Instantly Italy

Italian speaking practice and grammar tutoring

How Do I Translate This? English Words That You Can Use In Italian Too

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A very common question I get from my students is: “How do you say this in Italian?”.

They want to know what the Italian equivalent of certain English words is and they seem quite surprised when sometimes I tell them that we don’t have an Italian equivalent so we just use the English word. And they are even more surprised when I tell them that sometimes we prefer to use the English word even if the corresponding Italian word exists!

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[Italian Grammar] Andarsene, Farcela, Cavarsela: How To Use Pronominal Verbs in Italian

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Here comes another post about Italian grammar, aren’t you happy?

Actually, the posts about grammar are some of the most loved ones on the blog, so I thought it might be interesting to write a new one about a very tricky topic: pronominal verbs!

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[Italian Books] The Passenger: Rome

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What I have chosen as the topic for today’s post is probably one of the most honest books about Rome I have read recently. 

Actually, it is not exactly a book because of its very unique format but it can absolutely be read as a non-fiction book about Rome and about what it really means to live in the city.

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Using Songs To Practice Italian: Five Songs To Study Verbs

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I know I am saying something really obvious but music is a great tool to practice a foreign language.

I have always loved music a lot and this has been really helpful to practice and improve my English. Over the years, I have consumed hours and hours of English music, which has helped me memorize thousands of English words and phrases.

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[Italian Grammar] Prendere and Portare: What is The Difference Between These Two Verbs??

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The use of prendere and portare can be really tricky.

These two verbs are frequently translated as ‘to take’ in English and this makes students really confused when they need to use them. With this post, I want to try and see if I can help you figure out how to distinguish these two verbs.

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[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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[Italian Grammar] Verbs That Can Have Both Auxiliaries

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Did you know that some Italian verbs can use both essere and avere as auxiliaries?

This is something that drives my students crazy and so I thought it could be another interesting topic for a blog post. As I always do for this type of post, I have also created a downloadable pdf file for you to keep for future reference.

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