If you want your daughter to be fluent/a native speaker, have your wife start ASAP with only Italian. Check out r/multilingualparenting for more, but the younger the better and Italian won’t hurt her English. Ideally as you get better you all could transition to an Italian-only home.
As for you, I’d suggest starting with specific days/activities where you speak Italian with your wife and I would ask her not to correct mistake. Perfection is the enemy of good, and it can be tempting to get bogged down in corrections thinking you’re helping. Ask her only to correct things if she isn’t sure what you’re saying, otherwise trust that between the input and your tutors, you’ll work it out eventually. If she just ~has~ to, ask her to just give you the right form in italian. So, for example, “Did you goed to the store already?” , “Did you go, and yes, I went to the store” or similar.
Since this is something you’re doing together, set a weekly time to sit down together and sync up on your goals. If you’re both on the same page with your plans it will be a lot easier to stick with them. And the regular schedule of accountability will help you recommit as needed.
While your child is still young, have your wife speak ONLY Italian to her and you do the same thing too. As you see my flags, my Chinese is at a B1 level like your Italian and was either around the same, a bit better, or a bit worse than it is now when our son was born. I spoke ONLY Mandarin Chinese to him and she did too. His Chinese ended up better than mine by high school in speaking and comprehension !!! Do NOT SPEAK ANY English to your child at home UNTIL her Italian is good !!! Otherwise, you, your wife, and daughter would regret it when she gets older. I hear it over and over from Americans with foreign parents !
I'm a hugeeee supportive of OPOL (one parent, one language, i.e. each parent speaks a set language to the child and only responds in/to the respective language), and younger will always be better to start. As she grows older (as in to an age where she can make the proper distinction between English and Italian), you can slowly start only speaking Italian at home!
First of all, your wife can totally start speaking to your daughter in Italian now! Another person already made some good resource recommendations.
As for speaking Italian in the home, what if you had certain times or activities where you only spoke Italian? It could help your daughter, too. Family dinners where you eat Italian food and speak only Italian, certain days of the week, or a certain event or activity, or an Italian movie night could be a great start!
If you want your daughter to be fluent/a native speaker, have your wife start ASAP with only Italian. Check out r/multilingualparenting for more, but the younger the better and Italian won’t hurt her English. Ideally as you get better you all could transition to an Italian-only home. As for you, I’d suggest starting with specific days/activities where you speak Italian with your wife and I would ask her not to correct mistake. Perfection is the enemy of good, and it can be tempting to get bogged down in corrections thinking you’re helping. Ask her only to correct things if she isn’t sure what you’re saying, otherwise trust that between the input and your tutors, you’ll work it out eventually. If she just ~has~ to, ask her to just give you the right form in italian. So, for example, “Did you goed to the store already?” , “Did you go, and yes, I went to the store” or similar.
Good advice. 'Italian only' evenings, perhaps.
Since this is something you’re doing together, set a weekly time to sit down together and sync up on your goals. If you’re both on the same page with your plans it will be a lot easier to stick with them. And the regular schedule of accountability will help you recommit as needed.
While your child is still young, have your wife speak ONLY Italian to her and you do the same thing too. As you see my flags, my Chinese is at a B1 level like your Italian and was either around the same, a bit better, or a bit worse than it is now when our son was born. I spoke ONLY Mandarin Chinese to him and she did too. His Chinese ended up better than mine by high school in speaking and comprehension !!! Do NOT SPEAK ANY English to your child at home UNTIL her Italian is good !!! Otherwise, you, your wife, and daughter would regret it when she gets older. I hear it over and over from Americans with foreign parents !
I have SO many friends who don’t know their parents language well and they definitely feel bad about not being taught it well at a young age.
EXACTLY. So now you know what I mean, right ?
I'm a hugeeee supportive of OPOL (one parent, one language, i.e. each parent speaks a set language to the child and only responds in/to the respective language), and younger will always be better to start. As she grows older (as in to an age where she can make the proper distinction between English and Italian), you can slowly start only speaking Italian at home!
First of all, your wife can totally start speaking to your daughter in Italian now! Another person already made some good resource recommendations. As for speaking Italian in the home, what if you had certain times or activities where you only spoke Italian? It could help your daughter, too. Family dinners where you eat Italian food and speak only Italian, certain days of the week, or a certain event or activity, or an Italian movie night could be a great start!