No time to read this? Why not find something to study instead? A1 – Beginner/Elementary | A2 – Pre-Intermediate | B1 – Intermediate | B2 – Upper-Intermediate | C1 – Advanced | C2 – Proficiency | What’s my level? | Italian level test

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Buondì.

Busy, busy today! I have to write something here, I have an online Swedish conversation, and I need to fit in a walk, while it’s still relatively cool.

What’s the hurry, you might be asking? Well, as RaiNews.it puts it, “Torna l’anticiclone africano“:

“Ultimi giorni di temperature gradevoli sul nostro Paese. Da giovedì è in arrivo, infatti, una nuova ondata di calore che potrebbe tenerci compagnia almeno fino a metà agosto.”

The weather has been quite ‘gradevoli’ recently, for August at least. But from tomorrow it won’t be. Watch the forecast here and scroll down past the video to read the accompanying article.

N.b. https://www.rainews.it/ is a pretty ugly site, but it’s free, and covers the main things going on in Italy in a fairly accessible way. If you like gruesome murders, mysterious drownings, and tragic auto incidents, you’ll love it. I have their app on my phone and check it daily or more often.

So anyway, another reason I’ve been busy is that I’ve finally had the time and ‘voglia’ to tidy up OnlineItalianClub.com’s baby-brother websites (‘sito’ is masculine, so not baby-sister) in an attempt to sell some French, Spanish and German ebooks.

Yesterday, for instance, I posted “How’s your French reading/listening comprehension going?” over at OnlineFrenchClub.com, with the idea of promoting the free ‘easy reader’ and a half-price offer on an intermediate French text.

Today, if I get time, I’ll be doing the same thing for OnlineSpanishClub.com, and tomorrow perhaps also OnlineGermanClub.com, time permitting.

Not in the slightest bit interested?? You’re learning ITALIAN, not French or Spanish!

Yes, but Italian is a Romance language, cioè deriving from ‘Roman’, otherwise known as Vulgar Latin (Romans used lots of cuss words).

Wikipedia has a lot more on Romance languages if you’re interested, including the fact that the most-widely-spoken Romance languages by number of native speakers are Spanish (489 million), Portuguese (240 million) French (80 million), and Italian (67 million).

So?

The Tree Model (there are others, but if you’re new to comparative linguistics it’s a start) explains how and why these widely spoken languages are related, and in many ways similar.

A while back, while attempting to improve my Spanish, I was in the habit of listening to Spanish radio news. It wasn’t nearly as easy for me as Italian, obviously, though I could get the gist at times.

Catalan is an official language in Spain, so whenever the radio news featured someone prominent from the Catalan-speaking area, they’d include a translation of what was being said from the speaker’s Catalan into the listeners’ Castilian Spanish, that being more widespread in Spain.

Surprisingly, I found I could understand Catalan much more easily than Castilian!  I guess it must be more similar to Italian (ask a comparative linguist for confirmation of that) but I’d never have imagined I could understand some Catalan until I actually tried, so I’m glad I did.

When I was at school I ‘studied’ French, though half-heartedly and with zero conviction that I’d ever be able to speak or understand it.

Yet after more than a quarter of a century living in Italy, when I now quite often listen to French radio news (France.info, there’s an app) I find it’s one of my ‘easiest’ foreign languages. I get more from French radio than I do from Swedish, and I’ve been working on my Swedish for years.

Our former neighbours here in Bologna are Romanian. He’s a builder, she works in my local Coop, and their two boys are soccer mad.

This part of Italy is full of Romanians, who moved here for work in same way that Mexicans used to cross the Rio Grande in persuit of the American Dream. For decades Italians didn’t bother having children. Romanians filled the gaps in workplace (also Moldavans…)

Romanians? You’d probably never know if you met one when travelling in Italy, as they tend to speak perfect Italian, and can be quite shy about their origins. But how come, I always wondered, that these people can learn Italian so easily and well while I struggle and make such SLOW progress?

Romanian (25 million) is another Romance language, that’s how come. Like French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Catalan, and others.

Insomma, if you’re into Italian but think you know no French, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Romanian and so on, think again.

