Are you ready to learn some new vocabulary today with me? I hope so… because today’s video talks about body parts.

How will this work… I will show you images of the different body parts and I will pronunce them for you… stop the video if you need to and pronounce them correctly with me!

Take note that I will not add the articles before the nouns… but if you want to you can… and in this way you can add a little extra practice with articles and gender of nouns…

You can also find some useful videos on articles and gender here:

• Click here for a video on Italian Articles
• Click here for a video on Gender of Nouns in Italian
• Click here for a video on Plural Singular in Italian

As always you can download a flashcard with all this information and you can practice with a little exercise at the end… the answers with the articles are in the box below the video!

Click here to download the flashcard

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Learn 7 useful verbs that you will use when you will travel to Italy!

1. PRENOTARE – To book

This verb is obviously very useful because when you are visiting country most likely you will need to book in advance a room in a hotel or b&b or a table at a restaurant or tickets to a museum or a flight or maybe a train!

Let’s now look at this verb inside of a conversation... to see the translation check out the video here above!

• Salve! Chiamo perché vorrei prenotare una camera matrimoniale posso il vostro albergo per tre notti… è possibile?
• Certo! Mi dia le date e controllo subito la disponibilità!
• Vorrei prenotare per le notti del 10-11 e 12 agosto.

Sometimes you plan way ahead of your departure date… and unfortunately you have to cancel a reservation… in this case you will use the verb DISDIRE

2. DISDIRE – to cancel

This verb is very much linked to the first verb that we saw because you need to first make a...

In this video we will look at a total of 30 adjectives.

I will read the adjectives for you and also but them inside of a sentence.

I suggest that you stop the video after each sentence and try to say it aloud or try to change it to make sure the meaning makes sense for you! 

Here is the list of the adjectives... look at the video for the translation!

1. Grande - piccolo

• Mia sorella è più grande di me. Io sono la più piccola della famiglia.
• Create a similar sentence with GRANDE and PICCOLO

2. Alto - basso

• Io non sono alta… sono bassa!

3. Grasso - Magro

• Mi piace mangiare cibo grasso…quindi non sono magra!

4. Sporco - Pulito

• La mia casa è pulita, mi da fastidio vedere il pavimento sporco.

5. Veloce - Lento

• Sono lenta a guidare, mentre mio marito va molto veloce!

6. Giovane - Anziano

• Mi sento molto giovane… per me essere anziani vuol dire avere 90 anni!

7. Interessante - noioso

• Per me é interessate...

Italian nouns change according to gender and number and sometimes it is not easy to remember how to correctly write them out or pronounce them! 

In this video you will have some easy "basic" information on Italian nouns and their gender.

The general rule is that all the masculine names will end with an O

• amico
• libro
• tavolo
• telefono
• video

and the femminine names will end with an A

• amica
• aula
• bottiglia
• porta
• bocca

You can also have nouns that end with the vowel E.

In this case they can be either masculine or femminine:

For example:

• pallone (M)
• lezione (F)
• canzone (F)
• giornale (M)

You can also have nouns that end with a consonant and these are usually masculine:

• Bar
• Sport
• Yacht
• Yogurt

 Now.. let’s look at some exceptions:

you can have some masculine nouns that end with E but they can have a femminine version that ends either with an A or with ESSA

Example:

• Il signore - la signora
• lo studente - la studentessa

Some masculine names that end with -...

Learn all the fun Italian Idioms that have a color in them! They are quite used in everyday Italian and I find the funny! 

Here is a list of Italian Idioms... check out the video to understand their meaning in English! :)

1. Ho passato la notte in bianco… non ho dormito!
2. Ci hanno fatto vedere i sordi verdi…
3. Avere il sangue blu
4. Ho il conto il rosso… non ho più un soldo in banca.
5. Ho una fame nera… non mangio da due giorni!
6. E' una mosca bianca… solo lui riesce a studiare così tanto e avere una vita sociale!
7. Ha il pollice verde… guarda che belle le sue orchidee!
8. Che vita grigia che fa!… lavora tutto il giorno e non si gode mai niente!
9. La cronaca nera al telegiornale ha parlato di un brutto omicidio.
10. E' un giallo… chissà dove avrò messo le chiavi di casa?
11. Il principe azzurro nelle fiabe è sempre alto e bello.
12. E' la pecora nera del gruppo… si rifiuta sempre di fare le cose come gli...

