A News in Slow Italian alternative for learning Italian

News in Slow Italian is an excellent platform to learn Italian in an engaging way. However, the platform doesn’t offer many resources to practice your Italian speaking skills. In this post, I’ll introduce you to a News in Slow Italian alternative that allows you to improve your spoken Italian.

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Summary

While News in Slow Italian is a popular program for learning the Italian language, it may not be the best option for everyone. This article explores some of the drawbacks of News in Slow Italian and suggests some alternative programs that can help learners improve their Italian language skills in a fun and engaging way.

News in Slow Italian

News in Slow Italian is a website that offers Italian audio stories about Italy and Italian culture.

The platform mainly focuses on audio lessons, and the learning material is divided into three main sections:

  • Dialogues and short stories. A collection of stories about various aspects of Italian culture. This section also provides additional resources, such as grammar lessons, flashcards, and quizzes.
  • Italian news. The news section is structured in a weekly podcast and introduces the main news about Italian society.
  • Series. A collection of fictional and non-fictional stories structured in chapters.

The audio material is divided according to the proficiency level (from beginner to advanced) and includes a transcript to help you understand what you hear.

What’s wrong with News in Slow Italian

News in Slow Italian is an excellent tool to improve your listening comprehension and expand your vocabulary: the audios are clear and engaging, and you have access to a lot of material to exercise.

Italian study time calculator

Are you in a hurry? Find out how long it will take you to reach your target level of Italian with my free calculator.

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Just fill out this simple form to find your ideal study schedule and get on the right track.

I’ll create your free lifetime account to store your study plan so that you may review it at any time. I’ll take you to your dashboard where you’ll find all my free resources.

On your dashboard, you’ll get to take some of my courses for free. I’ll also send you my best offers and free resources by email. You may opt out at any time.

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Your language skills
How would you rate your skills in your native language? is required.
Were you raised bilingual (or more)? is required.
Have you ever reached an intermediate proficiency in a foreign language? is required.
Have you ever reached an intermediate proficiency in a foreign language? is required.

Namely French, Spanish, Portuguese, or Romanian.

How old are you? is required.
Create a study schedule
Your current Italian level is required.
Set the target level higher than your current one.
Elementary: Can communicate in simple and routine tasks.
Intermediate: Can deal with most situations likely to arise while traveling.
Upper-intermediate: Can interact regularly without strain with native speakers.
Your target Italian level is required.
Set the target level higher than your current one.
Deadline is required.
Based on your weekly time commitment, you need extra days to meet the deadline.
Example: your next trip to Italy.
Deadline is required.
In order to meet your deadline, you need to commit extra hours/week.

Yes! If you follow the plan, you'll be speaking Italian at Advanced level by .

Intensive
Intensive

In the intensive plan, you commit 2 hours per day.

Diversify your study activities to cover all the language skills that you need: speaking, listening, writing, and reading.

Even though you could argue that more your study, the faster you learn, I wouldn't recommend studying more than a couple of hours a day because the gain from extra time gradually gets smaller.

At the end of this form, you'll get a detailed weekly plan with all the study activites you need to reach your goal. 100% free!

Regular
Intensive

With a regular plan, you practice 1 hour a day, every day.

Taking 2 live 1-on-1 lessons per week with a qualified teacher or an experienced native tutor is a good pace to practice speaking and get feedback.

This plan is the closest to the one I follow myself and I can assure that you'll make steady progress.

At the end of this form, you'll get a detailed weekly plan with all the study activites you need to reach your goal. 100% free!

Free
Intensive

There's plenty of free resources online to make the free plan viable.

You need to substitute paid 1-on-1 tutoring with language exchange with native speakers or find other venues to practice speaking. This can be time-consuming and you need to make up for lack of guidance with self-study.

At the end of this form, you'll get a detailed weekly plan with all the study activites you need to reach your goal. 100% free!

Get your results

You're almost there!

After you submit this form, you'll receive the results in your mailbox and will see the study schedule based on your level and the plan that you selected.

These questions below are not used to create your study plan, but I'd love to know more to make my service more relevant to you!

What's your reason for learning Italian? is required.
How long have you been studying Italian? is required.
What are you struggling with? is required.
Gender is required.
Your first name is required.
You'll receive the results together with my best free resources to learn faster. You may opt out at any time.

1000s of happy learners on their way to fluency

However, the website doesn’t cover the speaking part.

You need to speak a lot if you want to become fluent in Italian, and there’s little chance to practice your speaking skills only by listening to the audio.

The platform offers a Pronunciation section, in which you can listen to a sentence and record yourself trying to reproduce it.

But it may be not enough if you want to get more speaking confidence.

A News in Slow Italian alternative for the Italian language

Think in Italian courses are a valid alternative if you want to practice your Italian speaking skills.

The website offers a broad set of audio lessons (Ripeti con me) focused on Italy and its culture.

The lessons are designed to make you speak Italian from day one: you won’t only listen to random Italian sentences, but you’ll also have the chance to repeat the words you hear.

Free Guide
How to Learn Languages Fast

This approach is based on speech shadowing, which is an interesting technique developed in the late 1950s.

The speech shadowing works in the following way: you hear a sentence and reproduce what you hear with a little delay.

Not only do you use the same words, but you will also imitate the pronunciation and the intonation.

This allows the brain to process new syntax, words, and sounds.

It is something similar to what happens to babies, who learn how to speak by mimicking their parents and the words they hear.

Think in Italian courses are designed to improve your spoken Italian naturally, without the stress of thinking in your language and then translating it into Italian.

In this way, retain useful vocabulary, learn new grammar naturally, and improve your Italian pronunciation by mimicking a native Italian speaker.

Are you ready to speak like an Italian? Learn more about Think in Italian courses.

Still translating in your head? Wanna speak Italian for real? Check out Stefano's courses to think directly in Italian and become fluent fast!

Claudia

100% Italian. Passionate about traveling and languages.

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