Greg

l'italiano imparante è divertimento, se una punta lenta

I have this great theory that we should learn italian before we go to Italy.  And yes, this is largely related to our inability to speak Spanish while in El Salvador...  The trouble?  I don't think we're putting in nearly enough time to make decent progress.  When we were in school, it was a few hours a week (sadly, I'm having trouble recalling if we had language classes EVERY day or just two or three times a week).  Right now, I'm probably spending an hour a week MAYBE two - clearly more time and effort is required.

How are we proceeding?  I got the Rosetta Stone software for learning Italian the other day and have been using it on a quasi-regular basis.  The "how good is your accent/pronunciation" part of the software is really cool, even if it is possible to skip by with a few errors in what you've just said...  The rest of it is also pretty good, even if the only thing I really know at this point is how to say "the {fish|dog|car|airplane} is {white|red|new|old}".  I'm presuming more vocabulary to come once I finish lesson 1

The latest attempt to bootstrap my vocabulary is sitting on the dining room table - I bought an Italian newspaper and am planning on going through and trying to read at least one section, translating as I go.  We'll see how long this lasts before I finish that section or give up entirely