Let's talk about colors! I colori in Italiano!

You probably already know the basics but you might not know all the different shades that there are! In this video we will not only see the a list of colors that you most likely use daily but we will look at patterns and shades of color!

Let's start with the primary colors - I colori primari:

• Il blu (blue)
• Il rosso (red)
• Il giallo (yellow)

The secondary colors are I colori secondari:

• l’arancione (orange)
• Il verde (green)
• Ii viola (purple)

Then if you need to add shades you will need to use 

• Il bianco
• Il nero

and let's not forget the shade of shades ;) Il grigio (grey)

When you mix colors around you will have:

• il rosa
• il marrone
• l’azzurro
• Il verde chiaro
• Il blu scuro
• Il viola chiaro
• Il marrone scuro

Pay attention to the articles. We use articles with colors when you are mentioning the color itself not an item of that specific color… So If I have a black t-shirt I can say:

Ho una maglietta...

CIAO is absolutely "THE GREETING" that everybody knows and uses especially when they think of Italian words.

If you come to my area... so near Milano...you will hear it like this “ueeeeh ciaoooo! We like to emphasize everything by adding UEEEEH in front of any word!

Ciao is the simple Hello / H and you use it in INFORMAL situations with friends and family or people that you know very well. It can be hello or goodbye

• Ciao, ci vediamo domani!
• Ciao a tutti!

Buongiorno! Good morning… you can actually use this throughout the whole day even if it’s not specifically morning… do not use it when you are sure it’s evening… in this case you can say BUONASERA.

Unlike Ciao you will use this in formal situations… for example with people that you do not know… when you enter a shop or when you greet your boss.

• Buongiorno Sig.ra Paola! Come sta?
• Buonasera Maria sto bene grazie!

In this case you use these when you greeting somebody so...

"Gnomo, gnocchi, stagno, lasagne, cognome... oh mamma mia!"

Yes, even if in last week's post I talked about the fact that Italian is a phonetically spelled language I immediately have to warn you about a difficult exception... and I'm talking about the "gn" sound in Italian.

Why is this sound so complicated?

If we think of English we do have those letters together in many words... and trust me they are quite difficult also for us Italians to correctly pronounce... think of these words:

• pregnant (/ˈprɛɡnənt/)
• sign (/sʌɪn/)
• campaign (/kamˈpeɪn/)

You are actually pronouncing "GN" in 3 different ways! So it is quite normal for us Italians to not be able to pronounce them correctly and it is obviously hard for all English speakers to want to pronounce the "Italian gn" them in one of those 3 ways! Usually English speakers tend to pronounce the Italian "gn" like the English word "pregnant".

The best way to learn and to pronounce correctly the Italian "gn" sound is to listen to it as...

You are right! You are not in preschool... but you are beginning to learn a new language with new sounds... maybe sounds that are completely different to those of your mother tongue!

Do not be scared to start from the basics! When you learned your mother tongue language around the age of 2 you learned by repeating the sounds that you heard from those around you... you didn't jump immediately to grammar... right?!

For those of you who have taken some of my beginner's courses... I know what you are thinking… AGAIN??? haaaa Giulia you are obsessed with this!

Well it’s not an obsession but it’s the building blocks of a language… Italian is often defined as a "phonetically spelled language” (lots of debates on this topic!)… but this means that each written symbol USUALLY corresponds to a single sound… so if you get the sounds of the Italian alphabet down you are half way there to pronouncing everything correctly!

Obviously there...

Amazing but true! The New Zealander Nigel Richards apparently memorized the entire French dictionary to be able to win the "Francophone World Scrabble Championship!" 

Does he now speak French? Well... according to Yves Brenez, the vice president of the Belgian Scrabble federation and organizer of the championship, “Nigel will say ‘bonjour’ with an accent and he can also give the score in French, but that’s all."

So memorizing words is not the way to go if you are looking to boost your vocabulary to a new level! Plus think of how hard it is to memorize words especially if they are so different from those of your mother tongue language!

I have personally tested this because when I was a young student in the US, studying for my SAT's, I remember I used to sit for hours and hours trying to remember super complicated words that honestly I probably forgot immediately after having taken the test!

Many of my students are in this same situation!

The...