Learn Italian
I need to fill this puppy out still.
Oops. I mean, Ancora ho bisogno di compilare questo, um, cagnolino..
Some notes that I am going to talk about. For the dual citizenship process, it is not a requirement to learn any Italian. However, it's good to know that a spouse of an Italian citizen going through citizenship (Jure Matrimonii), last I read the spouse is required to know Italian to a B1 level.
Forms in Italian you will most likely run into
If you nerd out over the microfiche copies of old Italian records from the communes like I do, then you're not only going to be faced with documents all in Italian, but they will be faded and handwritten as well. Additionally, they styled their cursive in a way that, if you grew up with American cursive, then this will be a bit different.
Statistics on the fly: About 15% of the forms I've run into are in Italian. Then about another 75% is Italian with English in very small writing. Then 10% in English. Of course my process may be different than yours too. I did not shy away from Italian forms, I just learned more words each time.
Back then
My story of learning Italian goes back a long ways. I learned Spanish in high school for 4 years, but really learned it when I worked in restaurants in Phoenix and used it everyday. Immersion is the best and quickest way to learn a language. Since I couldn't go to school for Italian, I decided to pick up a few books. This was before I could learn things from my phone unless I was to call someone. I picked up a phrase book and started learning some phrases without knowing if I'm saying then correctly or not. I learned enough to put some sentences together and use them at work so that no one could understand me. Not the greatest way.
Recent past
Nowadays, though, we have so many app options it's hard to muddle through all of them. I'll go through what I've used and my opinion on them.
Duolingo: I made it all the way through Duolingo's Italian courses and it took me a couple years to complete. I never paid for the subscription because I felt like $14.95 a month was way too much to ask for an app. It never got conversational. They added some story-based learning near the end of my experience so maybe they have more conversational learning since. I found every 6 months or so, they will give you a free week to tease you into paying for it, I would really bear down on those weeks. I'm sure they wouldn't be happy to hear this, but near the end, I used the 2 week free trial to finish up the end of the last level. I think I would totally spend $14.95 a year, but not a month. That's like $180, not much more than that and you could probably find a semester at a community college.
Busuu: I was learning a lot of vocabulary and structure from duolingo, but I wanted to search for more. I found Busuu via google and I really liked it at first. It boasted that it would give you certifications of your learning A1, A2, B1, B2, etc as you learned. However, there's no way the tests they give are comprehensive enough to make that determination. They wanted $39.95 for the year which wasn't bad, but it's still 40 bucks. I decided to use the free version until I got a nag screen telling me I could do the first year for $19.95. I took the bait and paid the 20 bucks. I really do think it was worth it and had more conversational learning and more of a social aspect where all the users can grade each other's work in their home languages. I did have some very good learning moments with native Italian speakers. Especially about learning the subjunctive tense. That's a doozy that you need to change the verb conjugation if you're thinking, wishing, dreaming, hoping, or feeling. It's a doozy.
The only downside to Busuu is as I had passed B2, I realized that the rest of the app was not getting much more challenging. I learned a lot of vocabulary, but that subjunctive tense I was just talking about? They had 2 small lessons and no way of figuring it out from that. I believe they breezed over conditional and future tenses. Since Italian has 21 tenses and they're all used, I think it's important to at least know about all of them.
Memrise: I had a difficult time with this app. They had memorization features that I felt were a little too repetitive. I understand that is the point of the app, but I wish you could tell it what words you know now so you don't have to say those words 40 times a day. Maybe that's changed. I will give it another chance perhaps.
Tandem: Tandem is more of a social app rather than a learning app. It was very helpful talking directly to Italians and having them offer corrections. It's a bit intimidating at first because you don't want to screw up, but you will. I did. I still have a long way to go. I made friends with a guy over there who does computer programming like myself so I was able to learn a lot of vocabulary like "Il computer" and "Lo server" - those were easy to remember.
I've been warned to watch out for crazies on this app though, because it is seemingly unmoderated talking with strangers, be cautious who to you talk to. There are international creeps everywhere.
Coffee Break Italian
Not so much an app, but a podcast which was absolutely great when I first started. Pre-COVID I had a 30 minute commute and I would often listen to these guys on my way to work. They taught me a lot in a small amount of time.
The only thing I disagree with is they said "Pollo on pizza, nooooo!!" which I don't agree with. Mostly everything I eat is chicken or turkey so I need to put chicken on my pizza. Mod pizza has a spicy chicken sausage which is great! So I hope that's a good enough compromise. I don't put ananas on my pizza - that's just a Hawaiian sin.
Future Plans
I just found this site Order Sons & Daughters of Italy in America which looks to have access to Italian content and language learning for members. The membership looks to be about $40 a year, but it also comes with a lot of other discounts 20% to 30% for, at least, a lot of places I shop and things I get. I'll have to start some of those programs and get back to how it turned out.