Instantly Italy

Italian speaking practice and grammar tutoring

[Italian Vocabulary] How to Talk About Murder Mysteries in Italian: Some Useful Words

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Murder mystery novels are probably the books my Italian students enjoy reading the most. 

It’s not my favorite genre but I perfectly understand the passion for this type of novel. Also, crime novels obviously are a perfect read for language students because they are heavily focused on action, have a lot of dialogues, and are generally way easier to understand than other books.

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[Italian Grammar] The Imperfetto: Common Uses In Spoken Italian

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Speaking about the past in Italian requires the use of two tenses: the imperfetto and the passato prossimo. 

Knowing when to use the imperfetto or the passato prossimo when speaking about the past can be quite difficult for Italian students. Over the years, I noticed that even advanced students struggle with this grammar topic, which seems quite simple at first but has many nuances that can be difficult to comprehend.

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[Italian Travels] Two Historic Villas At Lake Como That Will Take Your Breath Away

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If you have been reading this blog for a while, you know I love visiting villas.

Whenever I go somewhere, I always make a point of finding interesting historic villas – and possibly beautiful gardens – to visit. One of my favorite houses in Italy is Villa Necchi Campiglio in Milan while one of the quirkiest and most eclectic ones I visited recently is Villa Grock in Imperia, not far from where I live.

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[Italian Books] The Story of an Italian Family, of a Business, and of a Whole Town

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For this series of posts I normally pick Italian books that have an English translation as well. I do it to give people the opportunity to read good Italian books even if they can’t read in Italian.

However, I’ve decided to make an exception today because the book I want to tell you about tells a true Italian story that is really worth knowing even though you won’t read the book.

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