Blog

Le Cinque Terre Lerici Would you like 'prendere due piccioni con una fava?': literally means 'take two pigeons with a bean', but you'd probably say ‘catch two birds with one stone' (poor birds). If so

24 July 2014

Finally (I mean the Italian meaning of finally -finalmente and said with the intonation which means it was high time) our so longed for holidays have arrived!  This year I will bring you a taste of ou

10 July 2014

Are you finally ready to go to Italy? Did you pack everything? Your sun screen, your books and your portable dictionary? Bravi! Here are some quick pieces of advice, just in case. If you're reading th

11 June 2014

La Perla del Mediterraneo (The Mediterranean Pearl) Have you ever heard of Portofino? It is a small village which never changed: with its tall, narrow and colourful houses rounding the bay, so that th

22 May 2014

It is time to think about our holidays and many of my friends and students are asking me about Italian places and what I would recommend. Therefore, I have thought that some posts on this subject coul

6 May 2014

My thesis advisor used to say to me that if you really want to learn something well you must teach it. He was more than right. As I graduated in Educational Science I taught a few subjects and I becam

16 April 2014

Giorgio de Chirico (1888- 1978), Self-Portrait , 1911, oil on canvas

14 April 2014

Thank you all for the lovely comments on this article. I have been asked to take this post down by someone involved and so I have done. My apologies to anyone who didn't have the chance to read my rev

1 April 2014

28 March 2014

News News News... By popular demand... we'll have an Extra Beginners Course at the College of Commerce!  As I was saying in our previous post, the interest in Italian language and culture is getting m

11 March 2014

A Carnevale ogni scherzo vale (any joke is allowed for Carnevale)! We have been celebrating Carnevale for a while in Italy and today is martedì grasso (fat Tuesday), last day before il mercoledì delle

4 March 2014

It appears that in the last year, Italian became more and more popular among the people of Cork and the number of beginners has increased exponentially (in the school where I teach). So much so that t

20 February 2014