Instantly Italy

Italian speaking practice and grammar tutoring

[Italian Grammar] Uscire, Lasciare or Partire? How To Say To Leave in Italian

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English speakers always have a hard time when they need to say ‘to leave’ in Italian.

In fact, English has just one verb to express that concept, while Italian has at least three different verbs: uscire, lasciare, and partire. I have seen my students struggle a bit with that and I thought it could be useful to write a post about this aspect of the Italian language.

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[Italian Vocabulary] 10 Words That You Can Only Hear in Liguria

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I was 19 the first time I realized that some of the words I was using every day were quite unique. 

It was my first day at college and I was unpacking my suitcase when I asked my roommate “Scusami, dov’è la rumenta?”. She gave me a weird look and she told me she had no idea what I was talking about.

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[What To See in Liguria] The Magnificent Beauty of the Hanbury Botanical Gardens in Ventimiglia

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Sometimes it seems that heaven on earth really exists. 

This is what I thought a few weeks ago when I visited the Hanbury Botanical Gardens in Ventimiglia, some really magnificent gardens with an interesting history that are located on the westernmost side of Liguria, right on the border to France.

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[Italian Books] La figlia oscura by Elena Ferrante, a book about motherhood and life choices

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I have multiple ways of selecting books for this section of the blog.

As you may already know, the only rule I follow is that the Italian books I write about here must be available in English as well because I want to give people who are interested in Italian literature the chance to enjoy interesting books even if they cannot read Italian.

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How to Avoid Crowds in Italy

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How can I avoid bustling crowds of foreign tourists when I visit Italy? 

This is probably one of the questions I get asked the most and I thought it might be interesting to answer it with a proper blog post.

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