Posted in Articles, Italian culture, language tools on Jan 23rd, 2012
In Italian, idioms (figures of speech) are called “espressioni idiomatiche”. They can be tricky and hard to understand, because when you translate an idiom, you don’t get its real meaning, but only the meaning of the words it is made of. That is why, for those interested in understanding the Italian language and culture, it [...]
Posted in language tools on Sep 26th, 2011
Did you know…? After English, Italian is the number one language spoken in the home in Australia. What if you are studying Italian, you wish to practice, and you don’t have anyone to talk to or to listen to? Well, you can go online and listen to this Australian radio that broadcasts in Italian: http://www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/italian You [...]
Posted in Articles, language tools on Aug 16th, 2011
The one-parent-one-language method (OPOL) is a popular method for teaching young children to speak multiple languages. With this method each parent speaks only one language with the child. The language used by the parent is usually the language that is native to that parent. Although the OPOL method is very popular and very effective, there [...]
Posted in Articles, language tools on Aug 11th, 2011
Many parents are eager to teach their children a second language, but pretty soon they feel overwhelmed by worries and concerns. Some common ones are: Will my bilingual child be a little slower learning to speak? Normally a child’s speech is not delayed because he is bilingual. Bilingual children learn at different speed, so some [...]
Posted in Books, language tools on May 3rd, 2011
If your child, or a friend’s child birthday is coming up, take the opportunity to celebrate in Italian. Sing the birthday song in Italian: “Tanti Auguri a Te!” Tanti auguri a te! Tanti auguri a te! Tanti auguri a (name of the child), tanti auguri a te! Then gioca (play), read a libro (book) [...]
Posted in language tools on Nov 12th, 2010
December is almost here and if you celebrate Christmas and have children in your life, it is great to have an Advent Calendar. An Advent Calendar is tradition that started in Germany over a century ago, and it’s a fun way to help children count down the days until Christmas. Advent Calendars come in many [...]
Posted in language tools on Nov 3rd, 2010
If you have young children and wish to keep your Italian heritage alive, this new book will help : Italian Nursery Rhymes Volume 2. Se avete bambini piccoli e volete insegnargli filastrocche e canzoni dell’infanzia, questo nuovo libro vi potra’ aiutare: Filastrocche Italiane Volume 2. *** Bring back childhood memories or create new ones [...]
Posted in language tools on Apr 12th, 2010
If you are learning, practicing, writing in Italian, you will find this site very helpful: http://parole.virgilio.it/parole/index.html. It contains several handy Italian language tools: a dictionary, a spell check tool, help with verbs, synonyms and antonyms (opposites), plurals, masculine & feminine words, quotes and aphorisms, rhymes, abbreviations and acronyms. Correggi e migliora il tuo italiano con [...]
Posted in language tools on Apr 7th, 2010
The English-Italian Dictionary on WordReference has two English-Italian dictionaries. The Pocket Oxford Italian Dictionary has 90,000 words and phrases with 120,000 translations. It is a high-quality dictionary from one of the world’s most respected publishers. The WordReference English-Italian Dictionary is a living, growing dictionary. It contains over 50,000 terms and 100,000 translations in both English [...]
Filastrocche Italiane - Italian Nursery Rhymes
Artemisia Vuole Dipingere - Artemisia Wants to Paint
... and many more books with parallel text in Italian and English at: www.LongBridgePublishing.com
