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Essential Italian: At HomeHere are some of the most important words you’ll need to talk about your home.... More Tags: Italian, Italian Heritage Month
Would You Like to Participate in a Language Learning Group?We’ve done a good deal of research on how to create a successful language course, and now we want to learn more about how our customers put it to use. To do this, we’re forming Language Learning Groups in Spanish and French, and we’re looking for twenty qualified participants for each language.... More Tags: Complete Basic Course, French, language learning, language learning methods, Spanish
Are There “Happy Languages?”In this interesting blog post, Olivia Judson asks whether certain languages predispose their speakers toward happiness more than other languages do.... More
Language Superlearners SurveyMichael Erard, author of Um…: Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean, is working on a new book about language superlearners and is looking for language speakers of any level to take part in a brief survey on language learning. Pitch in! If you speak six or more languages, click here. (Wow! Good for you.) If you do not have much experience with a language other than your mother tongue, click here. (This second category includes people who may have studied a language in high school or college, but wouldn’t consider themselves bilingual or multilingual.) More information on the book can be found here. We’ll be interested in seeing the results; goodness knows we love a good popular science language book. Tags: bilingualism, multilingualism
Essential Italian: In ConversationSome of the most basic expressions in Italian are the ones you’ll use in conversation.... More Tags: Italian, Italian Heritage Month
Becoming Italian: Shopping, Loving, Sleeping, DrivingWe can barely keep up with the amazing posts Dianne Hales is writing over on her blog for Italian Heritage month. A sneak peak:... More Tags: Italian, Italian Heritage Month
Essential Italian: OnlineMost computer terms in Italian are borrowings from English. Here are some of the more obvious you’ll need when talking about computers in Italian.... More Tags: Italian, Italian Heritage Month
Essential Italian: At a Coffee BarHere are some phrases you’ll need in any coffee bar.... More Tags: Italian, Italian Heritage Month
What Language Do They Speak in Chinatown?The obvious answer would be Chinese, but some would argue that there’s really no such language. ... More Tags: Cantonese, Chinese, dialects, Mandarin
Essential Italian: In a ShopBefore you go shopping in Italy (and we do hope you get to go shopping in Italy!), brush up on the following essential phrases.... More Tags: Italian, Italian Heritage Month
Essential Italian: In LoveBefore you can fall in love, you have to make friends. Here are some phrases you can use socially in Italian if you want to make friends.... More Tags: Italian, Italian Heritage Month
Italian: A Trip, A Market, A RestaurantOver at Becoming Italian, Dianne Halles is continuing her series of thoughts on learning Italian with essays on La Bella Lingua in Viaggio, La Bella Lingua al Mercato, and La Bella Lingua al Ristorante. A sampling: Prosciutto, both crudo (raw) and cotto (cooked), is sold by the fetta (slice). Una fetta sottile usually refers to a small slice of meat; a fetta grossa, a large slice or hunk. You buy milk in bottiglia (a bottle); jam in barattolo (a jar), sugar, pasta or rice in scatola (a box); beer or coca cola, in lattina (a can). Butter is usually sold in panetto; parsley, basil, mint, and other fresh spices, in mazzo (a bunch). You can ask for un filone di pane (a loaf of bread) but remember that Italian bread is never sold sliced (a fette or affettato). When in doubt, I use an all-purpose term an Italian friend taught me: confezione, which literally means packaging or wrapping, but also refers to almost anything packaged. So whether you’re buying cookies, coffee, sugar, or tuna, you can confidently ask for “una confezione…di biscotti, di caffè, di zucchero, or di tonno.” For foods sold in certain numbers, such as eggs (uova), you request “una confezione da 6 (or da 12) di uova.”Read more on Becoming Italian Word By Word. And don’t forget to enter the Celebrate Italian Heritage Contest! You still have until November 7th, but why not enter now? Tags: Italian, Italian Heritage Month
