The Italian language is considered one of the most beautiful and melodic languages in the world.
Many people love it because of its specific sounds, long words and pleasant intonation.
In addition, Italian is a very easy language to learn.
Italian is among the very few languages that people around the world are willing to learn just for pleasure and even if they know that this won’t have any direct effect over their career.
What makes people think they should choose another language is the limited spreading of the Italian language in comparison with English, French, German or Spanish for example.
However, it is wrong to think just about the number of speakers when it comes to study some language.
We always have to choose a language we love.
In addition, it is much better to choose a language like Italian which is spoken in well-developed and dynamic economic centres than a language that is spoken from more people but in less perspective regions.
Where we can speak Italian outside Italy?
Switzerland
Switzerland, which is one of the richest and most developed nations in the world, is a country with four official languages.
The German language is the most common of them and is wide spread on the territory of the country.
The second one is French, which is spoken for example in the most famous Swiss city – Geneva.
The third one is Italian, and the fourth is Romansh. As of 2016, the Italian-speaking population of Switzerland is estimated at just over half a million people.
Most of them live in the southern and southeastern parts of the country. Italian is spoken in the canton of Ticino, which is located on the border with Italy but also on the territory of other cantons to the south.
This is the main language in the region of Lago Maggiore and Lago di Lugano, which are considered among the leading tourist destinations in Switzerland and which fall within the borders of Ticino.
The Italian language is an important part of the economic and social life in Switzerland. If you want to live in the southern part of the country, you should definitely consider to learn the language.
Monaco
Italian is the third most popular language in Monaco after French and Monégasque.
Today the Italian-speaking population of the Mediterranean principality is estimated at about 19% of the entire population or nearly 1 out of every 5 people in the country.
Moreover, the Italian language is very important here and for other reasons – the large number of Italian tourists who come here very often as a result of the proximity of Italy.
If you visit Monaco or even if you live here and still don’t speak French, you will be able to communicate with many people speaking Italian.
Malta
The beautiful Mediterranean country, which has been used as a decor of a number of amazing Hollywood productions because of its medieval architecture, is a place where you can freely speak three different languages.
Along with the official Maltese, here you can talk to almost everyone in English and Italian.
Actually, the Italian language is probably much more famous here than you could imagine.
It is spoken by about ⅔ of the islanders. In fact, the Italian language is very important here, and if you are planning to live or work on the island, it could be very useful for you if you speak the language.
San Marino
Republic of San Marino is the third smallest country in the world. It is located in the heart of Italy, approximately 10 kilometers from the coast of the Adriatic Sea.
The country’s population is about 30 000 people, and the Italian is the official language here. If you want to live or just to visit the small country, it could be very helpful if you speak Italian.
Vatican
Although many people perceive the Vatican as part of Rome, this is actually the smallest country in the world. This city-state is located in the heart of the cosmopolitan Italian capital and of course here every speak Italian language.
Slovenia
Slovenia is the richest Balkan country and is located in the Northwestern corner of the Balkan Peninsula. In some areas of Slovenia Italian is recognized as a second official language.
Moreover, in the country lives a small group of between 3 and 4 thousand Italians.
Today, 1 out of every 6 people in Slovenia speaks Italian, and this is not surprising.
The reason is not only that the language has an official status in some parts of the country, but also because of the close cultural, economic and historical relationships between the two neighboring countries.
Croatia
The Italian language is spoken as a first language by about 70,000 people in Croatia.
While this number is not large, most of these people live in Istria County, which is located in the northwestern part of the country on the Adriatic Sea. For this reason, in Istria Italian has an official status.
The importance of the Italian language in the world
Italian language is not only extremely melodious and charming, but it is also very useful in various areas of the economy.
In many countries around the world live large groups of Italian settlers, and if you speak the language, it can reveal to you unexpected business opportunities and chances to create valuable social contacts.
It is true that the Italian language is less spoken than English, Spanish or French. However, a huge number of Italian speakers live in different countries with well developed economies.
