Best Italian Language App For Travel
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Are you traveling to Italy soon, looking for ways to learn some Italian? The app I’ll introduce in this article will help you pick up some Italian words before your travels. Not only that. It’ll guide you toward fluency. Firstly, I’ll present you with the best way to learn Italian before traveling. Then you’ll use the best Italian language for travel to practice with native speakers and get your level to fluency.
I’m not the biggest fan of language apps regarding language learning. They throw random words and phrases at you and tell you to learn them. You can easily get lost in the process. There are more efficient ways to learn the language than just memorizing Italian words. Therefore, I’ll give you my language learning method, and you’ll incorporate the best Italian language app into it.
What Is The Best Italian Language App For Travel?
The best Italian language app for travel is iTalki because it allows you to practice Italian with native speakers. In addition, you can focus on one topic within travel, e.g., being at the airport or getting to your accommodation. Once you know specific words you’ll need to use in these travel situations, go to iTalki. Choose your tutor, and speak with him as if you were already traveling and getting to your accommodation.
This is the most efficient way to learn Italian before your travels. You’ll put your effort first. After, you’ll get to practice speaking in each situation. It’ll give you the most confidence once you’re on the road.
So firstly, let me introduce the best Italian language app for travel.
How Does iTalki Work?
iTalki is a language app where you can practice Italian with native speakers. It also has more features to boost your Italian learning.
Find Your Italian Tutor
Firstly, go to the ‘Find a teacher’ section on iTalki. It’ll list all Italian tutors that are available to teach you. Each of them has a description of themselves and their teaching method. You can watch their video and see which is most sympathetic to you.
Each tutor also has a different price per lesson. Once you find a suitable tutor, go to their calendar and see when they can have a lesson with you. This is amazing because you don’t have to contact a tutor first and wait until he responds. Instead, you can book a lesson straight from the calendar. Just click on the green space and book it with him.
Trial Lesson On iTalki
Each tutor offers a trial lesson. This will help you get to know him better and tell him about your learning preferences. Some tutors provide trial lessons for free. Others charge you a few dollars.
It would be best to tell the tutor how you learned Italian during the trial lesson. Tell him that you’re learning words and phrases in specific travel situations. Advise him you want to learn to speak with him in each of these situations.
Book A Lesson With iTalki
After your trial lesson, you can keep learning Italian with this tutor. You can book a lesson in the calendar wherever it shows a green spot. Then show up for the session and practice speaking with your tutor.
If you didn’t like the tutor during the trial lesson, you could look for another one. Book another trial lesson with somebody else. It’s okay not to continue learning with the tutor if you didn’t like him during the trial lesson.
You can do a lesson via Skype or on the iTalki interface platform.
Extra Features On iTalki
Apart from lessons with native speakers, iTalki offers extra features to boost your Italian learning.
You can book a group class to discuss specific topics. This way, you can exchange ideas in Italian with other learners and learn more words from them.
What I love about iTalki are its quizzes. You can take any random quiz on a topic you want to improve, grammar or vocabulary. The quiz will help you understand additional structures of the Italian language.
There is also a podcast section where you can listen to various podcasts. It’s all included in the platform free of charge.
iTalki also organizes language challenges from time to time. You can join it and have to meet the requirements of studying Italian for a specific number of hours. You’ll compete with other learners and can win prizes.
How Much Does iTalki Cost?
Opening an account with iTalki is free of charge. You can also use all the extra features for free. What you need to pay for are the lessons with your tutor.
Before you book a lesson with your tutor, you’ll need to buy some credits to pay for it. Go to your wallet section and select the number of credits you want. It can be $20, $30, $50, $100, $200, or $500, or you can write the amount you want.
Once you’ve selected the number of credits, you can purchase them directly with a credit/debit card, Paypal, or Skrill e-wallet. You can also make a bank transfer. Then pay, and you’re ready to go.
Once you have credits in your wallet, you can book a lesson and start learning Italian. It’s that simple.
