“What do you want to study today?” asked my online teacher this morning. Actually, I was hoping she’d have an idea. “Jag vet inte”, I replied. “What do you suggest?” “Let’s start a circus!” she said. Must be some sort of Swedish idiom… But it wasn’t a problem to find stuff to talk about – […]
Archives for January 2018
Caravaggio in the alleyways of Rome
Buondì. I’m late today as I had an online lesson this morning, then spent a couple of hours preparing our new easy reader for publication. This one’s a B2 (upper-intermediate) level, so probably on the hard side if you’re just starting out with Italian. But ideal for all you old hands! It’s called ‘Caravaggio nei […]
“How you are managing to improve your vocabulary?”
Buondì. I’m massively early today, as my wife had to get up at five-something to catch the train to Roma, for the annual general meeting of ASILS, to which our Italian school in Bologna proudly belongs. Beh, that’s the commercial break done for the day. So on to business! Thanks to those of you who […]
Studying Italian? What’s important, and what’s less so
Never be afraid to argue with your teacher (some of us talk such nonsense!) This morning I had an interesting conversation with my online Swedish teacher, in Swedish mostly, which was good. She wanted me to study a certain area of grammar, again. It’s important, she said. I’ve already studied that particular perversity at least […]
‘I’ is for ‘indicazioni’, that’s to say ‘directions’
A classic false friend for Italians learning English (and vice versa) is ‘indicazioni’, which means ‘directions’ in Italian, but is often translated badly: Excuse me. Could you give me indications for the railroad station, please? If you got lost in Italy these days, you’d probably just pull out your smartphone and fire up Google Maps. […]
A riff on the value of memorizing vocabulary…
Buondì. Today’s tidied-up page from the vocabulary section of the club website is ‘Giorni / Days‘, a classic beginner topic! If you actually ARE a beginner, take this as your cue to learn these seven words. The hardest part about memorizing a set of vocabulary such as days, months, numbers, or anything that will inevitably […]
Giochiamo a carte?
Buondì. Fancy a game of chess? No? Allora, giochiamo a carte! Dai!* Still no? You’re busy with the PlayStation® 4? Oh well, that’s modern parenting. I’ll just go back to studying languages. Talking of which, today’s free material for learning Italian is the latest of my rewrites of the tatty and error-filled pages in the […]
Women don’t know anything about politics
Buondì. I’m late again today, sorry! It’s because I spent part of the morning listening to the news and weather forecast in Swedish (someone got shot, it’s snowing). And the other part reading and listening to our newest Italian easy reader. And then publishing it, over at our new shop. This one is rather good, […]
‘G’ for Geography, and progress closing down the ‘old shop’
Buondì. Gotta keep this short, as I have an online Swedish lesson in less than an hour and I HAVEN’T DONE MY HOMEWORK. Che vergogna! So, today’s ‘tidied up’ page from the vocabulary section of the club website has words for describing Italy’s geography, plus an exercise, which I haven’t tried myself but which looks […]
Love reading? Italian words for books and literary genres
Buondì. This morning I’ve been continuing to tidy up the Vocabulary section of the club website. Today I’m up to ‘G’ for ‘Generi letterari‘ and I also skipped ahead a bit to ‘L’ for ‘Libri‘, as they were obviously connected The two pages just have lists of words, with translations. There’s nothing sophisticated. But if […]