Try reading/listening to another Romance language and you’ll probably notice strong similarities.

And if you’ve reached a reasonable level in Italian, you’d have a definite head-start with the others.

At the very least, help me out – why don’t you – by taking a look at OnlineFrenchClub.com and/or OnlineSpanishClub.com,

The Spanish site has lots of listenings with transcripts, for instance. And grammar explanations from beginner to B1.

The French site has listenings too (I particularly like the ‘Une journée dans la vie’ series – scroll right down to the end of this page) but also reading texts, which one of my daughter’s college friends wrote for us during the pandemic.

For real beginners, both sites have the FREE ‘easy reader’ to read and listen to. Find them here: French ‘easy reader’ | Spanish ‘easy reader’.

There! Now you’re a polyglot!

Alla prossima settimana.

Two Half-Price Italian ‘Easy Reader’ Ebooks: Just £4.99 Each

This week just like last week, over at our ebooks store there are two (!) half-price Italian ‘easy reader’ ebooks, ‘L’imperatore e i giochi‘ and ‘Diventare regina. La storia di Caterina de’ Medici‘, both of which are at intermediate/upper-intermediate level.

These original stories (text plus online audio) will keep you turning the pages – and so improving your Italian reading/listening comprehension skills, grammar, and vocabulary – but at HALF the normal price!

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‘The philosopher’, Marco Aurelio (121 – 180 CE), was the last of the ‘Five Good Emperors’ who ruled during the Pax Romana, an age of relative peace and stability.

Join him and his son as they head off to the Colosseum for an afternoon of ‘entertainment’ – watching gladiators fight to the death.

The boy can’t wait! But his father is less than enthusiastic…

• .pdf e-book (+ audio available free online)
• .mobi (Kindle-compatible) and .epub (other ebook readers) available on request at no extra charge – just add a note to the order form or email us
• 8 chapters to read and listen to
• Comprehension questions to check your understanding
• Italian/English glossary of ‘difficult’ terms for the level
• Suitable for students at any level
• Download your Free Sample Chapter (.pdf)

Remember, this week ‘L’imperatore e i giochi‘ is 50% discounted, so just £4.99 rather than the usual ‘easy reader’ ebook price of £9.99!

Buy ‘L’imperatore e i giochi‘ just £4.99! | Free Sample Chapter (.pdf) | History/historical Italian ebooks | Catalog

Find more ebooks, organised by level, then type: A1 | A1/A2 | A2 | A2/B1 | B1 | B1/B2 | B2 | B2/C1 | C1 | C1/C2 | C2

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Orphaned while still a baby, Caterina de’ Medici doesn’t have much going for her. Though there is one thing…

7 Agosto 1530. Corte Papale, Roma

“Avanti, avanti Caterina, camminate più veloce. E ricordate di inchinarvi davanti al Santo Padre! Il nostro Papa Clemente VII è un uomo meraviglioso, e ora avete un’udienza da sola con lui. Non siete emozionata? Siete fortunata ad avere… un santo in Paradiso! Proprio così, è un modo di dire molto appropriato.”

La vecchia suora, che ridacchia isterica, trascina Caterina per una mano e riprende: “Lo dico perché è un Medici come voi. E di certo è un uomo santo. Forza, forza, camminate. Non vogliamo fare aspettare Sua Santità” bisbiglia nervosa.

Caterina’s still only twelve years old, but her uncle, the Pope, is already busy reviewing possible husbands for her, with a view to strengthening ties between the Papacy and one or the other of Europe’s powerful royal families. Perhaps the time has come for her to learn French?

• .pdf e-book (+ audio available free online)
• .mobi (Kindle-compatible) and .epub (other ebook readers) available on request at no extra charge – just add a note to the order form or email us
• 8 chapters to read and listen to
• Comprehension questions to check your understanding
• Italian/English glossary of ‘difficult’ terms for the level
• Suitable for students at intermediate level or above
• Download your Free Sample Chapter (.pdf)

Remember, this week ‘Diventare regina. La storia di Caterina de’ Medici‘ is 50% discounted, so just £4.99 rather than the usual ‘easy reader’ ebook price of £9.99!

