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Sometimes your language learning routine can start to bore you, no matter how big of an Italophile you are, and when that happens, you need a little extra something to perk you back up.
Below you’ll find 7 creative ways to make your Italian study time even better.
1. Write acrostic poems for the five closest people to you.
Remember when you were in school and you wrote acrostic poems for your friends? So, if your friend’s name were Sarah, you would have written
Sassy
Ambitious
Radiant
Adorable
Happy
Well, you can do the same thing with your friends now, but in Italian.
When I ran the most recent round of the Italian Language Studio, I ended up writing acrostic poems for each of the members.
Here is one of my favorites:
Semplice –> This is a good thing! See this article –> here!
Tenace
Amichevole
Coraggiosa
Effervescente
Y (doesn’t exist! Haha.)
As you can see, some letters simply don’t have accompanying adjectives in Italian (although you can get away with “jazzistico” for J’s.)
2. Play games in Italian.
So this can be harder depending on your level of Italian, but it’s still possible if the games are fairly straightforward.
With a game like Scrabble (called Scarabeo in Italian), you’ll need to have a robust vocabulary (maybe upper intermediate) to not feel frustrated, while you can easily play Solitaire without too much fuss.
Check out this site for some free games.
If you’re looking for games you can play on your phone, I recommend More Words Italia.
Some other games are:
– L’impiaccato (Hangman)
– iCruciPuzzle Lite (Word searches)
– Milionario Quiz (Who wants to be a millionaire quiz game)
3. Read jokes.
No matter what you’re reading, if you’re engaging with the language with your full attention, you’re being productive, so take some time to read jokes from this website whenever you have a chance.
4. Get an Italian study partner.
Studying on your own is lovely, but having another native English speaker to chat with is even better. You get to go back and forth on strange differences in the language, swap stories about language mix ups, and feel a shared pain when Italian grammar kicks your butt.
If you don’t know anyone else who is learning Italian, try joining an Italian Meetup group and see if you hit it off with anyone.
5. Use Tomatoi.st so you can take more breaks.
If you’re the kind of person who loses track of time and then feels exhausted after two hours of studying, you might need to use a tool like tomatoi.st.
You start a timer for 25 minutes and then take a 5-minute break and then 25-minutes and then a 5-minute break or a 15-minute break.
6. Browse through Italian for My Girlfriend.
Rosangela, the artist at Italian for My Girlfriend, has tons of gorgeous drawings to match vocabulary words and phrases, so if you get bored with studying, take fifteen minutes to browse her archives.
If you really like one (or a few), make it your background screen for your computer or buy a print set for your studies.
My most recent favorite? THIS ONE:
7. Follow Italian Facebook pages.
Scrolling through your Facebook feed is so much more fun when Italian interrupts you instead of that hundredth post of someone’s baby.
And if you like a specific magazine, you can usually find an Italian version.
Here are some that you might like:
– Vanity Fair Italia
– National Geographic Italia
– il Post
– Lorenzo Jovanotti Cherubini
– Spettacolo Fanpage
– Lo spicchio d’aglio
– Rai letteratura
– Sgrammaticando
– Imparo
And if you’re curious about other ways to improve your Italian studies, check out this guide on how to go from absolute beginner to intermediate.
What do you do to make your Italian study time even better? Let me know in the comments below!
