On Wednesday I posted the final recording and transcript from the first batch of our Italian Conversations series. I’d been hoping that the next ten conversations would have been ready by now, but we’ve been having Windows 10 issues – our best computer won’t do even the simplest of tasks without a struggle – and […]
Archives for October 2015
Easy Reader Free Sample Chapter & Italian Conversation no. 10
In Monday’s article I promised the link to the free sample chapter for our new easy reader ‘Un viaggio nel tempo‘. But then got I carried away giving advice on how to use easy readers to improve your Italian, and so forgot to include the link… Let me fix that now: ‘Un viaggio nel tempo’ […]
Looking for an Italian school? Today’s Italian Conversation!
Today we have the ninth (out of ten) in the first part of our Italian Conversations series, plus a new Italian easy reader – look out for the link to the free sample chapter at the end of this post. So I’ve been lamenting the quality of the audio recordings in this series (perhaps you […]
Italian Conversations: Al pub (+ a riff on borrowed words)
More borrowed words: on Wednesday we encountered ‘street food’, ‘slow food’ and ‘fast food’. Today it’s ‘pub’. I’m told foreign words borrowed for use in Italian tend to be masculine in gender, which is good to know if, like me, you’ve never got the hang of gender in nouns. Another useful tip I picked up […]
Italian Conversations: Street Food (& Book of the Day Offer)
Buondì. The latest in our Italian Conversations series is ready to listen to. And today’s dialogue should get your mouth watering, as it’s about Street Food. Obviously the term ‘street food’ is a borrowing from English, but that makes it no less useful as Italians employ it (and related terms such as ‘fast food’ and […]
Latest Italian Conversation, plus your questions answered!
Today’s Italian Conversation is ‘Prenotare un ristorante‘, two short dialogues with a transcript so that you can check your understanding. Click here to listen, or browse for listening practice material on these other pages: Italian conversations page | All listening material | A1 | A2 | B1 | B2 | C1 | C2 Anyone else having […]
Italian Conversations: pizza d’asporto (takeaway pizzas!)
You’ve heard of Italian cuisine, right? Home-made pasta, tasty sauces, fresh fish, cheeses, cured meats, colorful fruits and vegetables. All lovingly-prepared by mamma, according to recipes handed down through the generations. And wolfed down by an adoring husband and a bunch of kids, gathered hungrily around the kitchen table. +++ If you visit Italy, best keep a […]
Listen to another Italian Conversation: ‘At the Bar’
In Italy a ‘bar’ is a place where you’ll have breakfast, drink coffee at eleven a.m. or after lunch, and stop at for a glass of wine and some nibbles after work. If you’re on your own, there are usually some of the day’s newspapers to flick through. If not, you’ll be having a chat […]
New Italian easy reader + car rental dialogue
Today we have the launch of our latest Italian easy reader e-book, and also the third in our Italian Conversations series of dialogues. Which shall we talk about first? Ah, yes. The new e-book! ‘Alta moda, alto pericolo‘ tells the story of Maria, a former fashion journalist, who is invited by a fashion designer friend to the […]
Italian Conversations no. 2: “La mia macchina si è fermata!”
“La mia macchina si è fermata!” Fortunately I’ve never had to phone for help from the side of the ‘autostrada’ because my car radiatior has overheated. But I’ve had enough conversations with car mechanics to attest to the authenticity of our second ‘Italian Conversation’. The intern voicing the mechanic in today’s dialogue sounds JUST LIKE […]