Buy ‘Diventare regina. La storia di Caterina de’ Medici‘ just £4.99! | Free Sample Chapter (.pdf) | History/historical Italian ebooks | Catalog

Find more ebooks, organised by level, then type: A1 | A1/A2 | A2 | A2/B1 | B1 | B1/B2 | B2 | B2/C1 | C1 | C1/C2 | C2

How do I access my ebook?

When your order is ‘completed’ (normally immediately after your payment), a download link will be automatically emailed to you. It’s valid for 7 days and 3 download attempts so please save a copy of the .pdf ebook in a safe place. Other versions of the ebook, where available, cannot be downloaded but will be emailed to people who request them. There’s a space to do that on the order form – where it says Additional information, Order notes (optional). If you forget, or if you have problems downloading the .pdf, don’t worry! Email us at the address on the website and we’ll help. Also, why not check out our FAQ?

P.S.

Don’t forget to read/listen to Tuesday’s bulletin of news from EasyItalianNews.com.

Reading/listening practice will help you consolidate the Italian you’re studying, expand your vocabulary, and build vital comprehension skills.

EasyItalianNews.com is FREE to read/listen to.

Subscribing, and so receiving all three text + audio bulletins of ‘easy’ news via email each week -on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays – is also FREE.

Just enter your email address on this page and click the confirmation link that will be sent to you.

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OnlineItalianClub.com | EasyItalianNews.com | Shop (ebooks) | Shop (online lessons)

No time to read this? Why not find something to study instead? A1 – Beginner/Elementary | A2 – Pre-Intermediate | B1 – Intermediate | B2 – Upper-Intermediate | C1 – Advanced | C2 – Proficiency | What’s my level? | Italian level test

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Buondì.

The article from two weeks ago (Who are you and what do you want?) keeps on generating comments, which you can read through if you have the time and voglia, as I have just done.

Some are from competent, satisfied language-learners, but many of you seem less than entirely happy.

– Speaking is so frustrating!
– I can hardly put a sentence together.
– Conversation is my weakest area.
– I find reading Italian a lot easier than speaking it.
– I can read and understand far better than I can speak.
– Speaking Italian is still difficult.

Well, yes, speaking is certainly difficult, that’s true. For a start, it’s ‘real time’, unlike say writing, where you can plan ahead how to express yourself.

Moreover, in conversation you’re also busy doing other things besides speaking. Listening, obviously, but also observing all the niceties of interacting verbally with another human.

Your expectations play an important part, too. A lot of members who left comments are retired, so may have been speaking their native tongues for six or seven decades. Hardly surprising then if they find themselves more tongue-tied in a foreign language they’ve only been learning for a few years…

But people imagine that there’s a simple cause and so a simple solution:

– I have no opportunity to speak Italian.
– I’m not sure I can become fluent without actually using Italian every day.
– I hope to spend a longer period of time in Italy so I can become more fluent.
– One day I will make the leap to an online tutor or move to Italy for a year.
– If I could just get to A2, I would try online lessons.
– I need to spend some time somewhere in Italy where no one speaks English.
– I’d like to live in a small town where no-one speaks English.

I’ve heard all that thousands of times in my thirty-five years plus spent in language education, but I still remember what a professor of French told me at a college ‘meet the faculty’ party.

I was nineteen at the time and just back from a week-long holiday romance with a girl called Pascale – who spoke no English – in a camping somewhere in the west of France (she and her friends had set out without a tent so needed to use their wits…)

I was telling the professor how ‘fluent’ I now felt, unlike at any point in the many years of French at school, and he replied that my French probably wasn’t much better than it had been before. It was just that I now felt more confident using it.

That sounded like a bit of a snub (he’d have had every right, snotty little sod that I was at that age) but the guy was correct. A week of chat with Pascale on the beach, in bars, and in a tent had done little more than reveal the limitations of my language education (how to ask about contraception…) But I felt great all the same!

More or less the same thing happened with Turkish when I spent three years in the Turkish capital Ankara, then several more years married to the girl I’d met there, who also didn’t speak English.

