The Only Good And Effective Way To Conjugate Verbs

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Before anything further can be said, it's important you mark down this one fundamental rule. When you're studying a foreign language, verbs MUST NOT be conjugated in written form.

I know this is what you've been doing for years, and I know it's not your fault. It's your teacher's fault. Your teacher has been keeping you from applying what you learn to real, actual conversation. Your teacher has forced you to keep it all in your head. Unfortunately, what begins in your head does not necessarily turn smoothly and efficiently into a physical movement. It has to be done aloud at all times.

If you need an analogy to get the gist, in my head I can play tennis like Roger Federer. But on court--well, I don't need to finish my sentence, do I?

If you're fine practicing calligraphy on your verb charts, then you're all good. Do not read on, and frankly you're wasting your time with me here right now. But if you want to speak Italian, and you don't want to review verb conjugations ever again, this is how it's done.

Following is a bullet point guide on how to conjugate verbs right from day one and learn conjugations once and for all.

This is what you should be aiming for:

1) You want to remember a conjugation forever.

2) You want to be able to say it as smoothly and comfortably as you would a prayer or nursery rhyme--in other words, fluently.

3) You want to be able to use it in conversation without hesitation.

HOW TO CONJUGATE VERBS

1) Aloud.

As I expounded above, anything else than aloud is not going to work. There are no gimmicks and no shortcuts. You can try and find some, but you won't succeed. You won't be able to cheatcode yourself into fluency like that, and whoever asserts you can is either deluded, or a liar, or a scammer, or an incompetent, or all of the above. So you might as well warm your vocal chords up and do it aloud from the get-go.

2) Always include the subject pronouns.

Italians do not drop subject pronouns in sentences. Italians only sometimes--or often if you will--drop them. However, they use them in plenty of other important ways and functions (emphasis, reiteration, sentence structure, anaphoras, etc.). Including them in your conjugation drills helps you ingrain them in the DNA of every sentence--and in yours as well.

Think of subject pronouns in this case as part of the conjugated forms of verbs.

Do include them.

3) Get fluent first.

When you introduce a new verb tense, do not move forward until you have learned the conjugated forms to perfection. Perfection means you can easily juggle with the conjugated forms in any random order they're being fed to you. In other words, you know your verbs inside and out.

That's two days of drills done out loud right there (10/15 mins. per day), plus one or two extra days (10 mins. per day) to play around a bit and set them in stone.

Then and only then do you move on to sentences and other types of drills (still done exclusively aloud).

4) A practical and effective method to memorize a conjugation.

a) Read the conjugation through a few times. Focus on the sound of the pronouns and verb forms coming out of your mouth.

b) Cover the conjugated forms with your hand or a sheet of paper. Recite from memory the conjugated forms a few times going down in order from "io" to "loro".

c) When you're comfortable with the regular order, do the same as in point b) but in reverse ("loro" to "io").

d) When you can conjugate comfortably, smoothly, and pretty much automatically as per points b) and c), do the same but jumping from one form to the next in random order. Do that for 1 minute of your stopwatch. Say the forms back to back without breaks in between one form and the next. After 1 minute, take a 1 minute break, then repeat again for 1 minute of your stopwatch.

e) Do point d) again the next day and the day after, three sets of 1 minute each with a 1-minute break in between sets (five minutes altogether).

This is the only good and effective way to learn conjugations and conjugate verbs. There's wiggle room when it comes to setting up your schedule, but do not expect it to work without repetition, without doing it aloud, or without systematic drills.