Obrigado!

I had the same issue with English but then I changed persepective: try to focus on the fact that you've just learnt a new word and that every new word that you learn makes you more proficient in Italian, rather than focusing on the fact that you didn't know it.

IMHO, limiting yourself to stuff written in simple Italian is a false solution since in this way you'll never improve your skills.

Of course it also depends on what kind of level of proficency you're hoping to achieve...

Whoops, I meant "shorn"

Italian has a standard pronunciation (that is the one which is taught to foreigners), however, unlike RP, standard Italian is not really spoken anywhere in the country (weird huh?), nevertheless everyone expects a foreigner to speak the standard, as using a regional accent would seem quite bizarre. Even Italians themselves try to reduce their accent in formal contexts and aim for the standard pronunciation as much as they can, because it's considered the most correct pronunciation.  

90% of Italian media is in the standard (or a standard-ish) pronunciation, and I agree with the guy above me that American (but actually not only American) films dubbed in Italian are the thing most shorned of any regional feauture that you can find, so yeah I suggest you watch American films dubbed in italian instead of just focusing on one single person. 

Catalan is a language on its own, with its grammar, its vocabulary and its phonology. Of course it does have some similarities with Spanish because both of them are Romance languages, but nonetheless it remains a separate language.

Here you can hear Catalan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yt-Nnuw_Y90