Since January started, I’ve told myself to set my knitting aside and focus on Italian whenever I have “dead time.” At the moment, Italian feels much harder than German. Objectively, I know this probably isn’t true, but I think I’ve simply forgotten how much work I put into German during those first few months. I’ve forgotten the effort it took to acquire enough vocabulary just to watch YouTube without being overwhelmed. It’s amazing how quickly we lose sight of the sheer volume of work required to start a language from scratch.
At this stage, I am also convinced it’s impossible to learn a language by spending only fifteen minutes a day on an app or reading. That might work at an intermediate level, but as a beginner, I need to encounter words over and over again to make them stick. Perhaps I’m just getting older and don’t retain information as quickly as I once did.
The problem is that I don’t have the time for an hour of active study—verb conjugations, flashcards, and formal drills—especially since German remains my priority. Instead, I want to use my Italian journey as an experiment: Can I pick up the language using only my dead time?
For me, this means reading the same content repeatedly until the core vocabulary feels familiar. It also means choosing not to study grammar actively (I didn’t really study German grammar, either). I’ll only look up a rule when I’m truly stuck and it becomes necessary for understanding.
What has surprised me most about Italian isn’t the difficulty of the language itself, but how I have forgotten the time and stamina the early phase demands. With any luck, I will get far enough with Italian that the next time I start a language, I can look back on this journey and remember what the beginning actually feels like.
