(#3) How to become CONVERSATIONAL (and FLUENT) in Italian

Welcome to the Italian Fluency Expansion Podcast! My name is Francesca and I am a Neural Language Coach, Mindset Coach, EFT practitioner and brain expert. My passion is helping you to become fluent in Italian without the hassle. If you are looking for immensely elevated in your Italian, your mindset and your language learning strategies, you have come to the right place. My goal on this podcast is to show you how learning Italian can be easier than you thought possible. Consider this podcast your weekly inclusion of clarity and insights on the Italian language and mindset to support you in becoming the most fluent version of yourself. Eura, in it'siamo! Tell my friend and welcome to the Italian Fluency Expansion Podcast! I am your host Francesca. Welcome to the third episode of the podcast! Before we dive into today's episode, I want to take a moment to just thank all those who have subscribed to my podcast. There are so many of you! Thank you so much Grazie mill! All of you who have sent me a message on Instagram to let me know what resonated, how the episodes helped, and all of you who have left a review on Apple Podcast, on Spotify. This means so much for me. Thank you so much! Grazie, grazie, grazie, grazie! So today we are going to be diving into the exact process on how to become conversational in Italian without using any books, without feeling overwhelmed. And I want you to understand that this is a simple process, a tested process. Tested process because I tested that first on myself. When I was learning Norwegian, I was able, because of this process that I'm gonna tell you, to become conversational in Norwegian in six months, I will also give you the trial and errors so you can avoid all the mistakes that I made so you don't do them. So this process is for any level whether you are a beginner in the Italian language, whether you are starting from zero, whether you are an intermediate and advanced, it doesn't make any difference. The process is the same. This is also the same strategy, the same process that I apply in my private coaching programs. So with my clients that want to work 101 with me, and the same process, the same strategy is applied in my on-demand course, which is Italian for traveling, my step-by-step process on how to become conversational for your trip to Italy. So the exact same strategy, the exact same pattern is found in all the coaching programs, in all the offerings that I do offer, simply because I know that works. So let's dive into the process. So whenever I speak with a potential client, a person that wants my help to adjust the process of learning Italian, a person that wants to elevate his or her Italian and wants to reach certain goal, and I always hear the same request, I want to become fluent, I want to become at least conversational. And this is great. You have the big vision, you know exactly where you want to go with your Italian, but I invite you to think about this for a second. When you think about this big vision becoming fluent, probably you're going to feel excited, you're going to feel motivated, but how do you feel when you think about the process that you have to walk to get there? Is it clear or is it overwhelming? Probably the answer that you gave me is overwhelming, because whenever you have a big goal, whether it's becoming fluent in Italian, whether it's becoming a millionaire, whether it's getting into shape, if you don't have clarity on the steps that you need to take to reach that big vision, you're going to start to experience a sense of overwhelm, a sense of uncertainty. And this is normal because your brain doesn't know what is the next step. Remember, and this is very, very important, I invite you to write this down. Your brain wants to keep you exactly where you are, wants to keep you in the familiar, because the familiar is known. And when you are in the familiar, for your brain, you are safe. But when you step into the unknown, like I don't know what to do next, I don't know what is the next step to become fluent, I don't know what is the next step to become a millionaire or getting in shape, your brain will start switching into the protection mode, because if you don't know exactly what to do next, if you don't have clarity on what is the next step, this is not safe for your brain, and your brain wants to keep you safe. So this is when you start procrastinating, this is when you start to find excuses, this is when you start to put off your Italian for another year. And I definitely don't want this for you, and I am sure that you don't want for yourself that too, right? So what we need to do is to take this big goal, this big vision of becoming fluent in Italian, and finally squeeze it, layer it in teeny tiny steps that you're gonna walk with consistency. So instead of looking at a ladder and trying to reach the top of the ladder, ignoring all the steps, just taking a big jump to reach the top, what we're gonna do is to start climbing this ladder, step by step with perseverance so you can reach the top without feeling drained, without feeling overwhelmed, and also another thing that I invite you to make peace with is that becoming conversational is not an overnight process. It's not, it's just not. I invite you to release the expectation of it, and instead substitute the expectation of I should become fluent, I should become conversational fast, I should, I should release this