But by that time I was an English language teacher so had learnt to be much more realistic about what is and isn’t possible.

In those five or six years of daily practice I became CONFIDENT in my ability to communicate in Turkish, though I knew that my language skills were limited, perhaps intermediate at best.

Another commenter had it right:

– I will never be fluent but if I can communicate when I need to, I’m happy.

‘Fluent’, yuk, I never use that word. And neither should you.

It’s so imprecise! What does it even mean?

Not making mistakes? Speaking without hesitating? Always having the vocabulary to express yourself? Speaking in the appropriate register (formal/informal etc.)?

All of those things? Some of those things? Different things at different times?

If you’re thinking, but, but… I want to be FLUENT, do yourself the huge favour of questioning what you mean, what you really want, and more importantly, why.

Some people, for instance, find making mistakes so humiliating that they waste their lives trying to perfect their grammar. For what? You’ll die at some point, then who will care?

Other language learners don’t care a fig about grammar mistakes but want – above all – to hold up their end of the banter in the bar.

Whoever you are, whatever you want, that’s fine.

But don’t hide behind ‘fluent’, which only serves to confuse things.

So anyway, how to improve your spoken Italian?

Going to Italy for a while might help you feel more confident, as long as it gives you the opportunity to practice interacting in the language with others.

But equally likely it won’t make much difference.

Bet there are plenty of migrants to the country you live in who haven’t mastered the official language, right? They live here but just get by with the language, never reached proficiency and probably never will.

The place in Italy where no one speaks English doesn’t exist, by the way.

But even if it did, spending a year there would be no guarantee you’d speak lots of Italian. Maybe no one would want to talk to you? Maybe you wouldn’t want to talk to them? Maybe you’d hate the whole experience?

An Italian language school in Italy (such as ours in Bologna) can give you some practice and help you feel more confident. Two or three weeks is a good start, and affordable for most people.

But easier and cheaper would be to do some online lessons, which can be just conversation if that’s what you want.

You’ll have heard that I’m learning (never studying) Swedish? My wife is half-Swedish (her mother’s side) but neither she nor her mom will ever practice with me, and they cut me down immediately if I try to start a conversation in their language.

Stefi and I have spent around two weeks in Sweden in the twenty-eight years we’ve been together, so that didn’t help.

I get my Swedish speaking practice online, with a club member who volunteered and gets Italian lessons from https://nativespeakerteachers.com/ in return. I have a conversation scheduled with him right after I’m done writing this, in fact.

How good is my spoken Swedish?

Good enough to get by if I need it, I’d say. Not accurate, not effortless, but enough to talk about the weather, mowing the lawn, and the latest stupidities from across the pond.

The fact that I do lots of listening practice helps, meaning I can manage any interaction.

Conclusion: it really is possible to learn a language without living in the country where that language is spoken, or even spending significant time there.

But it’s also totally OK – as for many happy club members – if your Italian reading/listening skills are much better than your speaking.

There’s no reason you have to be good at speaking. Listening more effectively is a much more useful (and cheaper) goal!

‘Good enough to get by’ is a reasonable objective, along with ‘understand a lot of what I hear’.

‘Flawless grammar’, ‘extensive vocabulary’?

Both are much less important for most people, most of the time.

Alla prossima settimana!

Two Half-Price Italian ‘Easy Reader’ Ebooks: Just £4.99 Each

This week over at our ebooks store there are two (!) half-price Italian ‘easy reader’ ebooks, ‘L’imperatore e i giochi‘ and ‘Diventare regina. La storia di Caterina de’ Medici‘, both of which are at intermediate/upper-intermediate level.

These original stories (text plus online audio) will keep you turning the pages – and so improving your Italian reading/listening comprehension skills, grammar, and vocabulary – but at HALF the normal price!

+++

‘The philosopher’, Marco Aurelio (121 – 180 CE), was the last of the ‘Five Good Emperors’ who ruled during the Pax Romana, an age of relative peace and stability.

Join him and his son as they head off to the Colosseum for an afternoon of ‘entertainment’ – watching gladiators fight to the death.

