Close

Giulia Casati

Giulia was born and raised in the North of Italy near Lake Como. After high school, she moved to the United States where she was an au pair and studied Liberal Arts at Essex County College. Then, she returned to Italy and continued her studies in Translation at the Civica Scuola Altiero Spinelli for translators and interpreters in Milan. She’s a language enthusiast, English and Italian in particular, she loves cooking, reading and growing plants.

Hello! February has come and with it Saint Valentin’s Day, so I though about teaching you a few ways to call your partner in Italian. I have to say that I feel quite embarrassed writing them since some of them are really lovey-dovey, but how else will you learn them? Let’s start easy with some that can work for both females and males without changi...

2068

Buon anno! Happy New Year! Since nobody wants to start the new year with some heavy-duty grammar, let’s start with some puppy love. What do I mean? I’m talking about dogs, of course! Let’s take a look at some common Italian expressions about dogs. Let me say something first. Even though we love our beloved pets today, in the past being a dog was no...

1386

Hello everybody, it’s the holiday season! Since I like to be jolly during this time of the year, I thought I would  teach you some words you can use during this magical time. Let’s dive right in!  Let’s start very generic with a simple Buone feste – Happy holidays. This can be used for all the celebrations that happen in December and January going...

2402

At the end of October, people all over the world celebrated the 21st Settimana della lingua italiana, the Week of Italian Language, so today I want to talk about it, what it is, and how you can enjoy it! The Week of Italian language is an event that aims at promoting the Italian language in the world and its role in both the classical and contempor...

477

Today, I’d like to talk about the use of the word allora. It’s a pretty common word in Italian and you’ll often hear Italian native speakers use it; however, if you are studying Italian, it can be pretty tricky to understand how and when to use it. I hope I can bring you a few examples that will make you confident enough to try to use it yourself!...

1149

Hello everyone, this month’s column is about new words that have entered the Italian dictionary in the past couple of years. Before we start, just a little premise. When a word is added to the dictionary, it is not and indication of whether the word is right or wrong, or whether that word is Italian (in this case) or not, a word is added to a dicti...

860

Welcome back! We’re back to our brief grammar tips and this time I would like to talk about the particles ci and ne. I know that they are quite hard to grasp and use and many of my students find them to be quite a conundrum, but I hope my explanation will help you understand them better! Let’s start with ci. Ci can have different roles in a sentenc...

1003

Hello everyone! We are finally in the midst of summer, and even though travelling to Italy might still be a little troublesome for a little while, I thought about teaching you some words and expressions often used in conversations, so that you can start practicing them and use them fluently next time you come visit! The first expression I’d like to...

4990

Today I am going to talk about a slightly different Italian language: the Italian Sign Language or LIS (lingua dei segni italiana). Why? Well, because it is an Italian language and last May the Italian Republic finally recognized the Italian Sign Language through a decree and declared its commitment to its promotion. Not only that, but it also reco...

4235

Last time we left off our grammar lessons, we were talking about the 1st conditional. So, in order to not to put too much on our plate, I thought we’d continue on the same line and talk about the 2nd conditional. While the 1st type conditional is used to talk about reality, the 2nd type is used to talk about possibilities.  The construction of thes...

764

Since Dante’s Week was a few weeks ago, I’ve decided to pay him homage for a bit longer. The Accademia della Crusca has been posting a word a day from his masterpiece, The Devine Comedy, in honor of the 700th anniversary of his death; and I must say, some are quite unexpected. So I decided to give you a tour of some of the most interesting words an...

765

March has finally arrived and spring is slowly making its way back into out lives. We’ve all spent over a year in this crazy timeline and it is now clear that our routine has changed, and perhaps our perception has also changed, but above all, our language has definitely changed. Let’s take a look at some Italian words that have made their way into...

603