Lou's Tutoring Blog

If I could go back in time and repeat my education. I would make an attempt to create a rapport with all of my teachers.

This way I could establish a personal relation with them and be exposed to their experience not only academia but in real hard life lessons that would allow me to become a lifetime learner in all fields not just Italian.

Indirect object pronouns are some times a challenge. One way to distinguish them from direct object pronouns is in this manner.

Most sentences with indirect object pronouns include a prepositional phrase and a verb that indicates communication.

i.e.

Gino spiega la lezione a Giulia.

(Gino le spiega la lezione.)

le = indirect object pronoun.

Most sentences of this sort contain verbs of communication:

chiedere
raccontare
insegnare
dire
spiegare

Hope this helps all who find this a challenge.

Take it slow. Practice speaking it outloud. Pronounce every letter i.e Cappuccino. Remember to emphasize double consonants.

Using the cell phone is priceless. We use our cell phone for accessing the internet, texting and basic research. Why not use this useful tool to help you learn Italian? I advise all my beginner students to record the Italian alphabet, Italian vowels and the numbers in Italian on your cell phone. If you listen to your recording 2x a day once in the morning and once in the evening you will be amazed how your proficiency in speaking Italian will increase ten-fold.

Wordreference.com is a wonderful on-line resource for Italian If you are looking for just the right word or phrase in Italian simply enter the word in English.

The inquiry will not only give you the definition but it also gives the connotation of the word plus idioms and common expressions used with the word.

As a bonus the conjugator hyperlink will conjugate all the tenses of every verb.

This is an invaluable tool I instruct all my high school and college students to use when wrting essays. By the way this is an approved website used in many colleges in the area: Rutgers, TCNJ, LaSalle and...

The Italian calendar unlike in USA starts with Monday:

lunedi
martedi
mercoledi
giovedi
venerdi
sabato
domenica

The days are written with small letters. Expressions used are:

oggi/today
l'altro ieri/day before yesterday
ieri/yesterday
domani/tomorrow
dopodomani/day after tomorrow.

Sapere and conoscere both are defined in English as to know. However there is a slight difference.

Conoscere = to know a person, place or thing
i.e. Io conosco Gianni/ I know John.

Sapere = to know a fact or have a talent for something.
Io so che Roma e' la capitale d'Italia./ I know that Rome is the capital of Italy
Io so suonare la batteria. / I know how to play the drums.

Passato prossimo is also different.

Conoscuito = met
Ho conoscuito Gianni sabato/ I met John on Saturday

Saputo = found out/revealed
Ho saputo che Gianni e' il fratello di Mario/ I found out that John is the brother...

In Italian 2 learning Passato prossimo can be the biggest challenge. A great tool to use is wordreference.com. It is an online dictionary. When you enter the word in Italian it not only gives you the definition it also has a hyperlink to the conjugator which lists all the tenses and their conjugated forms.

One more tip when using essere in Passato prossimo. You must use gender/number agreement based on the subject of the sentence.

Gianni e' andato a casa. Masculine subject/ note the end of the verb with the letter "O".

Gianna e' andata a casa Feminine subject./ note the end of the verb with...

A good idea when starting to learn Italian is to create your own study guide. This method is low-tech but it has been effective with my students for years.

Simply cut a piece of oak tag the length /width of a ruler. Divide the book mark in 4 sections write the conjugation of essere and avere, write the rule for definite article and the rules of gender/number agreement. Flip it over and again divide into four sections. List an example of all 4 conjugations: ARE. ERE. IRE and ISC.

This way you have all the pertinent info you need for Italian 1 + it acts as your book mark for your textbook...

When going to Italy an important thing to keep in mind is accessing euro. In the past travel checks were in vogue for accessing easy cash. The last 20 years most use the ATM when traveling abroad. In Italy (Il Bancomat). Please be attentive when using il bancomat. Not only will the local bank charge you a fee to access money but your stateside bank will do the same. In other words if you withdraw 100 euro it may cost an additional 10 euro tariff to acquire the cash and the US bank will charge you an additional fee of $25.00 to $50.00 each time you withdraw cash.

If you check with your US bank...