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Archives for May 2020

What makes a text ‘easy’ or ‘hard’?

May 29, 2020 by Daniel

Buondì. A quickie today, as I promised my wife I’d be ready for coffee with her in an hour, and I’ve spent the past 55 minutes doing my weekly Turkish conversation lesson. Yesterday I started on next week’s new Mini-Book Club choice (see our Literature page if you have no idea what I’m talking about), […]

Filed Under: Articles

And yet…

May 27, 2020 by Daniel

Buondì. In reply to Monday’s article About self-teaching, this from Anne in Chicago: Well, I couldn’t work my way all the way through this email, but it seems to me that the best way to learn a foreign language is to go live somewhere they speak it. Yes, well, those of us who are, or […]

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About self-teaching

May 25, 2020 by Daniel

Buondì. “Don’t do it like that, do it like this!” you might have heard from a teacher. Or perhaps, “THIS is how you should be organising your notes / reading / pronouncing that word.” Assuming your teacher was/is competent (I normally don’t), and that you choose to follow their advice, then you should be, more […]

Filed Under: Articles

How to achieve something BIG!

May 22, 2020 by Daniel

Buondì. I’m utterly fed up with arguing with club members about why they should ‘just read’ and not use a dictionary while doing so. And yes, I know there are lots of times when, actually, you SHOULD use a dictionary – for example, when you are ‘studying’ rather than ‘just reading’, or if you’re being […]

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How to ‘know’ what new words ‘mean’ WITHOUT a dictionary

May 20, 2020 by Daniel

Buondì. One of the perils of being a teacher is assuming that what’s obvious to me is obvious to everyone else too. After all, I’ve taught this and written about it so many times, how could you all not already know it? And yet I’m constantly reminded that people DON’T KNOW. For example, with the […]

Filed Under: Articles

New Easy Reader / Mini-Book Club: ‘Uno, nessuno e centomila’

May 18, 2020 by Daniel

Italian easy reader ebooks - Uno, nessuno e centomila - cover image

Buondì. As mentioned on Friday, today we have a new, B2 (upper-intermediate) -level ‘easy Italian reader’ ebook, the second in a series of simplified versions of classic Italian literature. This time we’re back in the twentieth-century, 1926 to be precise, and the book is Uno, nessuno e centomila (One, No One and One Hundred Thousand), […]

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Studying or learning?

May 15, 2020 by Daniel

Buondì. Coming on Monday we have the next ‘easy’ Italian reader ebook in our ‘Literature’ series, Luigi Pirandello’s rather odd ‘Uno, nessuno e centomila‘, about a young man who gets himself into rather a lather about the way others perceive him. If you’ve finished Pinocchio (I haven’t, yet), or never started it, or started it […]

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To translate or not to translate, that is the question

May 13, 2020 by Daniel

Buondì. “To translate or not to translate, that is the question.” Or rather, that is A question. But really, not one you should be asking yourself. For the answer is, or should be, obvious. Don’t translate. A caveat to that: if you’re training to be a translator, or someone is paying you to translate something, […]

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Useful things you could do today (and the rest of the week!)

May 11, 2020 by Daniel

Buondì. It rained overnight in Bologna, so was cloudy and cooler this morning when I woke. I hadn’t slept at all well, due to corona virus-related worrying, possibly aggravated by a rather-too-rich homemade pizza (con salame piccante e molto gorgonzola!) and a bottle of strong Spanish red (Lidl has an ‘all things Spanish’ offer on, […]

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About ‘speaking’ better in Italian (or any language)

May 8, 2020 by Daniel

Buondì. An email came in from Shelley, who, when I suggested her issues would be of general interest, agreed that I could use her name and quote her: I was wondering if you have any [ways of measuring progress] for the spoken word instead of the written one? I came to Italy with my better […]

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