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Does Size Matter In Italy? Posted by Geoff on Dec 16, 2016
Well it certainly does if you don’t know the vocabulary! In today’s blog I’m going to focus on talking about size in Italian, and putting size related vocabulary into useful everyday contexts. La Misura/La Dimensione = Size/Dimension grande plural grandi = great, big, large, tall (n.b. più grande can also mean ‘older’) quanto è grande…
Istruzioni – The Answers Posted by Geoff on Dec 12, 2016
So … did this quiz test your Italian comprehension skills? It was certainly quite tricky! Let’s find out how you got on. Where would you find the following istruzioni (instructions)? Match each phrase to one of the locations given below. 1. Tenere fuori dalla portata e dalla vista dei bambini Keep out of reach and…
Ancora Qui Posted by Geoff on Dec 7, 2016
Ancora can be translated as: yet, more, again and still. Let’s have a look at a few examples of each of these translations … and a beautiful song. 1. yet Marco non è ancora arrivato a casa = Marco hasn’t got home yet non hai ancora finito di aggiustare la macchina? =haven’t you finished fixing…
In Your Own Way Posted by Geoff on Nov 28, 2016
If you’ve ever seen Quentin Tarantino’s film Django Unchained you’ll have heard the lovely voice of Italian singer songwriter Elisa performing the song ‘Ancora Qui’ by Ennio Morricone. Elisa Toffoli, better known simply as Elisa, was born in Trieste in north-eastern Italy. Growing up in the border area of Monfalcone, (only 15 km from Slovenia…
Our Italian Olive Harvest Posted by Geoff on Nov 23, 2016
November through to December is the period in which la raccolta delle olive (the olive harvest) takes place here in Toscana, and 2016 has turned out to be the year of our first ‘real’ olive harvest, even if on a fairly humble scale, as we were to find out. Harvesting Olives For the past few…
Combining Prepositions With Articles – Part 1. Posted by Geoff on Nov 14, 2016
In my recent blog Italian Articles Exercise we looked at the correct usage of the Italian definite articles, il, lo, la, i, gli, and le (the). Today we’ll extend that exercise by combining each of these six articles with the preposition ‘di‘ (of). Firstly, let’s begin by examining how we go about creating these preposizioni…
Italian Articles Exercise Posted by Geoff on Nov 7, 2016
il lo la i gli le …. sounds rather like the ritornello (chorus) of a children’s rhyme doesn’t it. In fact it’s a list of the six Italian definite articles, all of which mean ‘the’. Let’s revise how each of them is used, then we’ll have a go at an exercise to be sure that…