Benvenuto febbraio, a gloomy month and one which offers little to look forward to for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere.
On the plus side, knowing it’s not welcome, at least febbraio doesn’t hang around for long!
At which point we’ll be on to marzo (hurrah!) and the first day of spring.
And then, finally, aprile and the school holidays.
This is ‘teacher reasoning’.
My colleague and I are already counting the weeks…
Talking about teaching, note how capitalisation is different in Italian.
The names of the months (above), for example.
Title case, too.
Check out the title of any Italian book you have lying around (or better, some Italian easy readers) to see that only the first word (and any proper nouns in the title) have an inital capital.
Which brings me to our new ebook, part of the popular ‘day in the life of a famous person from history’ series.
It’ll be coming out either next Monday, or the Monday after, depending on when the team manages to get the audio and proof-reading finished.
The title is ‘Colombo e il mare Oceano’, and I’m assured it’s very good!
I’ll not get to read and listen to it until the final checking and proof-reading stage, but that’s one of the fun parts of my job!
By the way, the odd capitalisation (il mare Oceano) is something I would have picked up on as a proof-reader, if I hadn’t already been forewarned.
‘Oceano’ is the name of the ‘mare’, apparently.
If anyone understands the logic of that, do write and tell me.
Perhaps it’ll be explained in the book.
Others from the same series include Galileo, Pisa e la luna (B1/B2), Un giorno con Raffaello (B1/B2), and Vivaldi e la chiesa della Salute (B2).
(My favourite from amongst those was Galileo, which really was very good! If you have a limited budget, take it from me, get that one!)
And in the pipeline, publication date still undetermined other than ‘soon’, we have that rock star amongst painters, ‘Michelangelo’.
Non vedo l’ora! (= “Can’t wait!”)
But just typing those titles out, has helped me understand them better.
Try it yourself.
See the similarity between ‘Colombo’ and ‘Vivaldi’?
And see the way ‘luna’ is not capitalized? (“Well of course not!” says my Italian wife…)
If not, look again.
By the way, here’s a ‘typical mistake’ alert!
Italians don’t capitalise either their language (parlo italiano) or their nationality (sono italiano/a).
So much to learn, so little time!
Anyway, today we have more free listening tasks from Matt, who’s been adding questions to some of our audio material that didn’t already have them.
This first one focuses on the A1 (beginner) level grammar form ‘C’è / Ci sono’ (‘There is / are’ in English.)
It’s worth a listen to, whatever your level.
Personally, I’d read the questions first.
Then I’d listen a couple of times, trying to answer them.
I’d scroll down to the bottom of the page to check my answers.
After that, I’d listen again, this time reading the transcript.
If I was feeling enthused, I’d read through the transcript carefully, thinking about the grammar form and noting down any new words.
And finally, I’d just listen to it through one final time, with or without the text, hoping to consolidate what I’d learnt.
(If time was short, I might skip most of that and just do the questions, check the answers, and via!)
Here’s the link to the A1 (Elementary) task:
‘C’è / Ci sono’ Italian listening with NEW task!
And if your level is NOT ‘Elementary’?
I have your back.
Here’s a more complex text, also with a new task.
It’s from our C1 series, but personally I’d say that anyone with a few years of Italian behind them could reasonably have a crack at it (Matt’s task isn’t very hard.)
Follow the same procedure as before, or just do the abbreviated version: task, check answers, on to something else!
A venerdì.
P.S.
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Why not forward them the email or URL?
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