Do You Know How to Say “Thank You” in 17 Languages?With Thanksgiving coming up in just a few weeks in the United States (Canada’s Thanksgiving is in October—Happy Belated Thanksgiving, Canada!), let’s look at different ways to say thank you all around the world:... More Tags: Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Latvian, Lenape, newsletter, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swahili, Thanksgiving, vocabulary
Pronunciation Tip: Say U!If you’re learning French, German, or Dutch (or a few other languages for that matter!), you may have had difficulty with the vowel u or ü in words like these:... More Tags: Dutch, French, German, newsletter, pronunciation, tips, vowel
A Chance EncounterWhile traveling through Europe a little while ago, I caught a nasty flu. I was especially bummed because it manifested itself when I arrived in Berlin. I celebrated my first birthday in Germany and my family lived there for nearly three years, so I really wanted to have some sort of affecting experience.... More Tags: Berlin, Farsi, newsletter, travel, travel story
Essential Italian: On the RoadGetting around by car can be daunting; use these phrases to help you get from point A to point B.... More Tags: Italian, Italian Heritage Month
Top 10 Secrets for Learning Italian (Part 2)More language learning advice from Dianne Hales on her blog, including my favorite piece of advice: Don’t be afraid of tripping over your tongue. “Sbagliando si impara,” Italians say. “You learn by making mistakes.” Focus on communicating, not speaking in diagram-able sentences. If you can’t think of the correct tense, just say the infinitive of a verb — parlare for “speak”, for example — or stick to the present tense. And by all means, use your hands. That’s molto italiano.Read more over at her blog. Tags: Italian, Italian Heritage Month
Essential Italian: At the MarketHere are some phrases to use while shopping at the market.... More Tags: Italian, Italian Heritage Month
Essential Italian: At the HotelThe staff at most hotels speak English, but these essential phrases might come in handy nonetheless.... More Tags: Italian, Italian Heritage Month
Essential Italian: In a RestaurantThe best part of visiting Italy is the fantastic food. Here are some essential dining phrases to make your restaurant experience the best it can be.... More Tags: Italian, Italian Heritage Month
A Fun Read on Idioms from Across the GlobeIf you’ve learned another language, you know that idioms are difficult to get right, because their literal translations don’t necessarily match up with their meanings. But that makes them a lot of fun, too. You can sometimes figure out how the string of words came to have the intended meaning, but just as often you’ll have no clue. Either way, they sound anything from funny to just plain bizarre when they’re literally translated. ... More Tags: idioms
Essential Italian: On a TripIf you’re visiting Italy as a tourist, you’ll need some essential phrases for your trip. ... More Tags: Italian, Italian Heritage Month
Top 10 Secrets for Learning Italian (Part 1)Dianne Hales, author of La Bella Lingua, shares the first five of her top 10 secrets for learning Italian.... More Tags: Italian, Italian Heritage Month
Essential Italian Phrases: Part 2Here are five more Italian phrases you absolutely have to know if you’re studying Italian, or simply visiting for a few days.... More Tags: Italian, Italian Heritage Month
Essential Italian Phrases: Part 1Let’s kick off our celebration of Italian Heritage Month with five phrases you can’t do without in Italian. ... More Tags: Italian, Italian Heritage Month
October Is Italian Heritage MonthOctober is a wonderful month. The world is looking simply bellissimo, the trees are making their transition from green to red, suggesting, hmmm — an Italian flag, perhaps? I don’t know about you, but I’ve been craving some warm minestrone soup. Columbus Day is around the corner — what a time to celebrate Italian heritage! All month we’ll be sharing some essential Italian phrases with you, and sharing some thoughts from Dianne Hales, author of La Bella Lingua, on the joys and romance of learning the Italian language. Even more exciting: we’d like to share our love of learning Italian with you by giving away Dianne’s book, a Fodor’s Italy 2010 guide, and some of our own bestselling courses (Complete Italian, Baby’s First Words in Italian, and 2000+ Essential Italian Verbs). Five lucky Italian lovers will walk away with this prize package, valued at over $100, to start on — or return to — their Italian learning adventure. Enter to win on the Celebrate Italian Heritage Contest page. Stay tuned: there’s a lot more on the way! Tags: Italian, Italian Heritage Month
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