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Whenever you are visiting Italy and your embarrassment at your limited Italian vocabulary makes you feel self-conscious and fall back onto the safety blanket of the english language, just remember\u00a0two things. The first is that we will probably feel equally self-conscious when we attempt to reply in english and the second is that we will love you for trying to learn our language, regardless of how many mistakes you make and how funny your accent may sound to our ears. After decades of english being presented as the language that we were expected (and mostly failed) to learn, we are always pleasantly surprised to meet an Italian learner<\/strong>. Having said that, you already know more Italian words than you think<\/strong>. This is due to the nature of languages and cultural exchanges, whereby words tend to be exported alongside concepts and whole areas of human knowledge are described using terms that are identical or very similar across several languages. Once you are aware of the breadth of your preexisting Italian vocabulary, you might want to pad that up with a smattering of grammar, which comes easily if\u00a0you practise. The basis, however, is already there.
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