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Express Your Opinion In Italian! Posted by Geoff on Jul 13, 2015
Last week, in my blog In Che Condizioni E’ I wrote about the importance of developing a vocabulary of descriptive adjectives in Italian. Believe me, I know the frustration of wanting to say something intelligent on a topic and ending up sounding like a complete troglodyte due to having a limited vocabulary. Everything you want to express an…
In Che Condizioni È? Posted by Geoff on Jul 7, 2015
If you’re going to engage your Italian friends and acquaintances in conversation, the ability to liven up or clarify what you want to say is going to require a repertoire of useful descriptive adjectives. Let’s begin with a question: “in che condizioni è?” (“what condition is it/he/she in?” N.B. in Italian we use the plural…
Cosa Fare Quando Fa troppo Caldo? Posted by Geoff on Jul 6, 2015
Eccoci cari lettori, è lunedì mattina, sono seduto davanti allo schermo del portatile a fissare una pagina vuota con una testa ancora più vuota. Questo di per sé non è molto insolito … anzi, teoricamente oggi dovrebbe essere stato più facile del solito perché avevo già pronte due o tre idee per gli articoli di…
A Bit More Italian Back-to-frontness Posted by Geoff on Jul 1, 2015
Now why on earth won’t my spell checker recognise the word back-to-frontness? It seems perfectly valid to me! In my last blog, Learning Italian: The Back To Front Language! I touched upon the seemingly superfluous articles il, la, i, and le, in phrases such as la mia bici (the my bike): Hai visto la mia…
Learning Italian: The Back To Front Language! Posted by Geoff on Jun 29, 2015
My mother tongue being English, I can really empathise with the problems encountered by learners of la bella lingua. Let’s face it dear readers, Italian sounds divine … but it’s all back to front, upside down, and inside out, vero? Of course, if you already speak another Latin language your learning experience will probably be…
Pluralise! Answers And Analysis Posted by Geoff on Jun 25, 2015
Firstly, well done all of you who had a go at our Pluralise! quiz. In today’s article we’ll give you the correct answers together with an explanation and analysis. Singular: my grandfather had a cow and a sheep = mio nonno aveva una mucca e una pecora Plural: my grandfather had two cows and three sheep…
Italian Quiz: Pluralise! Posted by Geoff on Jun 22, 2015
So, how are your plurals? Well today we’re going to find out with a little quiz. But firstly, let’s just go over a few simple rules for pluralising in Italian: Masculine words generally end with an ‘o’ in the singular, and an ‘i’ in the plural Feminine words generally end with an ‘a’ in the…