No, that’s not a mistake. I’m aware it’s the end of May, not December. But I’ve just published another free Italian ‘conversation lesson’, and hey, why NOT talk about Natale e Capodanno in the summer?? After all, conversation practice is conversation practice, right? And if you want to speak better, chuck that grammar book in […]
What are you good at? Or ‘in’?
Today’s new, free material for students of Italian is yet another set of conversation prompts. The theme is ‘Sei bravo a… ?‘ (‘Are you good at…?’) Be aware that, at least for school subjects, Italians use the preposition ‘in’ not ‘at’. So: “Sono bravo in matematica!” (I’m good at maths = I’m good IN the […]
A new, free Italian conversation lesson for you…
Buondì. Today I have a new, free Italian conversation lesson for you. The topic is Viaggiare (Travel) and as usual you’ll find conversation prompts at elementary, intermediate and advanced levels. The idea is that the prompts form the basis for conversation practice, perhaps in a group with friends from your Italian class, or one-to-one with […]
La bocca non è stracca se non sa di vacca
The first time I visited Italy with my Italian girlfriend (now long-suffering wife), we had Christmas lunch with her extended family. The group of strangers around the table included her grandmother, who sadly died not that long after, before I’d had much chance to learn Italian and so get to know her better. What I […]
The last in our ‘verbs’ series of free Italian lessons
Buondì. A short article today as, while I have loads of things I could write about, time is pressing. Hence, here’s the last in our ‘verbs’ series of free Italian lessons with audio: Vedere There are some good expressions in this one, though for some reason Marika hasn’t included one of the most obvious ones, […]
I turn off the subtitles. Something surprising happens!
Buondì. Friday’s article had a video in it (a song that Anne sent in). But if you read it in an email, it’s likely the video had been ‘disappeared’ by your email provider. You may not even have noticed, but Anne was disappointed so I said I’d mention it today. Here are some options: View […]
Varie ed eventuali
The phrase in the title, ‘varie ed eventuali’, can usually be found at the end of an agenda for a meeting. The English equivalent would be ‘any other business’, or perhaps ‘miscellaneous’. ‘Agenda’, by the way, would be ‘ordine del giorno’ in Italian, that is to say the document containing details of the day/time of […]
Good habits = good results. Ma è come parlare al muro!
Buondì. E’ come parlare al muro! It’s like talking to a brick wall! Yesterday I was doing one-to-one English lessons with some key staff at a local company. I’ve been going there each Tuesday for over two years and some of the students I work with have done forty or fifty lessons with me. One […]
New Italian easy reader ‘Fantozzi’ out today – save 25%!
Buondì. As mentioned on Friday, today we have the publication of our newest Italian ‘easy reader’, one from our ‘Book of the film‘ series of simplified texts based on classic Italian movies. So without further ado, a round of applause please, ladies and gentlemen, for… Fantozzi! Ragionier Fantozzi, Ugo is an Italian everyman, though not […]
Hate your job at a big company? Then you’ll love this!
OK, so I was wrong. After living in Italy for twenty years, I was convinced Italians had no sense of humour. But reading/listening to our newest Italian ‘Book of the Movie’ easy reader had me laughing out loud! The 1975 film, Fantozzi, features Ugo Fantozzi, a down-on-his-luck employee of a souless ‘mega-company’. A combination of […]
