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Translation:

La moda è una delle mie cose preferite.
Fashion is one of my favorite things.
Leggo spesso il blog The Blonde Salad scritto da Chiara Ferragni.
I often read the blog, The Blonde Salad, written by Chiara Ferragni.
Chiara Ferragni è italiana, di Cremona, al Nord Italia.
Chiara Ferragni is an Italian from Cremona in the North of Italy.
Sul suo blog, parla di firme come Alexander McQueen, Chanel, Dolce & Gabbana, e Giuseppe Zanotti.
On her blog, she talks about brands like Alexander McQueen, Chanel, Dolce + Gabbana e Giuseppe Zanotti.
Non voglio comprare vestiti, ma mi piace la moda. Secondo me, la moda è una forma d’arte.
I don’t want to buy these clothes, but I appreciate the fashion. According to me, fashion is a type of art.
Ma forse se potessi permettermi quei vestiti, li comprei!
But maybe if I could buy these clothes, I would.
E quando leggo il blog di Chiara, sento sempre il desiderio di fare shopping. Che strano, eh?
And when I read Chiara’s blog, I always feel like going shopping. Weird, huh?
Adesso, il mio stilista preferito è YSL. Ma amo anche Brunello Cucinelli. Ha costruito un regno di cashmere e i suoi abiti sono semplici e eleganti.
Right now my favorite fashion designer is YSL. But I also love Brunello Cucinelli. He built a kingdom of cashmere and his clothes are simple and elegant.
Quando sono stata in Italia, sono andata a Solomeo, dove producono gli abiti di Brunello Cucinelli. La città era molto piccola e la gente era felice e simpatica.
When I was in Italy, I went to Solomeo, where they make Brunello Cucinelli clothes. The town was really small and the people were happy and nice.

 La moda è una delle mie cose preferite.

La moda – fashion – is our main subject.

We use it just like in English and the difference is that we combine DI + LE for COSE to turn it into DELLE COSE, and the fancy name for that construction is preposizioni articolate.

Anyway, after that, the mie for my and preferite for favorite agrees with the plural feminine form of cose.

Agreement is so important in Italian. The only reason we engage in conflict here is when the noun is irregular like ‘IL PROBLEMA’ for problem or ‘LE RAGIONI’ for reasons.

Leggo spesso il blog The Blonde Salad scritto da Chiara Ferragni. – I read often instead of I often read. Scritto is the past tense form of scrivere – to write and we use FROM instead of OF here for the preposition, meaning we use DA instead of DI.

Chiara Ferragni è italiana, di Cremona, al Nord Italia. Use the verb ESSERE – to be for is Italian. We change the ending of Italian to be feminine. Di Cremona for the city and then AL nord Italia for the region.

Sul suo blog, parla di firme come Alexander McQueen, Chanel, Dolce & Gabbana, e Giuseppe Zanotti. – Sul – on — just like English/parla just like English. Firme is used to mean brands.

Secondo me, la moda è una forma d’arte. – Secondo me means according to me. Naturally I would say it’s a type of art and go for the word tipo but it’s actually form here. This is one of those collocations. You would tend to see forma used with arte in everyday conversation.

Ma forse se potessi permettermi quei vestiti, li comprei! – Uses the imperfect subjunctive tense.

Adesso, il mio stilista preferito è YSL. *Notice how il mio stilista is irregular.

Ma amo anche Brunello Cucinelli. *Notice how anche is after the verb just like spesso is after leggo.

Ha costruito un regno di cashmere e i suoi abiti sono semplici e eleganti. – Costruire – to build/past tense

Use abiti here interchangeably with vestiti, but vestiti is used more informally and abiti is used more formally with people you don’t know.

Quando sono stata in Italia, sono andata a Solomeo, dove producono gli abiti di Brunello Cucinelli. La città era molto piccola e la gente era felice e simpatica. – Past tense is sono stata. In Italia because it’s a country. La città agrees with piccola and gente agrees with felice and simpatica.

Era is the imperfect tense.

Your task:

Listen to this super short episode again and see where you can make connections!

Resources mentioned:

Americans dining in Italy

Imperfect Tense

Past Tense

Imperfect Subjunctive Tense

Preposizioni articolate [English]

Le Preposizioni articolate [Italian]

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