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This month we’ve celebrated Easter, so I couldn’t help but to talk about it! Of course, I’ll give you a linguistic interpretation, so this month we’ll talk about Easter in the Italian language. Let’s take a look. After what feels like a very long quaresima, “Lent,” full of sacrifices and penitence, Pasqua, “Easter,” finally comes and brings a lot o...

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Hello everyone. This month we are going to review the names of the months in Italian. But to make it a little more fun I would like to talk a bit about where they come from and what they mean. Why did I decide to do it now that it is already March? Simple, because March used to be the first month of the year. As usual, I’ve been using as reference...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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!...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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