'Learn Italian Without Studying' & Italian Regions Listenings

Buondi!

This morning, I’m linking to an article on the ‘other’ website, plus we have some more listenings for you to do.

Roberto Gamberini is an Italian teacher, based in Rome I think. I’ve never actually met the guy, but I am always happy to publish anything he writes, as his stuff is so good.

Roberto wrote our recent easy reader e-book ‘Le tante facce del futuro‘, short stories about the future, which were very well received.

And I think he’s the author of next week’s new publication, though I haven’t looked at it yet – proof-reading that is on today’s ‘to do’ list, so I’ll let you know more on Friday.

But anyway, a few days ago I published one of Roberto’s articles ‘Imparare senza studiare: cinque consigli utili per gli studenti‘ on ‘another’ new site.

And as I was reading it through, I was nodding to myself and thinking that these are exactly the things I always tell my students…

The ‘cinque consigli‘ are obvious to anyone with some experience of learning a foreign language, but perhaps less so if you’re just starting out.

So I figured it was worth translating the article into English for the ‘other’ site… Find the English version here: Learn Italian Without Studying: Five Useful Tips For Students.

By the way, if you decide to compare the Italian original with the English translation, bear in mind that a.) I was working for free, and b.) I’m the boss/editor and so feel at liberty to skip or adapt whatever I choose!

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And also from the ‘other’ site today, I have for you a rather banal set of listening texts (with transcripts) on Italian regions.

They’re short and so actually contain very little useful information at all about the regions themselves. The text about Emilia Romagna, where I live, mentions only that it’s famous for tortellini!

Beh, I thought, that’s not very impressive.

But then I remembered when, a few years back, I was teaching a very boring English class in a room with a map of Italy on the wall, and to distract myself I decided to memorize all the regions, names and approximate location.

More or less I still remember most of them, years later (so it was a useful exercise, try it!)

But when people say, for example, that they’re from Molise, Puglia, Campagna or wherever, I’m like, yeah, down south, on the left, on the right. But not having traveled much in Italy (kids, work…) I often have not that much idea what else to say…

Sometimes, all you need is ONE idea to mentally link the name of the region to something more concrete. For example:

Lazio? Rome!

Emilia Romagna? Tortellini!

You get the idea. Anyway, here’s the link to the listenings: Regioni d’Italia

You can try my ‘memorising the map idea’, plus find out a lot more info about regions that particularly interest you, using the useful map on Wikipedia (or better, the Italian version…).

Where was I?

Ah yes, this week’s ‘Book Of The Week‘.

-50% on an easy reader e-book that we published six months ago and which you may not therefore have seen.

‘Segreti e polpette‘ (‘Secrets And Meatballs’) is for students at intermediate/upper-intermediate level.