The boy can’t wait! But his father is less than enthusiastic…

• .pdf e-book (+ audio available free online)
• .mobi (Kindle-compatible) and .epub (other ebook readers) available on request at no extra charge – just add a note to the order form or email us
• 8 chapters to read and listen to
• Comprehension questions to check your understanding
• Italian/English glossary of ‘difficult’ terms for the level
• Suitable for students at any level
• Download your Free Sample Chapter (.pdf)

Remember, this week ‘L’imperatore e i giochi‘ is 50% discounted, so just £4.99 rather than the usual ‘easy reader’ ebook price of £9.99!

Buy ‘L’imperatore e i giochi‘ just £4.99! | Free Sample Chapter (.pdf) | History/historical Italian ebooks | Catalog

Find more ebooks, organised by level, then type: A1 | A1/A2 | A2 | A2/B1 | B1 | B1/B2 | B2 | B2/C1 | C1 | C1/C2 | C2

+++

Orphaned while still a baby, Caterina de’ Medici doesn’t have much going for her. Though there is one thing…

7 Agosto 1530. Corte Papale, Roma

“Avanti, avanti Caterina, camminate più veloce. E ricordate di inchinarvi davanti al Santo Padre! Il nostro Papa Clemente VII è un uomo meraviglioso, e ora avete un’udienza da sola con lui. Non siete emozionata? Siete fortunata ad avere… un santo in Paradiso! Proprio così, è un modo di dire molto appropriato.”

La vecchia suora, che ridacchia isterica, trascina Caterina per una mano e riprende: “Lo dico perché è un Medici come voi. E di certo è un uomo santo. Forza, forza, camminate. Non vogliamo fare aspettare Sua Santità” bisbiglia nervosa.

Caterina’s still only twelve years old, but her uncle, the Pope, is already busy reviewing possible husbands for her, with a view to strengthening ties between the Papacy and one or the other of Europe’s powerful royal families. Perhaps the time has come for her to learn French?

• .pdf e-book (+ audio available free online)
• .mobi (Kindle-compatible) and .epub (other ebook readers) available on request at no extra charge – just add a note to the order form or email us
• 8 chapters to read and listen to
• Comprehension questions to check your understanding
• Italian/English glossary of ‘difficult’ terms for the level
• Suitable for students at intermediate level or above
• Download your Free Sample Chapter (.pdf)

Remember, this week ‘Diventare regina. La storia di Caterina de’ Medici‘ is 50% discounted, so just £4.99 rather than the usual ‘easy reader’ ebook price of £9.99!

Buy ‘Diventare regina. La storia di Caterina de’ Medici‘ just £4.99! | Free Sample Chapter (.pdf) | History/historical Italian ebooks | Catalog

Find more ebooks, organised by level, then type: A1 | A1/A2 | A2 | A2/B1 | B1 | B1/B2 | B2 | B2/C1 | C1 | C1/C2 | C2

How do I access my ebook?

When your order is ‘completed’ (normally immediately after your payment), a download link will be automatically emailed to you. It’s valid for 7 days and 3 download attempts so please save a copy of the .pdf ebook in a safe place. Other versions of the ebook, where available, cannot be downloaded but will be emailed to people who request them. There’s a space to do that on the order form – where it says Additional information, Order notes (optional). If you forget, or if you have problems downloading the .pdf, don’t worry! Email us at the address on the website and we’ll help. Also, why not check out our FAQ?

P.S.

And here again is a reminder to read/listen to Tuesday’s bulletin of news from EasyItalianNews.com.

Reading/listening practice will help you consolidate the Italian you’re studying, expand your vocabulary, and build vital comprehension skills.

EasyItalianNews.com is FREE to read/listen to, though this week they’re running their bi-monthly appeal for donations. Don’t be surprised if this one and the next three (Thursday, Saturday and Tuesday) include not-so-subtle requests for your cash.

Subscribing, and so receiving all three text + audio bulletins of ‘easy’ news via email each week -on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays – is also FREE.

Just enter your email address on this page and click the confirmation link that will be sent to you.

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OnlineItalianClub.com | EasyItalianNews.com | Shop (ebooks) | Shop (online lessons)