Moving to Italy — Shira Haddad — Shira Haddad<br>← WritingMay 2026<br>May 7, 2026<br>It's time for a new language.
I'd like to replicate my younger-self English learning environment: listen to Italian as much as possible.
Here's what I'm doing:
I have two apps I'm trying to use daily, each for a few minutes. Memrise and My Words. The former is for progression of learning with different types of lessons and ways to practice, and the latter is my personal dictionary of words.
We found a local teacher who comes to our house once a week. His focus is conversational Italian. Just got started with him, so we'll see how it goes.
I'm watching instructional youtube videos. My current favorites are Elisa's Italian School and Italy Made Easy.
Italy Made Easy also have a really cool podcast series in Italian.
I'm trying to watch movies and TV shows in Italian (shoot me a message if you have recommendations!). Disney+ has a bunch of content that is dubbed to Italian, so it's easier to watch Encanto and Bluey in Italian after dozens of times that we've watched them in English.
Lastly, I picked up this book called Short Stories in Italian for Beginners - finishing a story can be very rewarding.
At this point, if 10 is a native Italian speaker and 0 is someone who knows nothing about Italian, I'd score myself as a 2 . Hopefully I'll be able to report some progress here.
May 2, 2026<br>What's on mind right now:
More decluttering (we need to stage the house soon, while living in it)
Learning Italian
Dealing with the guilt over moving the kids to a new, foreign country
Realizing that now this is happening in about 3 months
I'll write more about how I learn Italian next week.
April 2026<br>April 16, 2026<br>Currently, most of my day to day activites revolve around the decluttering piece.<br>It's more emotional than I've imagined, so I'm working on separating the decision-making from the doing, and then allocating my time/energy appropriately.
Since I'm the one who led this change, I feel like my job is to be the cheerleader for all Italy-related activities. That's tough - I'm experiencing the same mixed emotions as my family does.
Apr 15, 2026<br>The move target is mid-August, 2026.<br>There are a few moving pieces in this project:
Financials, taxes planning
Finding a place to live in Italy (Torino)
Finding a school for the kids
Decluttering, selling, donating items in the US
Selling the house
Phone, mailing address
Business continuity (my coaching business)
Learning Italian
Saying goodbye
Each of these will have its own action items and considerations.
Apr 14, 2026<br>Figured I will start journaling the different decisions and updates around this project.
Yes, I've created a spreadsheet, and I also have a few supporting to-do lists. I'll keep updates here relatively short.
I thrive on questions and feedback, so please feel free to drop me a note.