Archive for December, 2015
Italian Sexual Euphemisms Posted by Geoff on Dec 16, 2015
With a title like that I wouldn’t be surprised if this turns out to be our most viewed post of 2015! WARNING: This Blog Contains Naughty Words and a joke with the word God in it! In my article Italian False Friends I wrote: “If I were you, I’d be more concerned about the plethora…
December’s Quiz – The Answers Posted by Geoff on Dec 14, 2015
Well done all of you who sent in your answers to our December quiz, we’re really impressed! Santa is also very happy that you have been good students and he’s processing your Christmas lists as I write. Don’t forget to clean those chimneys. So, I asked you to insert the missing word into each sentences…
Memorie dal Silenzio Posted by Serena on Dec 11, 2015
La settimana scorsa siamo andati a La Spezia a trovare il nostro amico Omar, compagno di squadra del nostro club di Softair. Prima di tornare a casa Omar ci ha prestato il DVD del film American Sniper, che non avevamo ancora visto. Così ieri sera lo abbiamo finalmente guardato. Mentre scorrevano le immagini finali del…
December’s Italian Quiz Posted by Geoff on Dec 9, 2015
“Oh no!” I can hear you all groan, “please … not a quiz about Christmas!”. Now would I be so cruel my dear readers? No, the purpose of this quiz is to tell me if you’ve been paying attention to my previous posts. And I shall be expecting lots of comments, even from those of…
More False Friends Posted by Geoff on Dec 7, 2015
Following on from last week’s article Italian False Friends, and taking into account the contributions made by you in your comments, we’re going to take a look at a few more common false cognitives. Common False Friends: argomento can be mistaken for ‘argument’ but actually means ‘topic’, e.g. stamattina il maestro ci ha introdotto un argomento…
Timeless Emigrants – Part 2 Posted by Serena on Dec 4, 2015
As promised in my last post, here is Part 2 of Edmondo De Amicis’ poem Gli Emigranti (The Emigrants). In the first half of the poem De Amicis describes the emotions of the emigrants as they board the ship which will carry them away into the unknown: the desperate men, women and children, clutching onto…
Timeless Emigrants – Part 1 Posted by Serena on Dec 2, 2015
I came across the poem Gli Emigranti (The Emigrants) by chance, and I was immediately struck by its timeless message. In a period when the news is flooded by images of thousands of migrants leaving their war torn countries to the apparent ‘safety’ of the west, we can forget that we Italians have also been…