As promised, I’m late today. I was about two hours getting to the hospital for my routine test, checking in, actually getting the test, waiting to be handed the results, and then getting home again. Then another two hours trying to work out what the doctor’s report meant. In Britain, doctors talk mostly in euphemisms […]

Thanks to the hundred and seven people from around the globe who took a leap of faith (or hope, or maybe just a metaphorical leap) to book a free trial lesson during last week’s promotion. If that includes you, ‘bravo’! By now, you should have heard from Lucia about organising your one-to-one lesson. If not, […]

Sunday morning, and it’s a beautiful sunny November day in my part of Italy. Lunch is safely in the oven, so I’m sat at the kitchen table listening to the sounds of my youth, in memory of poor Malcolm Young, co-founder of Australian rock band AC-DC, who has died far too early at 64. ‘Highway […]

Buondì. A lady sent me this email the other day: I thought I would be sent lessons 3x a week appropriate for my level. It looks like I am getting a sales pitch 3x a week. Yes I can sign up for one free lesson, but then have to pay for the rest. Please correct […]

Buondì. This is going to be a short one, as I have a busy day lined up. The first job was to open and process emails. Next, this article. Then, at 10 a.m. I have my online lesson (hurrah!) My teacher sent me some material on dates (the pronunciation of ordinal numbers is HORRIBLE in […]

Buondì. A steady rain is falling in Bologna this morning. Looking out of my kitchen window, it’s clear that it’s going to be one of those grey November days that just need to be endured and then forgotten. When it rains on the Pianura Padana, it really rains! So, not a good start to the week. […]

A scary thought, for me, at least. I was just tidying up today’s free vocabulary lesson, which is on Computers, since you ask. Click the link if you’d rather be studying Italian than reading my aged witterings. Back in the ‘eighties, when I was at uni (that’s ‘college’ if you live in the U.S.A.) I […]

Did I mention I’ve started taking online Swedish lessons? I think not. For those of you who may be new around here, it was about a year ago that I got the idea that it would help my writing about language learning if I were actually DOING some language learning (my days of studying Italian […]

Would you rather live in the city or the countryside? Personally I’m hedging my bets. Our home is just inside the boundary of the city of Bologna (in Italy), at the end of a bus route that takes us directly into the historic center in just twenty minutes. But it’s surrounded by ploughed fields and […]

Venerdì, finally! So there’s time to take up my shovel once more to continue ‘mucking out’ the vocabulary section of the club website. For those of you who are new around here, onlineitalianclub.com is an enormous free online resource put together over a period of several years by a mix of Italian teachers (who got […]