Archive for August, 2016
La Terra Trema! Posted by Geoff on Aug 31, 2016
The deadly earthquake which wreaked havoc in central Italy on the 24th of August can teach us as much about Italian culture as it can about Italy’s geophysical qualities. On the one hand we’ve witnessed the incredible solidarity and determination to help in any way possible which has emerged from a normally parochial and divided…
Beginner’s Guide to Italian Posted by Transparent Language on Aug 30, 2016
If you’re a fan of this blog, you’ll love our new Beginner’s Guide to Italian. Here on the Italian blog, Serena and Geoff post a variety of content for learners of all levels. For the beginners among us who haven’t combed through the archives, you may be missing some of our older, but extremely…
Italian General Knowledge Quiz – Answers Posted by Serena on Aug 29, 2016
How’s your Italian general knowledge? The comments section of last week’s Italian General Knowledge Quiz was suspiciously empty! Let’s have a look at the answers shall we? Names 1. Arnaldo Pomodoro was initially trained as a quantity surveyor, but soon became interested in sculpture and set design. His background studies, however, are reflected in his…
Italian General Knowledge Quiz Posted by Serena on Aug 26, 2016
Are you ready to test your knowledge of Italian culture and history? Here are 19 tricky questions divided into 4 categories. See how many you can get right. We’ll publish the answers next week Names 1. Which contemporary Italian sculptor, famous for his bronze spheres, is named after a fruit? 2. What was the nickname…
Communicate Posted by Serena on Aug 24, 2016
Here’s a group of verbs appertaining to communication. They’re fairly straightforward in themselves, but what can be confusing is the fact that most of them use the preposition ‘a‘ (to) or ‘con‘ (with), even when they don’t in English. A small group, however, don’t use a preposition. Remember: when the preposition ‘a‘ is followed by…
Treading Grapes Posted by Geoff on Aug 22, 2016
I recently asked my Italian friend and student of English, Stefano, to practice his English by writing about some of his childhood memories for me. I liked what Stefano wrote so much that I asked him to rewrite it in his mother tongue so that I could share it with you. Here are a few…
Expressing Your Needs In Italian – Part 2 Posted by Serena on Aug 19, 2016
In my previous post we looked at three ways of expressing necessity in Italian: occorrere, bisogna and bisogno. Today we’re going to continue the theme with three more common forms. servire = to need servire is only used in the third person singular (serve) and plural (servono). Examples: per fare il cemento serve la sabbia…