At the risk of sounding discouraging, a lot of language learners just don’t get it, and never will. It’s similar to taking dance lessons. You can put cut-out feet on the floor with numbers on them and take lessons from an expert, but if you don’t have rhythm, and you don’t have that swing, you’re always and forever going to look like a klutz on the dance floor, no matter how many lessons you take and how much you practice.
So what do you do if you’re not a good dancer and weren’t born with natural rhythm?
Learning scripted responses in foreign languages is unproductive. Every textbook for beginners devotes many pages to dialogue that’s stilted and simply doesn’t occur in real life. So why teach it?! If you ask a person on the street "Dov’e’ il museo?" and he doesn’t respond according to the script you memorized, then what? You’re stuck, because there are an infinite number of potential responses, and none of us has enough time on the face of this earth to memorize them. And that person on the street is going to keep on walking, because he’s headed to a great pizzeria.
Learning scripted responses in foreign languages encourages a false sense of confidence. It doesn't translate into real-time speaking competence nor will you understand the musicality of the language. It’s like looking at a musical score and expecting to be a master violinist just because you've memorized the notes. Instead, you have to play it, and play it again and again. Likewise with the Italian language. Play with it! Practice! Listen to native Italian speakers and mimic them. Laugh at yourself trying to pronounce "gli" correctly. Italian, more so than many languages, is musical, and if you remember that analogy it will come easier.
There is no secret, no Rosetta Stone, no silver bullet, when it comes to learning a language. You have to listen and repeat ad nauseum. You will make a quantum leap in learning Italian when you abandon your native tongue and disengage from the grammar that you implicitly learned when you were a child.