judgment, release this judgmental expectation, and instead substitute it with excitement of the process that you're gonna take. And from this energetic space of curiosity, excitement, I am so curious to see what this process is gonna bring me, how it's gonna unfold for me, how my life will change along the way, how my life will change while I am progressing with the Italian language. I am so curious to know what I will be able to do with what I know. This is the energy that you first want to tap into before doing anything, okay? Releasing expectations, releasing all the shoots or I have to, because they don't serve you, they just put urgency that doesn't help you to learn, release all that, and just tap into curiosity and excitement for the process. And this is the 80% of the strategy. The 80% your mindset, it's so important. It's so, so important. So what is the 20% that is left? The 20% is the strategy, and you're gonna learn that too today. So hopefully you have your notebook and a pen, because we're gonna dive into a pretty extensive process, so I hope that you are gonna take notes, because it's gonna be so valuable for you. we have a call for the 80%, which is the mindset, the energy that you want to carry with yourself along the way. And now we are going to step into the 20%, which is the strategy. So as I said, we are going to take this big goal that you have, which is becoming fluent, becoming conversational. And we are going to squeeze it so much. So we have extreme clarity on the steps that we need to take in order to reach this goal. Okay? So let's squeeze it together. The first thing that we're going to do is to define your specific goals. Okay? How do we do that? Let's say that you want to travel to Italy, okay? And you want to become conversational for your trip to Italy. Having this goal of "I want to become conversational" doesn't mean anything because it's not clear. Right? So what we want to do is to squeeze it in small, achievable steps. So to do that, you're going to ask yourself, what are the situations in which I want to speak Italian on my trip? What are they? For example, it could be, I want to be able to order my gelato in Italian. I want to be able to order at the restaurant. I want to be able to do my shopping or in Italian. I want to be able to and you get the idea, right? So you get very, very specific. So you have your goals written down. Now second step, we are going to define the actions. Ask yourself this question. What do I need to know so I can speak in that situation on my trip? For example, what vocabulary? What grammar do I need to know? So I can speak in that situation. Do you see how we are becoming so specific? And we are squeezing the goal? For example, let's say that your goal is to do your shopping or in Italian. What do you need to study so you can speak in that situation? It could be close vocabulary. It could be shoes vocabulary. It could be material, leather, linen, cotton, right. And also you could learn how to ask a gentle request, right? So the verb potere, for example, and you could also learn the vocabulary for the size, for what, where are the fitting rooms? Can I have another size of this t-shirt, right? You have the goal and then you define the actions. What you need to do in order to speak in that situation? Then once we have defined the goals, once we have defined the actions for every goal, we are going to define some activities to put into practice. For example, let's speak the goal of doing your shopping or in Italian. This is the goal. The actions we said, close vocabulary, shoes vocabulary, gentle request, how to ask a different size, I like it, I don't like it, and so on. Step three, we are going to define the activities. To do that, ask yourself this question, how can I put into practice what I've learned? How can I put into practice what I've learned to practice my goal? In fact, it's not only important to know words, to know grammar. You need to become familiar, you need to become comfortable with using those words and grammar, right? So when you will be in Italy, you will be already trained for that. Right, you did already practice. An example of an activity could be writing down a conversation between you and a shop assistant, or for example, you can close your eyes, immerse yourself in the situation, so being in a shop in Italy, and think about what would you say? Making up a situation, imagine it as if it was real. Let's say that you see a beautiful linen dress and you ask, "Can I try it?" Just so you can try it. But then you see that the size is not right for you, so you want to ask for a different size. How would you ask that in Italian? You see what I am doing here? I am inviting you to consciously bring yourself into that real situation to practice. This is so powerful for your brain. You are powerful than doing 1000 days of stricter on Duolingo. Okay, this is way more powerful. This is the exact same process that helped me to become conversational in Norwegian in six months. I defined my goals, so the situations in which I wanted to speak Norwegian. I defined my actions. What do I need to do so I can speak in that situation? And then I chose some activities to do to practice that grammar, that vocabulary, so I could speak and become more comfortable and familiar using what I've studied to speak in that situation. For example, one of my goals was doing small talk with Norwegians. Small talk, it's still a little bit unclear, so I squeezed it