though I’ve studied it I haven’t got it till now.
Ewa
Thank you a lot for the chat and thank all girls for our talks. In the beginning, I wasn’t sure if it could work for me, but I discovered that I learned a lot, and I’m happy that I was a part of it.
Dorota
My grammar is not perfect, because I’ve been studying Italian on my own. I know I need to speak as much as possible. Therefore, the chat that you created gave us a chance for getting rid of the fear of speaking.
Kasia
As you can see, my students before starting to record themselves were skeptical, but once they tried it, they saw real improvement.
If you feel like you need my help with practicing Italian via voice recordings, have a look at my programs that help you get confident in speaking, or email me at info@theitalianeffect.com.