These include the United States, Argentina, Canada and Australia, in each of which live hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Italy.
Moreover, the Italian language is of great importance in many areas of Africa. Although not as popular as in Argentina, in Mexico and Brazil the language is also very important and spoken by thousands of people.
For this reason, if you have good knowledges in Italian you could be very successful in making business contacts.
In Uruguay, where about 42% of the total population is of Italian descent, the Italian language is used from the teachers in some schools in the country and can be very helpful if you speak it.
However, the official language in Uruguay is Spanish.
The expansion of the Italian language in Asia
Over the last years, the Italian language becomes more and more popular in Asia. Among the countries where the language enjoys very fast growing popularity is China.
In the second largest economy in the world many investors are seriously interested to do business in Italy, and the Italian language is considered to be very helpful.
Since in Italy many people don’t speak English, according to Chinese businessmen, learning Italian is a good way to increase their business opportunities to cooperate with the rich European country.
Opportunities if you speak Italian
The Italian language will reveal numerous interesting opportunities for you. It turns out that it is dozens of times less popular than other European languages such as German for example.
You will say probably this is due to the large and highly developed German economy, and to some extent you will be right.
Indeed, the Italian economy is smaller in comparison with the economy of Germany.
However, German economy is 1.85 times bigger than the economy of Italy, which is not proportional with the number of German speaker compared to the number of Italian speakers.
Actually, it appears that you will probably have much bigger chances to make a good career is you study Italian than if you study German, French or Spanish, which are much more popular.
Italian language and university education
As a number of universities in top 500 in the world, Italy is 7th after USA, United Kingdom, Canada, France, India and Germany. Moreover, the country has a few universities in top 100!
For this reason, the Italian language is one of the best in the world, together by English, German and French, if you want to study in a world class college.
Italian and Italy
Let’s not forget that Italy is the ninth largest economy in the world after USA, China, Japan, Germany, UK, France, Brazil and India.
Today Italy is home to 58.9 million people and is one of the countries in Europe with the most perspective economies.
Official language of the European Union
The Italian is one of the official languages in the European Union. It is the third most spoken native language after German and French.
Actually, the Italian is spoken as an official language from 13% of the population of the European Union, and shares the third place with English, which, however, is more widely spoken to some extent as a second language in almost every country in Europe.
Italian is easy to learn
In contrast to many other languages, the Italian is considered to be relatively easy to learn.
Actually, the language is considered one of the easiest in Europe and in the world.
In most cases you write what you hear with some small exceptions.
The same applies for grammar, which is very easy to understand.
Italian is the door to the other Romance languages
If you speak Italian, you could learn easier other Romance languages such as French, Spanish, Portuguese or Romanian.
The French is considered to be a difficult language but it is relatively close to Italian and for this reason if you speak Italian for you will be much easier to learn French in future.
Italy is a great place to retire
Many people dream about the perfect place to retire and Italy is for sure one of the places you should consider.
Italy offers good climate, great food and wines, lovely landscapes, beaches, mountains and lakes, and of course, amazing people and culture.
If you learn Italian, it will be much easier for you to enjoy completely this country if you want to retire there. Probably if you visit Toscana once, you won’t never get it out of your head.
If you speak italian, you will be able to fully enjoy your travel around the Italian province
As it is in most countries around the world, in the small towns and villages in Italy is hard to find English speakers. For this reason the communication could be sometimes difficult.
However, if you speak Italian you will be able to speak freely with the local residents and you will get in touch with the culture of this amazing country.
If you live in the European Union
The residents of the European Union can live, work, study and travel everywhere in EU because of their common EU citizenship.
However, the language barrier is something people should deal with.
Even if most people in Europe, especially the younger people, speak some level of English, if you want to adapt easy in the Italian society, you have to speak the local language (in this case Italian).
Of course, you can live, work and study in the country even if you don’t speak the language but if you want to enjoy the opportunities this rich and well developed nation offers, you should try to learn the language at least to some extent.