Italian language, culture and travel tips
It’s #the100dayproject, a project that requires choosing a topic and sharing on Instagram a photo a day about such topic, for a little more than three months.
Being able to finally practice the language you have studied so hard in the country where it is spoken is undoubtedly rewarding but it can be quite challenging as well.
You can be a very fluent speaker but if in the middle of a conversation someone tells you sei lungo come la Quaresima (you are long as Lent) or that it is time to tagliare la testa al toro (to cut the bull’s head), you may end up with a puzzled look on your face.
YouTube is one of the most important sources of video entertainment in my daily life and it is a wonderful opportunity for practicing my English comprehension skills. I watch a lot of videos on a daily basis – all of them in English – and I feel that this is highly beneficial for my English fluency.
If you have been following this blog for a while now, you may remember that I have written a couple of posts on idioms that are related to food, other two on idiomatic phrases that have to do with animals, a post about Italian ways of saying that contain numbers and another one about idioms that are related to numbers.
If you come to Italy, you’ll immediately realize that food is really important for us Italians. Eating is some sort of ritual, not just a way to fill your stomach when you are hungry. The time you spend eating is not considered a waste of time, but an essential part of the day. The quality of food is a serious matter and food traditions are taken as principles of a religion.
It’s been a while since I last posted about Italian idiomatic phrases but I have to admit I couldn’t find a proper topic. I have been thinking about an interesting unifying theme for idioms but I wasn’t able to find anything until, while writing down phrases for an Instagram project which will begin soon, I wrote the phrase essere al verde and I realized that colours could be a great topic for a post about Italian idioms.
When I launched this website, back in February 2015, I honestly didn’t know what to expect. Launching the website was already a dream come true for me, so I was happy with it and didn’t think much about the future. I am not a planner and I prefer to take things as they come, so I had no big plans at the time.
It’s been a while since I last wrote an Italian Vocabulary series post, that kind of posts where I tell you about Italian culture and way of life and list you some Italian vocabulary as well, and I thought it was time for a new one. The topic I decided to focus on today is one of my favorite Italian habits: merenda.
Well, the easiest answer would be: “spend some time in Italy“. As a matter of fact, spending some time in the country where the language you are learning is spoken is the most effective way of improving such language. Unfortunately, this is not always so easy to be done.
![[Italian Vocabulary] La Cena: Words and Phrases to Be Used at Dinner Time](https://i1.wp.com/instantlyitaly.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/italian-vocabulary-dinner.jpg?fit=683%2C1024&ssl=1)
![[Italian Vocabulary] “È ora di merenda!” Useful Italian words and phrases to be used at that time of day](https://i2.wp.com/instantlyitaly.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/italian-vocabulary-useful-words-phrases-merenda.jpg?fit=683%2C1024&ssl=1)
