Spritz in spring! Let’s celebrate the end of the winter term. Primavera is coming so we meet for an Italian Aperitivo at Illy caffe on Regent street on Wednesday 16th of March at 6.30pm Aperitivo italiano, canapes & good chat in Italian plus La riffa: Win a language course in Tuscany @ ilsasso.com Where: 295 Regent St,…
What is rosa (pink). Rosa is a ribbon hanged on the front door to announce a girl’s birth. Rosa is a chick book un romanzo rosa or some gossips on a tabloid cronaca rosa. Rosa is the rose quartz or a learner’s permit il foglio rosa. Rosa is the traditional Italian female name. Rosa is part of the Italian idiom which describes the…
A pochi giorni dalla scomparsa del famoso regista Ettore Scola, ecco qui una scena del capolavoro “Una giornata particolare” per ricordare uno dei film più belli del cinema italiano. Due grandi attori, Marcello Mastroianni e Sophia Loren s’incontrano e si amano in una straordinaria interpretazione accompagnata dalla radio che raccontava la sfilata di Hitler a Roma. In questo video visitiamo…
Italian Cinema Workshop from Sunday 25th of October by Italian language services @ Italian Cultural Institute in London After the success of our last cinema workshops, this term is intended to present the Italian cinema through the eye of the young directors and actors. This short-course is designed for intermediate and upper-intermediate students of Italian. The aim of this course…
Some people think that idioms are the most obscure subject that can be encountered when attempting to learn a foreign language, and we might agree with this assumption. Beacause of their sheer nature of crystalized linguistic structures whose origins have often been lost in the process of language evolution, idioms are always a very tricky issue in the hands of…
Uno dei libri che consiglio solitamente ai miei studenti è “Io non ho paura” di Niccolò Ammaniti. La storia di un gruppo di ragazzini che durante un’estate bollente nel sud Italia sono coinvolti, a causa degli adulti, in una storia di rapimenti e sequestri. Consiglio la lettura di questo libro perchè la lingua usata, il registro, i dialoghi e la…
Agnone is a small historic town in Alto Molise. We get to know the locals who participate so much in our immersion learning, but we took time this summer to see some other towns and villages where no one speaks English! Edoardo Lalli in Pescopennataro, known for its stonemasons and sculptors, showed us his work and demonstrated his craft. The…
Doing some dedicated research on the ancient town of Isernia, about 30 minutes away from Agnone, our base at Live and Learn Italian. I always knew Isernia was there, not least to use the train station, but I had not explored the old town until last summer. It was a revelation – originally settled over 700,000 years ago, it then…
When you take the Strada delle Crete, the road that leads down from Siena towards the south, the last strip of Tuscany before Umbria, you need to drive carefully. Every 100 metres or so there will be somebody who has pulled their car to a halt along the side of the road, and is taking photographs, totally enrapt, unaware of…
It so happens that the 2 oldest continuously family-owned firms in the world are Japanese – One constructing shrines and holy buildings since 578, and the other, inn-keeping since 718. And the 3rd oldest continuously family-owned business in the world is in Molise, Italy – in the small town of Agnone where my grandfather’s cousins have been making bells since…