Learning Italian: I need help!

Agree.

I can't wait to hear from Kicky in Italy.

I agree about the project; it is a very comprehensive site, Luukas. I've started taking the lessons on it. What made you interested in Finnish (or are you Finnish yourself?)

Okay, one small question tonight. I am trying to say "I write italian better than I speak it.", but we haven't covered "better than" yet, so this is my guess.

Io scrivo italiano piu bene che si parlo.

Is this correct?

Kicky, don't you ever try the dictionary? I believe you're looking for migliore.

My dictionary offers this "riesco meglio in - " So, so riesco meglio in escriva italiona che parla italiano? Or would it be Escrivo italiana meglio del parla italiono? Sorry, I know my words are all not right. The dictionary says you can use piu bene for some contexts.....

I'd rather say:
Scrivo in italiano meglio di come lo parlo

well - better - best
in Italian
bene - meglio - benissimo/molto bene

Marco is taller than Giorgio
Marco è più alto di Giorgio

There are more mice than cats
Ci sono più topi che gatti

He is more crafty than intelligent
È più furbo che intelligente

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Thanks littlek and dròm.
I'm 100% Italian. I started learning some Finnish on my own a few years ago. Since I couldn't find any material in Italian I decided I should have tried to do something myself to fill this gap...

Yeah, I tried the dictionary, but, as you said, it has two different ways of saying it, and in mine, "riesco meglio in" isn't offered. I look everything up in that thing, trust me. But building a coherent sentence out of those words is not as easy as you think. I know enough to know that "So riesco meglio in escriva italiono che parla italiano." is definitely not correct. Hee hee.

Maybe it's Io scrivo riesco meglio in italiano che si parlo.

Oh Luukas, you posted while I was answering littlek!

Thanks for the excellent information.

Yay!

I have a feeling you don't use better in the way you two are using it here... that you say something like I speak more correctly (in a more correct manner?) in italiano. (not sure, of course) On top of it, I never mastered the use of the word correct. When you correct a coffee, you put a bit of grappa in it! Anyway, I await with you the appearance of people who know more than we do..

Excellent examples, by the way.

Osso that's the same line of thought I had at first too. That's what I was trying to say with Pui bene. More well. Oh well, I was wrong too, so there you go.

Ah, I see I was way off base.

Ossobuco, I admit I don't really understand what you mean.
In kickycan's sentence 'better' is an adverb and it means 'in a better way'. In fact you say:
I speak Italian well - Parlo bene l'italiano
I speak Italian better than English - Parlo l'italiano meglio dell'inglese (probably 'parlo meglio in italiano che in inlgese' sounds better but this is not really important here).
While good and well have in English the same comparative and superlative forms, in Italian you have distinct words:
good - better - best
buono - migliore (più buono is also correct) - buonossimo/ottimo

well - better - best
bene - meglio - benissimo/molto bene

Of course better / meglio in kickyacan's sentence means 'in a more correct way / with less mistakes than', etc.
In Italian 'meglio' in that sentence is understood in the same way.

I've never really thought about the possible double meaning of the word 'corretto'. That's interesting.

Corretto as an adjective means correct, right, without mistakes or faults:
correct pronounciation- pronuncia corretta
correct behaviour - comportamento corretto

Corretto is also the past participle of the verb correggere, in English it can be translated with corrected.
It's not so senseless that you can mistake one for the other. In fact something that has been corrected (corretto) becomes correct corretto.
Consider this example:
L'esercizio corretto si trova a fondo pagina
We can imagine two possible translations:
The correct exercise is at the bottom of the page
or
The corrected exercise is at the bottom of the page (imagine that someone has rewritten the exercise with all the necessary corrections)

Back to ossobuco's coffee, a 'caffè corretto' is a corrected coffee, because you make coffee taste better by pouring a little grappa in it

Ha! It was bound to be very wrong. All my italian comes from hybridized family expressions and a little self teaching. I need to take a course. I was really just trying to get the idea across. Maybe you should invest in a better dictionary? My Webster's New World Italian Dictionary is pretty good (even if I'm not).

Yeah, I probably should get a serious dictionary. I like the one I have because it's small enough to take with me where ever I go, but it isn't totally comprehensive.

Actually though, I was thinking of getting something like this.

I have a book with verb conjugations, and I have the italian dictionary, but no grammar rules. I guess that's what I'm learning in class, but I get so impatient and frustrated when I can't think of how to say something that we haven't covered in class yet. I shouldn't be so impatient though, because I realize I don't even really have a strong grasp of what we've done already. Being patient is tough.

I haven't tried speaking in italian for a while and see I have forgotten the little I knew. I do remember the frustration of not knowing how to say something and finding out later that saying a phrase the "american" way was not the way to word it in italian. I don't have any good examples of that at hand.

I recall the use of participles, and what you say, Luukas, about corretto makes sense. I think what I am remembering of my confusion might have had to do with the use of 'right', giusto. How do you say "that's right"?

In italian you can say "E' giusto" for "that's right", but is not so used, we just say "giusto".

And 'vero'?

Kickycan, I know what you mean when you say that you are impatient but feel frustrated because you would like to say/write something that you haven't studied yet.
Don't give up, try to use the vocabulary and grammar you already know. Things can be expressed in thousand ways. I know that you want to learn to speak/write Italian correctly but the most important thing is being able to get Italians understand you with the least effort.
So try to say always what you have in mind, even though you are not sure how correct your sentences are.
I bet you won't feel frustrated anymore when you see that Italians understand you.

Now I have a question for you. Why did you write 'che si parlo'?
I don't understand why you wrote that 'si'.

Ossobuco, I have the same problem, sometimes it's frustrating to realize that 'saying a phrase the "Italian" way is not the way to word it in English'.
An American friend of mine, who speaks Italian very well, often makes this mistake, when he wants to say 'next week' he says 'prossima settimana'.
In Italian this is correct only if we are talking about a future week. If the week is already in the past you can't use 'prossima' but 'dopo' or 'seguente'. Example:

Next week I am going to Rome
La settimana prossima vado a Roma

but

The next week we went to Rome
La settimana dopo (or la settimana seguente) andammo a Roma

This is probably not the example you were looking for, but it might be a good though not so obvious one.

You can translate 'right' with 'vero' in this case (if I understand what you mean):

You are American, right?
Sei americano, vero?

That's what I was thinking. I never got the usage of giusto while in italy, but vero I could use. Thanks.