Archive by Author
Il Passato remoto–part 2 Posted by Serena on Jun 22, 2012
In part 1 we looked at the conjugation of the passato remoto (historical past). Today we are going to look at the different ways in which it is used: In historical writing: Il passato remoto is, of course, commonly used when writing biographies or recounting historical events, e.g. Caravaggio nacque nel 1573 (Caravaggio was born…
Il Passato Remoto–part 1 Posted by Serena on Jun 20, 2012
In his latest guest blog, Il Negozio del Papà di Mattia, our friend Mattia uses il Passato Remoto (Historical Past), a tense that is often seen as more or less redundant because it’s mainly used in formal and historical writing, e.g. Napoleone morì nel 1821 all’Isola di Sant’Elena (Napoleon died in 1821 on the Island…
Il Costo della Benzina Posted by Serena on Jun 18, 2012
Here is a brand new Italian word that has come into fashion in the last few months: l’accisa. I came across this word for the first time last November, just after the floods which brought so much damage to Liguria and Toscana, when the President of the Regione Toscana announced the introduction of un’accisa sulla…
Il Negozio del Papà di Mattia–part 2 Posted by Serena on Jun 15, 2012
Spaziando ancora tra le bontà del suo negozio, posso dire che per esperienza lui tenta sempre di variare la merce che ordina, provando sempre nuove specialità e rarità che lui stesso cerca. Infatti, non ditelo a nessuno, il mio babbo ogni domenica, in sella alla sua bici da corsa, va alla ricerca di specialità nei…
Il Negozio del Papà di Mattia–part 1 Posted by Serena on Jun 14, 2012
Here’s another article by our talented guest blogger Mattia. In this blog, he explains where gets his passion for cooking from, and tells us a bit about his fathers salumeria gastronomia. Words and phrases highlighted in blue are explained in the accompanying Vocabolario e Grammatica. Salve lettori, sono il giovane cuoco italiano, Mattia! Nello scorso…
“Io voglio essere un vero angelo!” Posted by Serena on Jun 8, 2012
On Sunday the 10th of June the Catholic Church celebrates la festa del Corpus Domini (Corpus Christi). The festival originates from the supposed miracle that took place in Bolsena, north of Rome, in the year 1263. It is said that a Bohemian priest, Pietro da Praga, was in crisis about his religious faith, and so…
Verbi Idiomatici in Ci Posted by Serena on Jun 6, 2012
Some time ago I wrote an article about the particella ‘ci’: Tricky Little Words “ci” . Let’s revisit the topic and have a look at idiomatic verbs that use ‘ci’, with a few examples of their usage: Volere (to want) + ci = Volerci (to need, to take, as in quantity, time, materials, etc.): dalla…