Buondì. One of the perils of being a teacher is assuming that what’s obvious to me is obvious to everyone else too. After all, I’ve taught this and written about it so many times, how could you all not already know it? And yet I’m constantly reminded that people DON’T KNOW. For example, with the […]

Buondì. Coming on Monday we have the next ‘easy’ Italian reader ebook in our ‘Literature’ series, Luigi Pirandello’s rather odd ‘Uno, nessuno e centomila‘, about a young man who gets himself into rather a lather about the way others perceive him. If you’ve finished Pinocchio (I haven’t, yet), or never started it, or started it […]

Buondì. “To translate or not to translate, that is the question.” Or rather, that is A question. But really, not one you should be asking yourself. For the answer is, or should be, obvious. Don’t translate. A caveat to that: if you’re training to be a translator, or someone is paying you to translate something, […]

Buondì. It rained overnight in Bologna, so was cloudy and cooler this morning when I woke. I hadn’t slept at all well, due to corona virus-related worrying, possibly aggravated by a rather-too-rich homemade pizza (con salame piccante e molto gorgonzola!) and a bottle of strong Spanish red (Lidl has an ‘all things Spanish’ offer on, […]

Buondì. An email came in from Shelley, who, when I suggested her issues would be of general interest, agreed that I could use her name and quote her: I was wondering if you have any [ways of measuring progress] for the spoken word instead of the written one? I came to Italy with my better […]

Buondì. I have to be quick, as I already spent way too long answering emails from club members and commenting in the mini-book club! So I thought that today, to save time, I’d try and catch two pigeons with one bean, as Italians say. (The equivalent English expression also has a pair of birds but […]

Buondì. I started writing later today as, beard-trimmed, hair-combed, and clad in clean shorts and a new polo shirt, I made my dash for freedom (like Steve McQueen in this famous scene.) Stefi and I, clutching a fresh face mask each, and carefully-completed copies of the new ‘modello autodichiarazione’, headed OUT, to our local park […]

Buondì. The ‘Mini-Book Club‘ is off to a flying start. Thanks to everyone who has joined us to read ‘Pinocchio’, either in the original version (available free online) or using our simplified ‘easy reader’ version. The former is free (there are tips on where to find it on the ‘Mini-Book Club‘ page). The latter is […]

Buondì. As mentioned on Monday, we have a new, beginner/elementary-level (A1/2) ‘easy Italian reader’ ebook, the first in a series of simplified versions of classic Italian literature. It’s ‘Le avventure di Pinocchio‘, Carlo Collodi’s classic children’s story of a talking puppet running riot, now rewritten for students of Italian! Pinocchio is a wooden puppet but […]