Archive for the year 2012
Il Temporale Posted by Geoff on Aug 27, 2012
Quando abitavo in Inghilterra non avrei mai immaginato che un giorno mi sarei augurato la pioggia, ma dopo più di due mesi senza neanche una goccia ero proprio disperato. Sono cinque anni ormai che abito qua in Italia, e sono abituato alle estati lunghe e calde, ma quest’anno è stato eccezionale. Diciamo così, anche Serena…
Insalata Russa Posted by Serena on Aug 24, 2012
Despite its name, l’insalata russa (Russian salad) is originally from Piemonte (Piedmont), a region in the north west of Italy, and, in fact, in France it’s known as "salade piemontaise". According to the Vocabolario della Lingua Italiana Treccani “Insalata russa è chiamata anche insalata italiana” (Russian salad is also called Italian salad). It seems that…
La Scherma Italiana delle Olimpiadi del 2012 Posted by Serena on Aug 22, 2012
The Olympic Games are over, now it’s time to have a little rest and to count our results. In total we brought home 28 medals: 8 gold, 9 silver, and 11 bronze. Nothing compared to the USA or China (we’re only a little country!), but enough to give us a dignified 8th place in the…
Talking About The Past Posted by Serena on Aug 20, 2012
Here’s a brief description of a morning walk. It highlights some grammatical points which will help you when talking about things that happened in the past. Each sentence is translated into English, and for the text in blue we have given a grammatical explanation. Words in red are links to old posts. 1. Oggi ci…
Un po’ di Burocrazia Posted by Serena on Aug 17, 2012
Last week Cathy, an English friend of ours who has a holiday house near Pontremoli, asked me if I could go with her to the Council offices. Her Italian is not fluent and she wasn’t sure if she was up to date with all the different council taxes and so on. So Monday morning we…
Rio Bò Posted by Serena on Aug 16, 2012
A few days ago, browsing through one of my grammar books, I came across a poem that I had to learn when I was at school. I was really pleased to rediscover it because I used to like it a lot, and I must say that rereading it hasn’t disappointed me, it still paints an…
Carlo Rambaldi, Papà di E.T. Posted by Geoff on Aug 13, 2012
Like me, I imagine that most people had never heard of Italian special effects maestro Carlo Rambaldi until his death was announced in the media a few days ago. And yet he was the creator of one of the best known characters in the history of cinema: E.T. Rambaldi was the winner of 3 Oscars…