Buondì. It’s Halloween! “Anche in Italia la festa di Halloween ha ormai preso piede. L’origine è la festa celtica Samhain, che in antico irlandese significa “fine dell’estate” ed era l’occasione per ringraziare gli spiriti dei morti del raccolto estivo.” That’s from yesterday’s EasyItalianNews.com bulletin. Ten minutes of audio and text specifically designed for learners like […]
Archives for October 2018
Moving house & new Book of the Week offer
Buondì. Had a good weekend? I was moving house, which apparently is up there with life’s most stressful events, such as getting divorced, having a baby, or a death in the family. To be more precise, I was the remover rather than the removed. Though it was still a worry – what if I smashed […]
Do you need a slap?
Buondì. It might be time to give myself a slap. Open-handed, right in the face (though careful of the teeth – dentists are expensive in Italy.) Because yesterday, I didn’t study. At all! Zilch, nada, ingenting, hiçbir şey, neanche un cavalo! Che figura! Che vergogna… I didn’t tune in to SVT’s easy Swedish news broadcast […]
Help! Artificial ‘intelligence’ ate my email!
Buondì. More on the saga of signing up to receive free easy Italian news bulletins three times a week (which you can do by filling in the form in the sidebar of the website, where it says NEVER MISS ‘EASY ITALIAN NEWS’!) I first mentioned that a very small minority of people were having issues […]
New easy-reader eBook of the Week: Divorzio all’italiana
Buondì. Many thanks to all club members who have sent donations to help with the costs of the new-ish EasyItalianNews.com. Dollars, Australian dollars, pounds and to a lesser extent, euros have been pouring into our Paypal account, which is gratifying. On the ‘donate’ page, it’s possible to select the currency you prefer, as well as […]
Claire’s problem, thoughts from Leslie, and reminders!
Buondì. I have an online Turkish lesson this morning so I’m a little pressed for time, and thefore plan to cheat by stealing other people’s words! Claire’s, for instance, as she has a problem signing up to receive our thrice-weekly Easy Italian News broadcasts FREE via email. She writes: I would be very happy to […]
How to use the ‘dead time’ in your day to boost your Italian
Buondì. It’s mercoledì, a somewhat easier day, so I’m hoping to work on my own language-learning as well. I have an online Swedish lesson scheduled for 09.30 (hence I’m gettting this article done first…) Ideally I would write up the notes the teacher made from the previous lesson, which I haven’t yet found time to […]
Beginner blues
Starting to learn a new language, such as Italian, can be very exciting! It can also suck. You don’t understand anything that’s happening around you, and you can’t express yourself, perhaps not at all. Your independence is stripped away, you’re reduced to being a helpless child again! And it can feel as if the very […]
Does the teacher know best? How to make your OWN study plan
Buondì. Yesterday was the start of our academic year (for the English school – our Italian school is open all year round.) My first class was a group of pre-schoolers, aged four and five, one of whom was clutching a My Little Pony. The purple plastic horse is an improvement. Last year, she had a […]
“How much have you got in your savings account?”
If the answer to that involves more than, say, four digits then you must have some self-discipline. If it’s five digits or more, you’re probably a regular saver. And if your deposit account balance has six numbers in it (excluding decimals), then you’re likely both an enthusiastic saver and at least middle-aged. I’m both an […]
