6 Italian Phrases to Learn in Time for Thanksgiving

We all know that Italians in Italy do not celebrate Thanksgiving (il Giorno del Ringraziamento). However, the same cannot be said for the millions of Italian Americans and Canadians who have embraced the holiday wholeheartedly and turned it into their own. If you are an Italian living in the United States, or an American who …

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Is Duolingo Good for Italian? – My One-Year Review

Although I have always loved Italian, learning the language really became important to me after my daughter met and married an Italian man while working in Torino, Italy. When we first met him his knowledge of the English language was already impressive and since living here in the U.K., he has achieved fluency. At the …

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5 Easy Ways to Learn the Italian Language Fast

How can I learn Italian language easily and quickly? This is a question we regularly receive on our blog, and one that merits a fair answer. The truth is that learning a language, like any other skill, takes time, practice and perseverance. In fact, it has been estimated that in order to learn a Romance …

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Italian Word of the Day: Francobollo (postage stamp)

When I was young, one of my favourite pastimes was flipping through my father’s vast collection of postage stamps, among which was the prized Penny Black, the world’s first adhesive stamp. The word for postage stamp in Italian is francobollo. Being a masculine noun, it takes the following definite and indefinite articles. The etymology of …

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15 Mistakes English Speakers Make All the Time in Italian

Making mistakes is not only natural, but in the case of language acquisition, also an essential part of the learning process. After all, if we don’t make mistakes, how will we ever improve? No one is born knowing a language, so the only way to reach fluency is to keep making mistakes until we achieve …

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Italian Word of the Day: Rugiada (dew)

Italian word for dew, rugiada

An Italian word that sounds as lovely as the thing it indicates is rugiada, which means dew. It is thought to have entered the language from the Latin ros via the Gallo-Italic rosada. Rugiada is a feminine noun whose plural form is rugiade. (Note, however, that the plural form is used far less than the …

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