Buondì. I have nothing against apps, and will happily use them for my own language-learning. But these days we’re so used to solving any problem by clicking on the relevant icon on our smartphones or tablets, that I begin to wonder… Would you expect, for example when browsing in a bookshop or library, that one […]

Buondì. Hope you had a nice Ferragosto. The 15th of August is a public holiday in Italy and represents both the apex and the last gasp of the summer. From today on, everyone starts thinking about the inevitable ‘rientro’ (return to work/normal life). But not to worry! Summer may be drawing to an end, but […]

Buondì. I recently linked to one of my own articles, modestly entitled ‘How to learn Italian (or any language)‘. If you read it, you might have expected language-learning ‘tactics’, but in fact my experience of language-learning (and language-teaching, which is my profession) has been that, given that it’s a long-term activity, the ‘strategic’ side of […]

Buondì. If you’ve spent much time in Italy, you’ll be familiar with the word ‘sciopero’, which means ‘strike’ in the sense of industrial action, downing tools, walking out and so on. And ‘avviso’ is ‘warning’. So be warned, OnlineItalianClub.com’s Deptartment of Silly Questions has declared a strike for today, Friday 9th of August from 2 […]

Buondì. I’m travelling today, heading up the motorway to London’s Heathrow airport for an evening flight back to Bologna. So I’ll keep this short. I have two things for you this morning: 1.) an exchange of emails with a club member who DOESN’T NEED ‘slow’ or ‘easy’ listening material any longer, and 2.) another canto […]

Buondì. I’ve been feeling a little irate of late, so it’s fitting that today Dante arrives in the circle of ‘Inferno’ reserved for: “the souls of those whom anger overcame” which in Dante’s Italian is “l’anime di color cui vinse l’ira”. Not so hard, that bit, is it? And note – ‘ira’, translated by Longfellow […]

Buondì. So Dante doesn’t really meet Harry Potter, of course. Though I’m pretty sure he would have done if the chronology had been the other way around, as the author seems prone to name-dropping just about everyone, both contemporaries and historical figures. Good P.R. I suppose. Everyone would have had to buy a copy of […]

Buondì. Today’s Dante canto (Canto V) takes me back more than twenty years to when I first visited Italy with my then Italian girlfriend (now wife, and partner in our Italian school.) Stefi’s from Rimini, so after having done the usual touristy stuff in north-eastern Italy – Venice, Florence, and Bologna (where we now live) […]

Buondì. Thanks to everyone who emailed or commented in response to my question as to whether we should continue with Dante (which does make a nice summer project…) Friday’s article had a record number of comments (scroll to the bottom to read them.) And I got a similar number of emails, which was great. So […]