Hi everybody!

[Majid]

I am here because I love songs and also because I have just started to learn Italian and I'll be listening to Italian songs and wondering what the words mean.

My mother tongue is not English (that is evident probably!), it's Farsi. I learned English on my own and in a very personal way. I didn't attend any classes (I hated English in school so that can be ignored), I didn't use any of book-cassette sets like Lingaphone, and finally, I didn't have anyone to practice with.

What I did, was recording some very interesting Radio Drama from BBC called 'Play of the Week' (Sir Michael Lyons, please don't sue me!) and listened to them many, many times. It took me around a year from the time I didn't understand any of what was said to when I could understand it quite well.

I am going to repeat that with Italian. It will be much easier than 20 years ago, when I started learning English. Now we have satellite TV and Radio stations, blogs, pod-casts, and youtube. I had none back in the days I learned English; all I had was a shortwave radio receiver and a cassette recorder/player.

If you know of good radio drama, talk shows, documentaries and podcasts in Italian, I'd be more than happy to hear about.

Thanks for reading.

Majid

[razvy2]

Originally Posted by Majid

I am here because I love songs and also because I have just started to learn Italian and I'll be listening to Italian songs and wondering what the words mean.

My mother tongue is not English (that is evident probably!), it's Farsi. I learned English on my own and in a very personal way. I didn't attend any classes (I hated English in school so that can be ignored), I didn't use any of book-cassette sets like Lingaphone, and finally, I didn't have anyone to practice with.

What I did, was recording some very interesting Radio Drama from BBC called 'Play of the Week' (Sir Michael Lyons, please don't sue me!) and listened to them many, many times. It took me around a year from the time I didn't understand any of what was said to when I could understand it quite well.

I am going to repeat that with Italian. It will be much easier than 20 years ago, when I started learning English. Now we have satellite TV and Radio stations, blogs, pod-casts, and youtube. I had none back in the days I learned English; all I had was a shortwave radio receiver and a cassette recorder/player.

If you know of good radio drama, talk shows, documentaries and podcasts in Italian, I'd be more than happy to hear about.

Thanks for reading.

Majid

Hello Majid, greetings from Romania.
You have a really interesting story, your process of learning English is a real achievement. I cannot help you with Italian, but when you need some advices concerning Romanian, I will be here. ))
All the best.

[Majid]

Razvy, thank you for your warm welcome.

[LoOlya]

Welcome !!

[Majid]

Thank you LoOlya, you 14-year-old-senior-member!

[Zahra2008]

Welcome Majid... very interesting your introduction, I hope you will get all the help you need with the Italian ...

Greetings from Mexico

[LoOlya]

Originally Posted by Majid

Thank you LoOlya, you 14-year-old-senior-member!

Ah yes, Thanks God !
Greetings from Syria !

[Maviii]

Welcome majid in the board ..
learning italian is my dream so far
but for some reasons i cant focus and practise it
but as soon i find free time i`ll improve it

anyway .. see u around mate ..& welcome again

[Majid]

@Zahra2008: Thanks! I love Mexico.
@LoOlya ["Ah yes, Thanks God"]: Good girl! Keep it this way.
@Maviii:
Thank you, Maviii, we have this common interest.
But this is not a good idea to wait for free time to start learning. That way you may never start! Lower your expectations and start with activities which can be fitted to small time slots. Learning a new language is long journey and not easy on its own account. If we add extra conditions it will become harder to make progress.

[Majid]

Maviii,

Interesting way to specify location! Don't know if it's a joke or not, but to satisfy my curiosity just pasted the coordinates into Google Maps and it took me to Al Kebreeti, Jordan.

[Zahra2008]

Hey Majid ... good that you likes my country .. Mexico is lovely!!


and p.s. yes Maviii is from Jordan

[Majid]

Zahra,

I used to be a fan of Carlos Castaneda when I was young. Through his books I visited Mexico. Although I don't believe in what he says any more, I still find the descriptions of Mexico's lands amazing. I hope I can visit your country one day.

[Maviii]

LOL majid u have find me then by google
yeah its kind of joke to show our locations .. its long story in this forum
we all change our locations depending on our mood and for fun sometimes .

about learning languages yeah u r right i agree with u i have to start
and find time without waiting .. but trust me i didnt let it &
as soon i go to italy i`ll practise it and learn it there so quickly

btw : we can start to learn it together ..
if u find good links like those u were looking for lemme know
and i`ll bookmark them ... actually i need little push i admit that

[Majid]

Originally Posted by Maviii

LOL majid u have find me then by google
yeah its kind of joke to show our locations .. its long story in this forum
we all change our locations depending on our mood and for fun sometimes .

Fun and harmless! And I can see that it is not limited to the location: look Zahra2008 has a new avatar.

Originally Posted by Maviii

btw : we can start to learn it together ..

I'm game!

Originally Posted by Maviii

if u find good links like those u were looking for lemme know and i`ll bookmark them ... actually i need little push i admit that

So here comes the first push:
I found some good podcasts from RAI. RAI to Italy is what BBC is to the UK (Radio & TV). In the original link the descriptions are in Italian and I do not know much yet so I fed the page to Google Translate and got the same page with the description in English! - Google is amazing

Plan Now, learning together needs a plan. I have some ideas but I need time to put them together. So, if you really want to learn with me watch out for the plan, and tell me what YOU think should go into it. We can start a new topic and have others join too, but first let us figure out how the whole thing should go, then we'd make a new thread.

And finally here are the links:

• podcasts page in Italian
• podcasts page translated to English

Take care,
Majid

[JoeRocks7]

hi Majid,, is good to have you here,, I just started yesterday too,, and the job this people do with lyrics, it's really interesting and amazing...

know what? we have somethin in Common, I'm from a little country named El Salvador in Central America, and the same as you, I learned english by myself, now I looking for to learn german, I love it,, and I think these guys can help us a lot,, isnt so guys???

by the way! 'bout your request of Italian material,,, you shuold listen to " Il Divo" he's an italalian singer,, I like it.. you can find some lirycs here:

http://www.musica.com/letras.asp?letras=16248

hope it be helpful.
by the way!! my native language is spanish, I don't know if it can be useful for you.. actually. Italian is very similar with spanish, andf if there's something I can help you with, I'll be more than glad..

Greetings, and welcome again!!!

[Majid]

Thank you very much Joe! Of course the lyrics will be very helpful and I will read them and listen to the songs. Good luck on your journey to learn German. And let me suggest a dutch song. It is called 'Lili Marleen' and is a German love song, and it is so sweet that according to tales whenever Radio Berlin played it during the world war II, the two sides stopped fighting and both listened to it!

You can read more about it and find the lyrics here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lili_Marleen

And, El Salvador! Man, I REALLY love to have friends in all parts of the world. Greetings to you my friend from Karaj.