For the next week or two, there’ll be NO new materials at OnlineItalianClub.com.
Instead, though, I’ll be introducing another project of ours.
We’ve been working on a series of beginner’s courses in different languages, and over Easter we published the first three: German, Spanish, and of course, Italian!
There are approximately 50 pages of material for each of these languages, with 10 beginner’s grammar topics, 10 basic vocabulary lists, 10 interactive exercises, 10 listening practice exercises, and 10 dialogues.
But why should you care?
Naturally, before pressing the ‘publish’ button on these new sites, someone had to read all this stuff, try the exercises, listen to the recordings, and so on.
Not knowing a word of German or Spanish, I was the perfect candidate (imagine the fun I had over Easter doing 50 pages of beginner’s German).
But I also did the Italian material, grammar area by grammar area, exercise by exercise, listening by listening.
And while, in theory, I have an advanced knowledge of Italian, I found the time spent checking those 50 pages of material surprisingly useful…
Turns out that going back to the basics – reading a short, simplified explanation, then testing yourself with an exercise and consolidating with listening practice, is actually very helpful!
So that’s the plan: I’m going to link to material on dontspeakitalian.com for the next week or so – topic by topic – so that, beginner or not, you can benefit from this new material as I did.
Where to start?
From ‘Italian 101’ of course, which in this case is a topic that continues to trip me up even after 18 years learning the language – gender!
Why IS ‘la mano’ (hand) feminine??
To refresh your memory, start here:
Then test yourself with this exercise.
And finally, consolidate with this listening.
Your feedback will, of course, be very welcome – I’m sure there’ll be mistakes to find, and things that just aren’t right yet.
To let us know what you think, post something in the forum!
P.S.
Don’t worry – we’re not abandoning the club completely! We have a mass of new materials waiting to publish for you – exercises and listenings mostly, at levels from intermediate up.
Plus there are two new easy-readers almost ready to publish – one due at the end of April and the other in mid-May.
But no need to wait until then for motivating and original materials for learning Italian – visit our shop!