Buondì. We have guests coming, so I’ve been cleaning out the fireplace in our living room, something I remember watching my gran doing each morning when I was a small child (she used to wrap the ashes in the previous day’s Daily Mirror), but that I haven’t done myself for…. maybe five years? We don’t […]
‘Listening’ or ‘Listening Practice’? (Do at least one.)
Buondì. Kathryn emailed to ask about the difference betweeen ‘listening’ and ‘listening practice’. Is there one? If so, what? ‘Listening practice’ has a goal or goals which are differerent to those associated with listening that isn’t ‘practice’. If your goal is to improve your listening skills, then you’re practising listening, though you may at the […]
Donkey shot!
Buondì. When you learn, and use, a foreign language, there are always things that will floor you. Sometimes it’s the same thing, again and again! For example, when I have heard, over the decades, my Italian wife talking about Donkey shot. First I thought she was going crazy, or that I’d misheard. What did donkeys […]
About understanding, tra virgolette
Buondì. Driving our small guest to her kindergarten on the other side of our city each weekday morning is an opportunity to listen to the radio, a station that combines monologues on political themes with ‘rock’, so the Rolling Stones, Bruce, and plenty of newer stuff that I’m not familiar with, but enjoy anyway. Music […]
“Ho già dato!”
Buondì. Someone wrote to me this week asking if I had plans to offer EasyItalianNews.com also for other languages – he provided a list of those he’s learning. It would be great if we could do the same thing, that is to say, produce 150-odd FREE bulletins each and every year, for this language, and […]
Half-price ‘Ebook of the Week’ (and 25% off history titles!)
Buondì. I’m going to keep this extremely short today, as it’s the end of the month and I have teachers, writers, editors, and various other people to pay – an important but time-consuming and tiresome job! E poi, the weekend was chock full of parks, swings, slides, things to fall off or into, things that […]
Tiè!
Buondì. We’re going out tonight, a rare event, and the first time that we’re taking Roomie anywhere. It’s dinner at some friends’ downtown attic apartment, and polenta e ragù is on the menu apparently, so end-of-winter comfort food, both traditional enough to be chic, and filling to boot. We’ve known this couple since we first […]
Beach body ready already
Buondì. At this time of the year, people might become more assiduous about gym attendance, more attentive to toning up muscles wasted by winter months, and perhaps even book a couple of sessions under the sun lamp, why not? This with a view to having our ‘beach body’ ready for when summer begins. We’ll be […]
Needs must
Buondì. We were five around the pizzas yesterday evening, one of my adult daughters having coming back from college briefly. All our kids’ lives, we’ve spoken English at home, or at least I have. They’ll speak Italian to their mother, and to each other, but never to me. Often that means I’m left on the […]
An obvious life-hack for language learners who drive crappy cars
Buondì. Still ill, still suffering from lack of sleep, and still short of time, so I’ll keep this short, and apologies if it’s so banal that it doesn’t help anyone. I write about language-learning three times a week, every week, so over a hundred and fifty times a year. It’s not always easy to think […]