It’s dicembre, so 2 Seasonal Half-Price ‘Ebooks of the Week’

Buondì.

It’s dicembre, and the countdown to Natale (Christmas) and Capodanno (New Year) begins!

Writing the title of this article, besides going for the very similar but not identifical spelling of the month, I noticed the non-use of a capital letter with Italian months, so thought I’d mention it to you.

The same is true for days of the week, today is lunedi (Monday). English capitalizes them, Italian doesn’t.

The sofware of our Italian school‘s online bank accounts was clearly written by a foreign programmer, as when I come to pay the teachers’ salaries each month, the ‘payment description’ field in the bank transfer form ‘autopopulates’ (fills itself in automatically) with the name of the previous month, CAPITALIZED!

What a bore it was to learn, as kids, which words have to be capitalized. Do you remember?

Irritating then that, having finally mastered it at the age of fifty-six, I have to watch out for differences from one language to the next.

Besides days of the week, and months, Italian also has its own peculiar way with acronyms, as EasyItalianNews.com readers will know.

NATO, for instance, is sometimes respectfully capitalized, but often not – this article uses Nato in the headline, which is typical Italian acryonym style.

NATO/Nato is known in France, Spain and Italy as OTAN/Otan, by the way, the same words in a different order: Organizzazione del trattato del Nord Atlantico / North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Notice too that, as in the example above, in English we capitalize each word in an organisation’s name, while in Italian they only capitalize the first one, and any proper nouns, etc.

The same change of letter order is evident with EU (European Union) which in Italian is UE/Ue. The full form also shows just the first word being capitalised, though that can be difficult to spot when ‘title case’ is used (as in the title of this article):

L’Unione Europea in breve (TITLE CASE)
L’Unione europea è un’Unione economica e politica… (ONLY THE FIRST WORD IS CAPITALISED)

Ma che confusione!

And don’t even get me started on decimal points, which in Italian are commas, full stops/periods being used instead to separate the thousands and the hundreds.

So we get a £9.99 ebook in English, but £9,99 in the Italian language catalogue, see?

If I sold a thousand of them (it’s very, very improbable) that would come to £9,999 in English yet £9.999 in Italian.

Picky British accountants might specify that sales were £9,999.00, while picky Italian accountants would write £9.999,00.

But anyway, talking of dicembre, and ebooks…

(A mercoledì, no capital)

TWO seasonal half-price ‘Ebooks of the Week’

It’s the season to be jolly – ho, ho, ho – so this week we have not one but two seasonal half-price ‘Ebooks of the Week’ for you!

Both have sold well on previous occasions, so it’s likely regular ebook buyers will already have them (please check first, usual offenders…)

The first is Natale a sorpresa, and the level is B2.

Matteo’s supposed to be writing a book – he has a deadline coming up – but he’s suffering terribly from writers’ block. All he can do is stare at a blank computer screen. He’s recently out of a relationship, which hasn’t helped…

Worse, it’s December and Christmas is coming! Normally Matteo spends the festive season with his family, but this year they’re visiting relatives in Australia. So it looks as if he’ll be celebrating alone.

Then he has an idea. He’ll call his best friend Filippo, who’ll surely be able to help! Perhaps they can spend Christmas at Filippo’s place in the mountains, or take a trip somewhere…

• .pdf e-book (+ audio available free online)
• .mobi (Kindle-compatible) and .epub (other ebook readers) available on request at no extra charge – just add a note to the order form or email us
• 8 chapters to read and listen to
• Comprehension questions to check your understanding
• Italian/English glossary of ‘difficult’ terms for the level
• Suitable for students at intermediate level or above
• Download your Free Sample Chapter (.pdf)

Buy Natale a sorpresa, just £4.99! | Free sample chapter (.pdf) | Catalog

E poi, a week after Natale comes Capodanno (New Year) so half-price ebook no. 2 is Giallo a Capodanno, level B2/C1 (so slightly harder).

“Sbrigati Alida, o arriveremo in ritardo alla festa di Capodanno!” ripete nervosamente Martina alla sua compagna di stanza. Alida sta sdraiata sul letto con un libro di Agatha Christie fra le mani. Si toglie pigramente gli occhiali da lettura e guarda fuori dalla finestra: “Nevica ancora, che incubo!”

It’s New Year 1970 and Martina’s all dressed up for the party, determined to enjoy it! But her roommate, Alida is more cynical:

“Ascolta: siamo bloccati dalla neve in un collegio in cui viviamo tutto l’anno. Dei duecento alunni che frequentano la scuola, solo sette (sette, porca miseria!) hanno dei genitori che non li vogliono tra i piedi nemmeno durante le feste. E noi siamo tra questi sette. Quindi puoi anche vestirti come Marilyn Monroe… ma rimani una disgraziata!”

Alida would rather read detective thrillers than pretend to have fun with just six fellow students. But who knows? Perhaps something interesting will happen?

• .pdf e-book (+ audio available free online)
• .mobi (Kindle-compatible) and .epub (other ebook readers) available on request at no extra charge – just add a note to the order form or email us
• 8 chapters to read and listen to
• Comprehension questions to check your understanding
• Italian/English glossary of ‘difficult’ terms for the level
• Suitable for students at upper-intermediate level or above
• Download your Free Sample Chapter (.pdf)

Buy Giallo a Capodanno, just £4.99! | Free sample chapter (.pdf) | Catalog

How do I access my ebooks?

When your order is ‘completed’ (normally immediately after your payment), a download link will be automatically emailed to you. It’s valid for 7 days and 3 download attempts so please save a copy of the .pdf ebook in a safe place. Other versions of the ebook, where available, cannot be downloaded but will be emailed to people who request them. There’s a space to do that on the order form – where it says Additional information, Order notes (optional). If you forget, or if you have problems downloading the .pdf, don’t worry! Email us at the address on the website and we’ll help. Also, why not check out our FAQ?

P.S.

Have you read/listened to Saturday’s bulletin of ‘easy’ Italian news?

If not, well, why not?

It’s FREE.

+++

OnlineItalianClub.com | EasyItalianNews.com | Shop (ebooks) | Shop (online lessons)