Today we publish our 25th Italian easy reader ‘Aria di Festa‘. Plus, there’s the latest in our popular ‘Italian Conversations’ series of listening materials. But first things first. Gianni is a gourmet journalist who is increasingly cynical about the popular ‘Slow Food’ movement. He persuades his editor to let him spend the summer searching out […]
Latest ‘Italian Conversation’: asking for help!
Today’s Italian conversation Scuola d’italiano: chiedere aiuto is a fairly typical interaction at a language school, as anyone who works in one can tell you. Mostly, it’s a pleasant job interacting with foreigners who want to learn your language because of their love of your country’s food, history, ‘dolce vita’ or whatever. But customer service for online […]
Italian Conversation: First Day Of School!
Remember your first day of school? I have to confess that I don’t, or at least only vaguely. But I vividly remember taking my kids for THEIR first day at (Italian) elementary school. The anxious parents all crowded into the classroom, the kids with their heavy new school bags rushing to get a seat near […]
Latest Italian Conversation – audio plus transcript
Today’s free Italian exercise is another in our Italian Conversations series. You get to listen to the dialogue, then read the transcript. Simple, but hopefully useful. Before you click away, just a note about the audio quality – we’ve finally understood what has been causing the problem (upgrading our computer to Windows 10), but haven’t yet […]
New series of Italian conversations, much like the old series!
On Wednesday I posted the final recording and transcript from the first batch of our Italian Conversations series. I’d been hoping that the next ten conversations would have been ready by now, but we’ve been having Windows 10 issues – our best computer won’t do even the simplest of tasks without a struggle – and […]
Easy Reader Free Sample Chapter & Italian Conversation no. 10
In Monday’s article I promised the link to the free sample chapter for our new easy reader ‘Un viaggio nel tempo‘. But then got I carried away giving advice on how to use easy readers to improve your Italian, and so forgot to include the link… Let me fix that now: ‘Un viaggio nel tempo’ […]
Looking for an Italian school? Today’s Italian Conversation!
Today we have the ninth (out of ten) in the first part of our Italian Conversations series, plus a new Italian easy reader – look out for the link to the free sample chapter at the end of this post. So I’ve been lamenting the quality of the audio recordings in this series (perhaps you […]
Italian Conversations: Al pub (+ a riff on borrowed words)
More borrowed words: on Wednesday we encountered ‘street food’, ‘slow food’ and ‘fast food’. Today it’s ‘pub’. I’m told foreign words borrowed for use in Italian tend to be masculine in gender, which is good to know if, like me, you’ve never got the hang of gender in nouns. Another useful tip I picked up […]
Italian Conversations: Street Food (& Book of the Day Offer)
Buondì. The latest in our Italian Conversations series is ready to listen to. And today’s dialogue should get your mouth watering, as it’s about Street Food. Obviously the term ‘street food’ is a borrowing from English, but that makes it no less useful as Italians employ it (and related terms such as ‘fast food’ and […]
Italian Conversations: pizza d’asporto (takeaway pizzas!)
You’ve heard of Italian cuisine, right? Home-made pasta, tasty sauces, fresh fish, cheeses, cured meats, colorful fruits and vegetables. All lovingly-prepared by mamma, according to recipes handed down through the generations. And wolfed down by an adoring husband and a bunch of kids, gathered hungrily around the kitchen table. +++ If you visit Italy, best keep a […]