Wednesday bits and pieces from OnlineItalianClub.com

Buondì.

I’m in a terrible rush this morning as I have my first online Swedish lesson for ages (the teacher had got a job but is now back doing online lessons…)

And I have so much to tell you!

In no particular order:

Thanks to everyone who bought ‘New cinema paradiso‘ while it was half price – we appreciate your support! There’ll be another ‘Book of the Week’ offer along ‘directly’, as my grandmother used to say when she meant ‘I don’t know, stop bugging me.’

NEXT WEEK we have our semi-annual ‘Free Online Lesson’ offer, which will be your chance to try a one-to-one online lesson via Skype with a club teacher, normal price £20, but for you – gratis! Look out for more details about that on Friday. As usual the offer will be for ‘new’ students only.

Yesterday I had one of those rare days when I had time to catch up – on things that I’ve been meaning to do for a year! One of which was to tidy up the ‘club’ website, and in particular the ‘New’ page (which I won’t link to here as there’s no longer anything on it!) So, all of the ‘New’ stuff has now been tidied away – listenings on the ‘Listening’ index page, vocbulary on the ‘Vocabulary’ page, and so on.

Next I reorganised the ‘Conversation’ page, which now has three new audios (with transcripts) of native-speakers asking and answering questions from the conversation prompts. The new ones are here:

https://onlineitalianclub.com/italian-native-speaker-conversations-natale/
https://onlineitalianclub.com/italian-native-speaker-conversations-quando-ti-arrabbi/
https://onlineitalianclub.com/italian-native-speaker-conversations-sei-brava-a/
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Then, in a fit of enthusiasm, I rewrote the ‘Start here‘ page (“Want to learn Italian for FREE? Here’s how:) and formatted it in a more professional way, which was satisfying.

And finally I tidied up the menus, eliminating (amongst other things) the now unnecessary link to the ‘New’ page and generally reorganising so that the important/most-valued stuff is as visible as possible.

Note that I swapped the two menus around. The one that was at the top of the page is now in the middle (under the icons) and vice versa. Minutes after finishing, I got an email from Nina in France who was finalising her homework before sending it to her teacher and needed our Verbs index to check a conjugation – it was SO USEFUL, and now it’s gone, she compalained – what have you DONE?

Beh, what else?

So, as you’ll know, I live in Italy, ‘living the dream’ as they say, which is fine if you’ve a pension, but not nearly so heavenly if you have to find a job or run a business.

I was therefore interested to hear from a couple of former online lesson clients, Chris and Eva, who are doing the same. They run a t-shirt design business, about which more below, and wondered if there was any way I could help them promote their products?

Now, I must confess, I’ve always liked t-shirts with provocative slogans (Chris and Eva’s have nice designs instead…), so Friday evening, over a beer, I set myself to writing some, in Italian of course!

I won’t offer translations, you can work them out for yourself:

(T-shirt slogans for people who have problems understanding spoken Italian)

Sono bravo nelle lingue! (Tranne l’italiano…)
Sappilo: non ho capito un bel niente.
Ti prego, usa parole brevi!
Parla lent-tam-en-te!
Ma non sai parlare ad una velocità NORMALE?
Come?
Eh?

(‘Cheeky’ t-shirt slogans)

E se non mi serve una fattura?
Preferirei stare a casa a studiare l’italiano, grazie.
Col cavolo! (with a picture of one…)
Faccio, fai, fa, facciamo, fate, fanno. Facciamolo?
La mamma è andata in Italia e mi ha portato questa t-shirt ‘made in China’

(T-shirt slogans that celebrate your origins!)

Vabbè, sono straniero. E allora?
Fatto negli Stati Uniti (nel Regno Unito/in Australia.)
Troppo bello per vivere negli Stati Uniti (nel Regno Unito/ in Australia.)
Brexited!
Io non ho votato per Trump

(T-shirt slogans for women who are not as young as they were)

Non sono “una signora”!

(And finally, a personal one just for me…)

I’ll learn the congiuntivo.. IN MY NEXT LIFE!

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OK, where was I?

Giving Chris and Eva a hand, is where. And as I’m running out of time before my lesson starts, below is the ‘copy’ they offered.

The links are NOT affiliate links – meaning that I’ve not asked for or been offered a commission.

But Chris and Eva have a rescue dog, and like beer, and live in Italy. And the t-shirts are attractive.

So you should definitely take a look….

A venerdì, allora.