Buondì. Here’s a line from the transcript for today’s new audio of Italian native speakers answering questions from our free conversation prompts: Se potessi rinascere dopo essere morto, rivivresti tutto da capo? C’è qualcosa che vorresti cambiare? That is to say “If you could be reborn after death, would you live everything again from the […]

Buondì. I’m writing this yesterday. It should get published automatically as, hopefully, this morning I’ll be having a lie in. Yesterday (Tuesday) evening we rented a car and drove through the night from London Heathrow to the beautiful, but distant, part of Britain where my parents live. My goodness, if I had driven that far […]

Buondì. Today is the first day of the summer, for me at least. There’s no school, my most urgent current work project is more or less complete, and tomorrow we set off on our holidays, a couple of weeks in the UK. So all I have to think about this morning is organising the kids […]

Buondì. Hope the studying is going well. If not, if say the weather’s too hot and you’re not feeling very motivated, well why not try something different? For example, I was at the doctor’s office this morning and had to wait for my turn. So I spent the time browsing the news in Swedish using […]

Italians are very into ‘cultura’. Art, literature, opera, ballet, classical music, theatre, cinema and so on. Kids at school have to read ‘I promessi sposi‘, and worse. It’s a form of socialisation, like hazing in the military. Video games and rap? Right-thinking people wouldn’t regard either as ‘cultura’, I’m sure. I was trying to convince […]

Buondì. I’m in a rush this morning as I have to go the book-wholesaler (don’t ask) where no doubt I’ll be kept waiting for ages while the guy behind the desk pokes at the keyboard of his nineteen-eighties vintage desktop computer with one finger in that time-honored way that Italian office-workers have of indicating that […]

Buondì. I use a .txt file to organise my life. This has got to be the most primitive possible way to create ‘to do’ lists and schedule appointments, other than using a piece of paper and a pen. However I touch type faster than I use a pen, and my computer goes everywhere with me, […]

Buondì. As you’ve no doubt already heard, ad nauseam, I study Swedish (I just added it to my LinkedIn profile, so it must be true.) The idea is to have material to write about, given that I’m no longer learning Italian (though I live and work in Italy.) Plus, I recently started Turkish lessons, in […]

Buondì. Hope you had a relaxing and enjoyable weekend. We were in Rimini and got out on the boat a few times. There was wind, which was good, and plenty of sunshine. After an hour or so of zipping across the waves, we got the rather-rusty anchor down and the kids dived and splashed. Later, […]

Buondì. The always-useful online Italian-English dictionary, WordReference.com, gives three meanings for ‘insomma‘, a word you’ll often hear Italians use when they’re chatting. It’s used for concluding what you’re saying, like ‘so’ or ‘I mean’. “Insomma, it’s a very useful word.” It can also mean ‘so-so’, as in: “How are you getting one with your Italian?” […]