Buondì. I get lots of emails from OnlineItalianClub.com members, much of it complimentary: “Great site!”, “Thanks so much for your wonderful emails”, and so on. One rather rude lady this week told me to please shut up about learning Swedish as no one was interested. An hour later, someone from Sweden wrote to wish me […]

It’s the last week of school, in more ways than one! Two of my three kids finish on Thursday and will no doubt spend the next three and a half months slumped in front of Netflix, if not otherwise engaged perfecting their Playstation skills (him) or varnishing their nails (her, or if they get really […]

Buondì. I’m writing this yesterday, if you see what I mean, as this morning we’re off for a weekend at the coast. We’ll be filling up on my Swedish mother-in-law’s pasta, relaxing in the sunshine, and hopefully getting out on the boat, perhaps for the first swim of the year! Why all the fun? Well […]

Buondì. First today, I have a favour to ask of anyone doing online Italian lessons, either with the club or with a competitor. Actually, it’s Martina who’s asking the favour. I just agreed to pass it on to you. This is what she wrote: Mi chiamo Martina Burlando e sono una studentessa universitaria di lingue […]

Buondì. When is a ‘porta’ a door, and when is it a gate? (And does it matter?) Bologna, where I live, used to be surrounded by a defensive wall, much of which has now been demolished. In olden times you’d only have been able to enter the city through one of the many fortified ‘gates’ […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]