Archive for 'Uncategorized'
December’s Quiz – The Answers Posted by Geoff on Dec 14, 2015
Well done all of you who sent in your answers to our December quiz, we’re really impressed! Santa is also very happy that you have been good students and he’s processing your Christmas lists as I write. Don’t forget to clean those chimneys. So, I asked you to insert the missing word into each sentences…
Memorie dal Silenzio Posted by Serena on Dec 11, 2015
La settimana scorsa siamo andati a La Spezia a trovare il nostro amico Omar, compagno di squadra del nostro club di Softair. Prima di tornare a casa Omar ci ha prestato il DVD del film American Sniper, che non avevamo ancora visto. Così ieri sera lo abbiamo finalmente guardato. Mentre scorrevano le immagini finali del…
More False Friends Posted by Geoff on Dec 7, 2015
Following on from last week’s article Italian False Friends, and taking into account the contributions made by you in your comments, we’re going to take a look at a few more common false cognitives. Common False Friends: argomento can be mistaken for ‘argument’ but actually means ‘topic’, e.g. stamattina il maestro ci ha introdotto un argomento…
Timeless Emigrants – Part 2 Posted by Serena on Dec 4, 2015
As promised in my last post, here is Part 2 of Edmondo De Amicis’ poem Gli Emigranti (The Emigrants). In the first half of the poem De Amicis describes the emotions of the emigrants as they board the ship which will carry them away into the unknown: the desperate men, women and children, clutching onto…
Timeless Emigrants – Part 1 Posted by Serena on Dec 2, 2015
I came across the poem Gli Emigranti (The Emigrants) by chance, and I was immediately struck by its timeless message. In a period when the news is flooded by images of thousands of migrants leaving their war torn countries to the apparent ‘safety’ of the west, we can forget that we Italians have also been…
Italian False Friends Posted by Geoff on Nov 30, 2015
Falsi amici, false friends … we’ve all had them! You think you’re a ‘good judge of character’, or perhaps you just want to believe that life is simpler than it really is. And then … dammit, screwed again! Well dear readers, your guardian angel has arrived. I’m here to forewarn you that the Italian language…
Translation: Carmela’s Cat Posted by Geoff on Nov 27, 2015
For those of you who need a bit of help with the dialogue from Carmela’s Cat here’s the story once again with my English translation Bianchina first appeared one cold November morning. Carmela opened the shutters of her living room window letting in the slanting autumn sunlight and found the kitten stretched across the window sill…