12 Study Italian in Rome

“GET AN ITALIAN BOYFRIEND,” is what girlfriends tell me is the best way to learn the language. Learning to speak Italian while falling in love is a lot like how a baby makes its first attempts. First it’s all about amore, then it moves on to basic necessities where you’re like a demanding two-year-old, and if things go further, you’ll inevitably be expressing feelings, which could lead to anything from a tearful breakup or, in the case of my friend Lisa, a happy marriage and two adorable bilingual children.

Going another route, you could sign yourself up for language school. It’s a great way to immerse yourself in the culture, and if you’re traveling alone, there’s a built-in social scene.

Rome is full of good schools. Years ago, I enrolled in Ciao Italia, a small place near the Colosseum, that my Italofile friend Louise had recommended. They fixed me up with budget accommodations (my own bedroom and bath) in a huge Trastevere apartment, where I was hosted by Antoinella, a half-deaf, seventy-something widow. She insisted on feeding me, and I got a kick out of hanging out and watching blaring TV with her just like I’d done back in Jersey with my nana.

My classmates were a writer from Edinburgh who was working on translating Belli (his favorite Roman poet), a thirty-something Venezuelan gal who’d married an Italian and was on a job hunt, and a Japanese chef who worked in an Italian restaurant in Tokyo. It’s a typical mix—most of the time you won’t find many Americans in these schools.

The instructors were enthusiastic types, who rode Vespas to work and looked like fashionistas even when they were just wearing jeans and zip-up jackets. The classes were excellent and structured as most of the language schools in Italy are: three-hour morning sessions, broken up into grammar and conversation classes, and optional afternoon activities that ranged from cooking classes to a walking tour of the Jewish Ghetto, or watching Cinema Paradiso without subtitles. Teaching was the “direct method,” with classes totally in Italian. It was rigorous, with homework, but all added up to two intense weeks of a lot of fun.

The best part was the speedy learning curve. All of a sudden I was in the living room with my Trastevere nonna who was telling me a convoluted story about the chicken she had bought that morning, and how it reminded her of her late husband who hated chicken, maybe because her mother always made chicken when she lived with them when they first married…and I realized…Eureka!...Ho Capito!...I understand!

Ciao Italia: Check out the website for the range of programs they offer, along with accommodation arrangements, at great prices: www.ciao-italia.it.

OTHER LANGUAGE SCHOOLS IN ROME