The Best Learning Method To Learn Italian Before Travel
Before you start learning Italian on iTalki, studying specific words within each travel topic will be necessary. This step is essential to move forward on your language learning journey.
Pick Up Specific Travel Topics
So let me explain what I mean by learning topic specific vocabulary. Initially, I want you to take a pen and a piece of paper and write down all situations when you’ll need to speak Italian once you travel. These situations can be:
- At the airport
- Ordering a taxi in the city
- Checking into your hotel
- Ordering drinks & food at a restaurant
- Introducing yourself to a stranger
- Booking sightseeing/extra activities
These are a few examples of topics/situations you might be in during your travels. But you know best what you’ll be doing during your vacation and in which situations you’ll need to speak Italian. So write your specific travel topics down now.
Learn Words & Phrases Within Each Travel Topic
Great! Once you have your topics, start thinking about all words and phrases you’ll use in each situation. For instance, when we take the situation ‘checking into your hotel’, I would think of the following words and phrases:
- Hello!
- I have a booking for 5 nights.
- Words that are written on a registration card in the hotel (name, surname, address, passport number, etc.)
- I want to have breakfast every day.
- Is the minibar free of charge in the room?
- What time is check-out?
Also, think of all questions the receptionist might ask you when you arrive.
Use iTalki App To Lean Speaking In Each Situation
Perfect! Once you’ve mastered your sentences and words within one topic, you can start using the iTalki App.
Just look at all the tutors available on iTalki. Listen to a few videos and see what tutor is most interesting to you. The great thing is that they offer lessons at different prices. This can be another criterion for you to consider once searching.
Tell Your Tutor About Your Learning Strategy
When you find your tutor, get a trial lesson with him. During the trial lesson, it’s important to tell him your strategy for learning Italian. Tell him that you have specific travel topics within which you’re learning words and phrases. Ask him to practice speaking in each situation during each session. iTalki tutors are excellent. They always listen to your needs and help you to speak Italian.
You can tell the tutor that you’re currently learning to speak Italian to check in at the reception. At the beginning of the lesson, tell him all the phrases and words you’ve learned by yourself. After, tell him you want to practice dialogues. One of you’ll be a receptionist and the other guest. Then switch the roles. During the dialogues, you’ll practice all the sentences and words you’ve learned before. You’ll also learn new words, or your tutor might correct you, so have a language notebook always handy.
Practice speaking in each travel situation with your tutor. You can even dedicate more lessons to each topic. Once you feel confident speaking Italian in each situation, move on to the next topic.
So get iTalki, the best Italian language app for travel, and start speaking Italian soon.
Make The Effort To Learn Italian
Believe me! Signing up for a random language app like Duolingo or Memrise might be much easier. But eventually, you’ll just learn words and be unable to use them in real life.
So instead, put more effort into your Italian learning at the beginning by learning topic specific words (as I described above). It’ll help you to learn Italian much faster. Then you’ll use the iTalki app and practice speaking with your Italian tutor. This will give you confidence, and you’ll remember the words better.
All in all, what else is a better motivation to learn Italian than your tutor. If you were to learn with another app by yourself, it would be much harder to open it and get to learning. But once you have your lesson scheduled with your tutor, it’ll motivate you more.
More Tips For Learning Italian
If you want to follow my method of how to learn a language for travel, check out my article. Go to my language blog for more tips to learn Italian efficiently.
I always recommend using various resources when learning languages. Besides using iTalki for your Italian learning, try to expand your language resources. You can also check out the best Italian audiobooks for beginners. Or get the best language learning podcasts.
If you have difficulties learning Italian words from the beginning, check out my article about how to learn vocabulary fast.
Get My Language Travel Notebook
In the beginning, you’ll have to remember all words and phrases in each topic you choose. So I’ve designed a language notebook to help you memorize these words. Inside, you have a space for each topic to write down the words you want to learn. This will help you to keep track of all the vocabulary you’re learning.
So get my language notebook for free now to stay organized on your learning journey.
To learn more about this language notebook and its contents, check out my article about the best language notebook.
