Buondì. Today’s Dante canto (Canto V) takes me back more than twenty years to when I first visited Italy with my then Italian girlfriend (now wife, and partner in our Italian school.) Stefi’s from Rimini, so after having done the usual touristy stuff in north-eastern Italy – Venice, Florence, and Bologna (where we now live) […]
Dante hangs with the boyz
Buondì. Thanks to everyone who emailed or commented in response to my question as to whether we should continue with Dante (which does make a nice summer project…) Friday’s article had a record number of comments (scroll to the bottom to read them.) And I got a similar number of emails, which was great. So […]
“Guai a voi, anime prave!”
Buondì. Thanks to everyone who wrote in about Dante, mostly saying that they thought the new material is a great idea, despite being difficult. Today we have extracts from Canto III and, hey, I surprised myself by actually being able to figure out the original Italian! Well, most of it, though only the extracts – […]
More tales of lost love (sorry, I mean ‘culture’)
Buondì. On Monday I introduced our new (free) series, an introduction to Dante’s Inferno. Canto 1 is here, if you missed it. We’re publishing short extracts, along with a commentary by Francesca Colombo, one of our regular writers. And an English translation, for the uneducated masses, amongst which I proudly count myself. Since Monday I’ve […]
Dante’s a cat, right?
Buondì. Dante’s a cat, right? Much-loved protagonist of our ‘easy Italian reader’ ebook, Dante, gatto vagante. If you missed it, read the reviews – people love cats! And download the free sample chapter (.pdf). But Dante was also, what, a poet? A writer? Some famous historical guy? Something to do with the Italian language? Went […]
The Perfect App for Learning Italian
Buondì. Today I am going to reveal the perfect app for learning Italian! Or perhaps you’d prefer to know about the best language school in Italy? Or the most-able teacher, within a short drive of your house? Or the best ‘learn Italian’ website? Or the company selling online lessons that has both the best reviews […]
New B2/C1-Level Easy Reader – ‘Il bar’ – 25% Off This Week!
Buondì. Did you know there’s a new B2/C1-level Italian ‘easy reader’ in our online shop? This one is called ‘Il bar‘ and is by Francesca Colombo, author of the recent ‘Prometeo e la guerra dei titani‘. That one was set in a high school and was centered around a Greek myth. This one, in contrast, […]
Another stroll down Memory Lane (part 2)
Buondì. I’ll be ultra quick this morning, as I’ve spent hours already updating the club’s “Best of OnlineItalianClub.com” page. Basically that involved reading through old articles like this one and picking out the ones I think contain something useful (NOT like this one), then adding links to the “Best of” page so that nuggets (gold […]
Training your listeners
Buondì. A quick note to anyone who tried to write to me about Wednesday’s article ‘Serendipity and language-learning‘. We had technical problems with email addresses across our organisation, due to me doing something in a hurry and not recognising the consequences for a day and a half. Emails got bounced back to the sender, which […]
Serendipity and language-learning
Buondì. Serendipity means an unplanned, fortunate discovery. Serendipity is a common occurrence throughout the history of product invention and scientific discovery. Serendipity is also seen as a potential design principle for online activities that would present a wide array of information and viewpoints, rather than just re-enforcing a user’s opinion. (Wikipedia) Invention, discovery, product design… But not […]
