Il Calcio, ce l’abbiamo quasi fatta! Posted by Serena on Jul 4, 2012
Well, at least we got to the final! Not bad, considering that the Italian football team, commonly known as Gli Azzurri due to their blue shirts, went to the European Cup without great expectations, and finished in second place. In this video Cesare Prandelli, the coach of the Nazionale Italiana di Calcio (Italian National Football…
Eccoci in Inghilterra–part 2 Posted by Geoff on Jul 3, 2012
When I wrote part one of this blog whilst sitting in my mother’s living room in England I didn’t really consider the fact that I’d have to write part 2 when I returned to Italy. So now I’m faced with the challenge of casting my mind back through the fog of a three day drive…
Eccoci in Inghilterra–part 1 Posted by Geoff on Jun 29, 2012
My mother is nearing 80 and, unlike her progeny, has never strayed from the shores of ‘Good Old Blighty’, unless you count a day trip which she once made to the Isle of Wight many years ago. And so every year I make the long journey by car from our village in Lunigiana to my…
Alcune Battute Posted by Geoff on Jun 27, 2012
Personally, I’ve always found humour a really useful means of helping me to improve my Italian. Our zio (uncle) Luciano who is in his 80’s is an inexhaustible font of battute (jokes), many of which have stuck in my mind and helped me out later on, not only in making an attempt at getting a…
Peperoni e Friarelli Ripieni Posted by Serena on Jun 25, 2012
Here is another blog from our friend Mattia. This time he shares another of his favourite Pugliese recipes with us: Peperoni e Friarelli Ripieni Cari lettori, dopo la ricetta “complicata” per modo di dire della scorsa volta, ho deciso, in combutta con (in league with) il capo Chef del Rango più alto (Highest Ranking Chef)…
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…