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I gave myself three weeks. Three weeks to learn enough Italian that I would not be that guy. The
guy who walks into a restaurant and says “two please” while holding up two fingers like he is
teaching a child to count.
I had a Duolingo streak. I had a notebook. I had ambition. What I had after three weeks was the
ability to say “dov’e il bagno” with confidence, order a coffee without embarrassing myself, and
absolutely nothing else. Still. Milan was happening.
What actually works when you know nothing
Italians in cities deal with tourists constantly. They are not waiting for you to conjugate a verb
correctly. They are waiting for you to make an effort and then they will switch to English and get on
with their lives. The effort is the whole thing. Say something. Anything. Buongiorno when you walk
in somewhere. Grazie when someone helps you. Mi scusi when you nearly walk into someone,
which in Milan you will do constantly because everyone walks fast and with absolute conviction
about where they are going. That is your entire required vocabulary for Milan. Three words.
Everything else is optional.
The words that actually matter
Quanto costa — how much does this cost. Posso avere — can I have. Drop this before anything you
want and point at it. Un tavolo per due — a table for two. Dov’e — where is. Non capisco — I don’t
understand. The most honest and useful phrase in any language. The thing nobody tells you about
learning basic phrases before a trip is that knowing them makes locals treat you differently even
when they immediately switch to English. It signals that you tried.
Milan specifically
Milan is not Rome. It is a working city. People have places to be. The rhythm is faster than most
Italian cities. I was also in Milan partly because I was getting some dental work done. I had been
quoted a number in London that made me laugh out loud in the dentist’s chair, and a friend
mentioned that a lot of Northern Italian patients actually go to Albania for the same treatment at a
fraction of the price. I ended up going that route. If you are curious about dental implants in Milan
and what the actual options are, albamedhealth.com/it/dental-implants-milan/ lays it out clearly.
The three weeks of Duolingo
Were they useless. Honestly, no. Not because they gave me Italian. They did not. But because they
gave me the sounds. The rhythm of the language. That might be the actual value of learning basic
phrases before a trip. Not the phrases. The familiarity with the sound of the language. Buongiorno.
Grazie. Mi scusi. Dov’e il bagno. It is enough. Go to Milan.
