I have a confession to make: I hate language learning flashcards. Well, I used to, anyway. Before you reach for your pitchforks, hear me out: The traditional vocabulary flashcard suffers from two key problems. Flashcards are, in my opinion: — Cumbersome – Flashcards take up space, and lots of it. If you’re using index cards,…
Worksheet: Phrases to Talk About Your Italian Lessons
Click play on the player at the bottom to listen to this podcast or listen to it on Stitcher or Apple Podcasts.We snaked our way through the streets of Florence as we made our way to il mercato di Sant’Ambrogio. I turned toward Mary, “Com’è andata la tua lezione? – How’d your lesson go?” She responded,…
Dialogue: Differences Between American & Italian Culture, Pt. I
At The Iceberg Project, we believe the only way you can truly learn a language is by using it in real life. (We also believe that Italian is the best foreign language to learn.) To help you get that real-life experience, we put together this dialogue for you. It’s about two friends — one Italian…
Chi sono i “falsi amici”??
No matter whether it’s your first foreign language or your fifth, the rules of the Italian language can be really confusing. Plus, there isn’t a whole lot of material out there in Italian that offers comprehension practice targeted at English speakers. That’s why I ask my team to create original content in Italian constantly, like…
How to Use the Present Tense in Italian (Il Presente Indicativo)
The Italian present tense is pretty simple and one of the best things to master first with your grammar. This is because it expresses things like: I am going to the store, I want to listen to music, or I like your face. Like right now – in this moment – I like your face….
Diminutive, Pejorative and Augmentative Nouns (or how Italians indicate something is really small, really big, or really ugly)
When I first started speaking Italian, my speech was peppered with a lot of “moltos.” Things were molto grande, molto piccolo, molto brutto. And while molto is a great way to express that something is really big or small or ugly, it isn’t the only way. In Italian, you can add suffixes to nouns to…
Simple Prepositions in Italian (or why the smallest words hurt the most)
Click play on the player at the bottom to listen to this podcast or find it on Apple Podcasts. All on their own, prepositions can be a pain in the butt. This is especially when you’re at an upper intermediate level, and you think you’re getting the hang of Italian and THE ONLY THING THAT…
Articulated Prepositions in Italian {or the baby makin’ magic that happens when an article marries a preposition}
Click play on the player at the bottom to listen to this podcast or find it on Apple Podcasts. When grammar joins together in interesting ways, I like to say that they marry each other. I think it’s romantic. I guess you could also say that they file for domestic partnership or get a common…
The Present Subjunctive Mood in Italian (or the tense that even Italians are confused about)
To be honest, before I started studying Italian full-force, I didn’t know that the subjective tense (il congiuntivo) was a thing. And then proceeded to let it be a menace to me for six months before I could finally use it correctly in conversation (partly because I had a teacher that wondered how I ever…
The Imperfect Tense in Italian (or the tense that lets you sweetly reminisce on the old days)
This episode’s audio doesn’t exist, and we have technology to blame (poof! gone into cyberspace!). Instead of listening to this episode, feel free to use the notes below to learn more about the topic. And if you’re like, “CHER, NO. I NEED THIS EPISODE,” then let me know in the comments below. I’ll put it…
Basic Italian Sentence Structure (or where do I put all of the words!?)
Click play on the player at the bottom to listen to this podcast or find it on Apple Podcasts. First, I want to point out that the sentence structure of Italian is something that you should be grateful for as an Italian language learner, especially if this is your first foray into foreign language learning….
One Secret Study Method to Remembering More Vocabulary in Italian
Besides “collocations” being a cool word to throw around at uppity cocktail parties, it’s also a super useful tool for learning & retaining vocabulary. In plain speak, a collocation is an idiom, expression, or vocabulary words that are commonly grouped together. And when you hear those words matched with different words, it doesn’t sound quite…