Buondì. Some naked commercialism today, as the Club has bills to pay! Yesterday I published three new Italian-English parallel texts, at different levels. Do take a look. The details are below. Each has a free sample chapter. Download it to get the Italian original text along with a line-by-line English translation. They’re good reading practice, even […]
‘Moglie e buoi dei paesi tuoi’?
Buondì. As you might know, I’m married to an Italian, which explains why I live in Italy. Before meeting her, I’d visited Italy precisely once, hadn’t liked it very much, and had no plans to ever return. But there you go. Life’s funny like that. My wife’s Italian father married a woman from Sweden, so […]
Italian weddings, ‘I pronomi diretti’ and final reminder!
Buondì. Today I have an intermediate-level listening task (with transcript) for you. The grammar focus is ‘i pronomi diretti‘. I confess I find pronouns confusing, so I’ll say nothing more. But if you enjoy Italian grammar, this’ll be right up your street. The topic of the audio text is ‘Italian weddings‘, something else that isn’t […]
I pronomi indefiniti & ‘La vita è bella’ reminder
I’m going to have to get my act together and commission some new material for the club site. My cupboard, of new or modified exercises to promote in these thrice-weekly articles, is almost bare. Here’s one of the remaining, shrivelled morsels: I pronomi indefiniti It’s from an old series of ‘grammar listenings’, each audio text […]
La vita è bella!
I’m late today. That’s because I spent the entire morning proof-reading, then publishing, our latest easy Italian reader, Roberto Benigni‘s Oscar-winning classic ‘La vita è bella‘. OnlineItalianClub.com’s resident Italian-teacher cum script-writer, Giovanni, rewatched the movie on your behalf, simplifying the story for learners. Subsequently, Natalia, who staffs reception at our Italian school, recorded Giovanni’s text. […]
Learning Italian? Here are some ideas about what to do next
Buondì. It’s been raining here in Bologna. Which is very welcome, as everything had got very dry. And last night’s stormy weather has brought cooler air, which is also welcome. Though it messes up my plans for the weekend. Oh well, I’ll stay home and spend the time writing something useful! +++ So, you’re learning […]
“You didn’t get your free ebooks?”
We’ve given away maybe a thousand free Italian easy readers and parallel texts over the last ten days. But a small percentage of you have been having problems. That said, a fraction of a thousand people, is quite a few! So I ended up drafting a standard reply to the people emailing me, which I’ll […]
Free ebooks too easy for you?
Virtually the whole of the last seven days, from morning to night, was taken up with the new, free ebooks. Most people managed to download them without issues, but some didn’t notice the download links in the automatic email our system sends out, or never received it, or couldn’t make the link work, or… Hours […]
How’s the reading and listening going? Plus a one-off £5 coupon!
Buondi. How’s the reading/listening going? The reason I ask is because it seems like just about everyone in the club has downloaded one or more of the free ebook easy readers and parallel texts. If you haven’t, there are full instructions about how to do that at the end of this article. Assuming you have, […]
Did you get your free ebooks, yet? (And did you read them?)
Buondì. Since Monday I’ve been busy watching the free ebook orders rolling in (and answering your emails…) There have been about five hundred automatic downloads, mainly for the two Italian texts, Il ristorante and La sorpresa, but also for the Spanish, French and German versions. If you got yours, great! But now you have to […]