The Scoop: Many foreign language learners struggle to gain fluency when the teaching method is just a class. To fully learn a language, students need an immersive experience. With News in Slow Italian, students of Italian can listen to the language at a reasonable pace, all while listening to their daily news. The service can be a fantastic collaborative experience for couples who wish to learn Italian together.
When a person learns a new language online or through a class, getting a full immersive experience can be challenging. Learning vocabulary and grammar is undoubtedly essential for language acquisition. Still, it doesn’t guarantee that a student can communicate effectively, let alone fluently when talking to a native speaker. Constant exposure to the language is the best way for students to improve their speaking and listening skills for real-world use.
News in Slow Italian offers the perfect immersive solution for students of Italian. Curated by a team of multilingual journalists, linguists, and creatives, the service produces quality news content targeted at individuals in the process of learning Italian.
The website offers premium podcasts for language learners. Subscribers can listen to the weekly news show, explore an original series, or work through the grammar course. The team builds everything around audio episodes and transcribes them for easy comprehension. In addition to being an excellent resource for those learning the language, it is a beautiful source of world and Italian news, both of which can be difficult to find in American media.
Renzo Ampuero, Artistic Director at Linguistica 360, News in Slow Italian’s parent company, said he believes that News in Slow Italian is a uniquely effective resource for couples who wish to share a new activity. “Learning a language together is a unique bonding experience for couples,” Renzo said. “And if you put in the time and effort to learn your partner’s language, that shows commitment! Using News in Slow Italian in either scenario provides conversation topics and a shared point of reference.”
Whether couples use News in Slow Italian to learn the language together or one partner uses it to study the native language of the other, the service offers a way to show commitment in a relationship through action. Learning a new language is no small feat, but with News in Slow Italian, the process becomes easier and more intuitive.
Get to Know Your Partner Better — In Italian!
Even for relationships where one partner is a native Italian speaker, News in Slow Italian is an excellent source of common conversation material for couples. Listening to the podcasts together can create a fun shared daily routine. Couples can listen to their morning or evening news together, all while learning a new language.
For couples whose busy lives don’t allow for joint listening, listening separately can provide each person with the same material to discuss later. They can feel connected to their partner, knowing they are consuming the same content, even if they are physically separated on their commutes or in a long-distance relationship.
News in Slow Italian can help the couples continue to learn about each other and share ideas, particularly for couples who have been together for a long time and already know each other well.
Sometimes couples who are very much in love can struggle to think of new topics to discuss. But with News in Slow Italian, they will consistently have exciting material to share. Because most Americans are somewhat unfamiliar with news in Italy, learning about the politics and current events of a different country will allow them and their significant others to unpack new ideas together. They may even disagree and try to debate in a new language!
Communicating effectively about big ideas in a new language and possibly struggling can be a great source of vulnerability in a relationship that can help couples feel bonded. “Connecting through a news story and then trying to talk about it together in Italian is bound to improve your communication skills in any language,” Renzo said.
Show Commitment by Learning Their Language
Learning a language can be challenging because it requires consistent mental effort and concentration, which can drain your energy, especially for those who have a job or studies outside their language acquisition. Fortunately, News in Slow Italian has beginner-friendly podcasts to make things a little easier on a person.
As is true with many parts of life, the difficulty of learning a language is part of what makes it so worth it. When your efforts pay off and you successfully master a new language, it is enriching, which is even more true for those who learn their new language in the hope of growing closer with their native-speaker partner.
Learning your partner’s language represents an immense effort to make your partner more comfortable in the relationship. Because everyone communicates and behaves slightly differently in each language they speak, a couple gets to know each other better when they share a new language. By learning Italian for your Italian-speaking partner, you will get to know a new side of them.
Once you can speak your partner’s language, you can participate more fully in their culture. Many cultural practices, expressions, and norms rely heavily on language and are hard to translate. But when you speak the language, you unlock new terms and ways of understanding that you previously could not access.
While your Italian partner may speak English, it is unlikely that all of their relatives speak it too. By learning Italian, you more fully become a part of their family unit in Italy or the English-speaking world.
Learning your partner’s language through any method would open up new possibilities in understanding each other and ways to show that you care. But News in Slow Italian offers a unique additional benefit: Italian news. Not only can you learn your partner’s language through the program, but you can simultaneously learn about current events in their home country. The service offers subscribers an excellent opportunity to become competent in their partners’ native language and their cultural and political backgrounds.
Learn About the World with News in Slow Italian
Most people learn a new language primarily to communicate in a foreign country or with people from other parts of the world. Communication is undoubtedly an important reason to learn a language, as is becoming a better world citizen. Learning a new language helps you see the world from a different perspective and cultural context. It forces you to push yourself out of your comfort zone to make it easier for others to understand you. In many ways, learning a new language is a selfless act where you essentially decenter yourself from your view of the world.
“We want not only to help language learners become more proficient and confident but to inspire healthy dialogue and debate about important issues along the way,” Renzo said. With News in Slow Italian, you’ll have the tools at your disposal to do precisely that.
With News in Slow Italian, you can take your world studies even further by learning Italian as you improve your knowledge of current events. You’ll improve your fluency while learning more about the culture you’re trying to understand. Whether you’re learning Italian to surprise your partner or so you can listen to the podcast alongside them, you become a more cultured person with a better knowledge of world events, which can be a major plus in any relationship. It can make you a better communicator, a better listener, and a more empathetic partner overall.
And what’s more romantic than learning a romance language with a person you love?
