Amberly Bylund’s Language Advice!

Ciao! My name is Amberly and I’ve been studying Italian for about 2 years now. As I started learning a new language, I was confused and mildly stressed because I didn’t know what any of it meant and I was afraid to mess up and embarrass myself when I may not have known all of the new vocab I was learning. I quickly realised that all I had to do was find ways of studying that worked for me and helped me remember what I had learnt. So, I am going to share with you, some of the ways that have helped and currently help me remember key information about Italian and improve my speaking, listening, and writing skills.

First of all, I got myself some different coloured post-it notes and put different conjugations and articles on them and stuck these post-its up onto my wall so that whenever I am bored or am waiting for something to load, I can look up and recite what I don’t know. I have found that this was a fun and effective way to memorise things that I just wasn’t quite able to engrave into my memory just yet.

Another way I remember things is by simply using the language. No, really, I could be getting ice cubes for some water, and I will just count how many there are in Italian. I could be playing a game and then just name things that happen in Italian. This helps because it allows you to hear how things sound and it allows for others to hear it and learn from it as well or even help you learn by correcting something if you had made a mistake.

Lastly, I make my notes nice and colourful so that I can have fun when making them and also be able to take in more of what is being said. I find that nice a variety of nice bright colours help me to remember what I have written.

It’s a really good feeling when you say something out loud in the language you are trying to learn (like Italian) and hear how you got it right. It makes you feel like you know what you are doing and makes you want to keep trying!

Amberly Bylund
Year 9 Student