Hooker’s Spaghetti Posted by Serena on Feb 19, 2016
What could be worse for an Italian woman than being married to a man who has a food intolerance to tomatoes and basil? Unfortunately this is my situation! Last year Geoff had a series of allergy tests done to try and identify the source of some stomach problems, and the results showed that, amongst other…
Born Again After 42 Minutes Underwater! Posted by Geoff on Feb 17, 2016
How long can someone survive underwater without breathing, 5 minutes, 10 minutes? Did you know that the world record for the “longest time breath held” is an astounding 20 minutes? Makes me feel breathless just thinking about it. Equally amazing, however, is the 42 minutes spent underwater without breathing experienced by a 15 year old…
Italian Direct Object Pronouns Posted by Serena on Feb 16, 2016
Le chiavi le hai? (Have you got the keys?) How many times have you come across an Italian construction similar to this example and asked yourself “why are there two le‘s in that sentence?” … “The keys the you have?” … WHAT THE ####!?!? Well, you’ll be relieved to hear that there is a totally…
It’s Love That Counts Posted by Geoff on Feb 12, 2016
Italian music has the tendency to be very conservative, but search for a love song for Saint Valentine’s day and you’ll be overwhelmed by the millions of results. Now, out of that mass of results, at least 90% are going to be embarrassing clichés or just horribly tacky. But here’s a song about love that…
At The Clothing Store in Italy Posted by Serena on Feb 10, 2016
The setting: un negozio di abbigliamento in una città italiana (a clothing store in an Italian town) The caracters: una coppia e la commessa (a couple and the shop assistant) Moglie: “Guarda, ci sono i saldi, perché non ne approfitti per comprarti un bel giaccone per l’inverno” Wife: “Look, the sales are on, why don’t…
Spot The Italian Accent Posted by Geoff on Feb 8, 2016
As a student of the Italian language, do you have trouble rolling your ‘r‘s? What about you aiuole and aerei … how are they? Yes, Italian has a few tricky points of pronunciation, but things aren’t exactly easy for Italians when they try to speak English. In my experience of teaching conversational English to Italians…
My Italian Carnival Costume Posted by Serena on Feb 5, 2016
L’altro ieri, frugando fra le vecchie foto di famiglia di quando abitavamo a Bengasi, Libia, ne ho ritrovata una di me bambina, che ha fatto riaffiorare dei ricordi divertenti. The day before yesterday, digging through the old family photos from when we lived in Benghazi, Libya, I found one of myself as a child that…