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Cielo E Mar Posted by Serena on Sep 7, 2016
In my last post I recounted the story of my mother’s meeting with the famous Italian tenor Beniamino Gigli, and described how he gave an impromptu performance for her and a small group of blind girls on the beach in Pesaro. One of the arias that Gigli sang during that brief encounter was Cielo e…
My Mother Meets A Famous Italian Tenor Posted by Serena on Sep 5, 2016
Often, whilst working at the telaio (loom, see this post), I find myself daydreaming. And so it was that, weaving and dreaming, a memory came back to me, a story from my mother’s childhood that she used to tell us when we were kids. This story would bring tears to my eyes every time I…
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…
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…
Expressing Your Needs In Italian – Part 1 Posted by Serena on Aug 17, 2016
A reader recently asked me if I could shed some light on the different forms that we use to express necessity. The best way to understand how we use these forms is by looking at practical examples. Allora, cominciamo! occorrere = to need the verb occorrere is only used in the third person, both singular…