I'm biased, because I'm basicaly a native speaker (born and raised in the US, but grew up in a household where Italian was spoken as much as English, maybe more). Italian ins a beautiful language, a lot more mellifluous than French, and at least to my ear, less harsh than Spanish and certainly than Portuguese. People (non-Italians) should realize that virtually everyone in Italy speaks two different brands of Italian, i.e., the national language (used in literature, newspapers, TV, movies, etc.), and their own peculiar local or regional dialect. There are dictionaries for some of the dialects (I have a Neapolitan-Italian dictionary). I think that the conventional wisdom used to be that Italian was the language of love - maybe yes, maybe no, but it does seem to bring out the romantic in lots of people. There's just something about it. As I said at the outset, I'm biased, but I also speak French, German, and Spanish (all passably well), and I don't think that any of them really compare favorably to Italian.