more. For example, I want to be able to speak about my life and my family. I want to be able to speak about my summer plan. I want to be able to speak about what I did last weekend. I want to be able to speak about why I study Norwegian. These are all sub-goals that I investigated, that I worked on, and so by achieving this sub-goal, okay, these teeny tiny goals, this allowed me to speak in real life situations. So I took my tiny goal, for example, I want to be able to speak about myself, and I imagined a situation in which I was speaking with Norwegians, and I just wrote a text about it. I just wrote a text about a possible conversation that I could have with Norwegians. This was so helpful because I learned specific words, I learned specific grammar, I learned to put everything together when speaking, and then when I was walking to work, I just pretended I had that conversation in my head. So that helped me to reinforce that even more, and make it more natural, okay, this is the process. So now, if you're struggling to become conversational in Italian, you feel that whenever you want to speak the words are missing, or you don't know what to say, you understand maybe, but you don't know what to say, ask yourself this. What are the situations, the specific situations? in which I want to speak Italian. What do I need to learn so I can speak in that situation? And then, how can I put into practice, vocabulary, and grammar? So I can become more familiar when speaking in that situation in Italian. And that's it. I can assure you that if you focus on these three steps, plus the mindset, I can assure you that you can become conversational in Italian in six months. Because when our energy is laser-focused, you are using it correctly. You are not wasting time learning words that you will never use in real life. Think about it. Think about it for a second. What you are studying now, what you are focusing now, is it helping you in reaching your goal of speaking in the situations that are important for you? Try to see if your current actions are aligned with your goals. What you are doing right now is supporting you in speaking Italian in the situations that matters for you. If the answer is no, you are not using the energy in the right way. You are wasting your time. OK, so if you notice that, go back to the three step process, goals, actions, activities. Just focus on that. Write everything down on your notebook and get clear on what you focus on. OK, another tip, and this is the last tip that I want to give you. Probably it's the most important is to turn down the volume. Turn down the volume. If you have this big goal of becoming fluent in Italian, turn down the volume and get rid of the noise that surrounds you. Because sometimes what happens is actually more than sometimes, I see this all the time with the people that I work with, is that Italian students that want to become fluent in Italian are distracted by so many shiny resources like, "Oh, let me try that app, let me try that book, let me watch that movie Italian, let me listen to that song." And so, OK, your energy is all over the place. It's not focused anymore. And when you don't have focus, you don't have clarity. And you go back to that uncertainty loop that doesn't serve you in reaching your big vision, which is becoming fluent in Italian. So turn down the volume, turn down the noise, and focus on writing down the goals, aligning your goals with the actions and with the activities. OK, and if your goal is to become conversational for your next trip to Italy, I invite you to explore the description of this episode and click on the link to watch my free class where I go even more deeper into this process so on how to become conversational in Italian for your trip to Italy. And then I present to you my Italian for traveling a "Signatory Course" where this process of defining the goals, the actions and the activities it's already made for you by me. So you don't have to do anything. The roadmap is already defined for you, so you just have to enroll and start learning Italian to become conversational for your trip. Isn't this amazing? In the course we have intermediate learners, we have beginner learners, and also students that are starting from zero Italian, but they are having amazing results. People are just traveling to Italy, speaking Italian, understanding Italian while they are speaking, and I am so proud of my students, I'm so happy for them and just reading their feedbacks and seeing how they are making this dream of speaking Italian in Italy come true. It's the best feeling for me. So anyway, if you need help, you're gonna find the link in the show notes. And as always, if you find this episode valuable, feel free to leave me a review on your favorite podcast platform or sending me a message on Instagram at rightway italiano to let me know what resonated, how this episode helped and what changed since you started to implement the three step process goals, actions, activities. Okay? I'm looking forward to hearing from you and I love you so much. I'll see you in the next episode. Ciao ciao. Ratsi Mille, for tuning into today's episode. If you love what you heard today, consider leaving me a review on your favorite podcast platform. And feedback will help me so much for reaching more Italian language and fuses like you. Also, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to reach out to me on Instagram at rightway italiano. Ciao ciao for now. [MUSIC]