Prepositions can really catch you out, don’t you think?
For instance, I spent ten years saying ‘dipende su’ (depends on) instead of the correct version ‘dipende da’.
I guess my head just works like that.
Slowly, I mean.
Another one that catches me out is illustrated in the title of today’s free listening:
WHY ON EARTH do Italians say ‘from the doctor’ when they mean ‘at the doctor’s’?
If anyone has an explanation, do email me.
Perhaps that’ll help me remember in future.
Anyway, the free Dal dottore listening comprehension exercise is an A2 (pre-intermediate) level.
There’s some nice vocabulary, so do give it a try.
Which reminds me, there’s a doctor dialogue in our free ‘Italian Conversations’ series, too.
Click here to listen to it.
Or here to view the whole ‘Italian conversations’ series (60 listenings in all!)
Buono studio!
P.S.
Which in turn reminds me, to remind you, not to forget that this week, all of our Italian/English parallel texts are half-price.
So, if you’re more of a ‘grammar & translation’ person than a ‘listening’ person, we have the technology (to rebuild him, remember that?)
The parallel texts are basically the original Italian story with an English translation.
All the lines are numbered (that took a while to figure out!), so you can easily compare line seven, say, in the Italian version with the corresponding line in the English version.
Some people think this is just the thing!
Parallel readers are for them.
Note that the parallel texts format doesn’t have the audio (what would be the point?), just the original story and the translation.
Others, like me, enjoy the challenge of reading a (simplified) Italian text and listening to the story WITHOUT a translation as backup.
Easy readers are intended to promote this.
Two different approaches, two ebook formats.
Which is yours?
So, this week there are sixteen paralle texts at half price, at different levels.
If you’d like to try the ‘read and translate’ approach, you should find something to suit you!
Download the free sample chapter or chapters for the title or titles at your level, starting from these two pages of search results from our new shop (the hardest ones come first, the beginner stuff is on page 2).
Clicking on the cover image will take you to the product information page, and hence to the free sample chapter download link.
Click that and locate the .pdf file in your ‘downloads’ folder.
Click THAT and the file will open using your device’s default .pdf viewer.
What if the Italian and English texts in the sample don’t display side by side?
(They probably won’t.)
Nessun problema.
There are instructions on how to make that happen on each parallel text product page, and in the new shop’s FAQ.
Ready to shop?
They’re half price, remember…
Or click here to view all of our ‘learn Italian’ ebook and online lesson options, not just those on sale.
A venerdì.