Buondì. My Italian brother-in-law runs a pizzeria, and two other successful restaurants, in the seaside town of Rimini (the Romans called it Ariminum.) Which is to be found on Italy’s Adriatic coast, about two thirds of the way up the Italian ‘leg’, just about where the curve starts around towards the east, next stop Venice, […]
One step forward, two steps back
Buondì. One step forward, two steps back. Ever get that feeling? I bet you do! It was also the title of a book by Lenin, apparently. Though he was writing about vexing divisions in the Communist party, thirteen or fourteen years before the 1917-18 revolution. That’s by the by, of course. The more I know […]
How to get better
Buondì. It’s been a week or two since I updated you about my progress improving my chess game. The lessons available for paid users of the Chess.com app are excellent. Sadly, with the free version you can only do one a week, but because I shelled out for a year’s subscription, I’m able to do […]
Want to learn Italian ‘faster’? So FOCUS.
Buondì. Someone wrote to me overnight to compliment me on my podcast about learning Italian ‘fast’, which was clearly an error as I don’t do podcasts, and besides, apart from the word ‘easy’, which we use to describe material which has been intentionally created for learners (‘easy readers’, ‘easy Italian news’), I prefer to avoid […]
Trumpistas and Trolls
Buondì. I’m assuming you’ll be aware that the company that publishes OnlineItalianClub.com (so what you’re reading now) is also the company behind EasyItalianNews.com. I mention it in almost every article. There’s also the obvious connection that both websites are for people learning Italian. We have an online shop, too, mostly full of ebooks for people, […]
New Italian ‘easy reader’ ebook: Decameron (B1/2)
Buondì. Today we publish a new ‘easy Italian reader’ ebook, part of our growing Literature Series, which you may remember us launching last spring, often together with a ‘book club’. This time it’s Boccaccio’s ‘Decameron‘, the level is intermediate/upper-intermediate, and for the first seven days our simplified, shortened ‘easy reader’ version will set you back […]
About learning
Buondì. Over dinner yesterday evening, my son (you know, the one who reads the EasyItalianNews.com broadcasts) was telling us that today he has a test at school, but expects to do badly. It’s some sort of online multiple-choice test, apparently, at which you only get a few seconds to answer each question, and (this part […]
A good day: I lost all seven games of chess
Buondì. As if I didn’t have enough to do in 2021, what with learning Spanish, improving my French, and maintaining Swedish and Turkish, recently I’ve taken up chess. I blame my eldest daughter, who’s locked down at university and, scrabbling around for ways to fill the time, downloaded the most popular chess app to her […]
The difficult made easier, but still worthwhile for all that
Buondì. Over at our sister website, EasyItalianNews.com, we regularly get people commenting that the simplified news bulletins would be even more simple if it were possible to stop the audio after each mini-news story, ‘rewind’ and listen to that segment again, and again, until each has been fully understood. Which is true, but is entirely […]
Change (Makes You Want to Hustle)
Buondì. Change can be alarming. For example, at the end of the Christmas/New Year ‘vacation’ period, when I find myself struggling to adapt from working at home to still working at home but now also having to teach online as well. Suddenly things that I’ve committed to begin to drop by the wayside (I haven’t […]