Instantly Italy

Italian language, culture and travel tips

[Italian Grammar] The Verb “Mancare”: How To Use It and How It Works

If you want to Be Italian For A Weekend, you can join the Vespa ride and get a three-day email crash course about Italian culture! You will also get full access to Your Italian Toolbox, a library of Italian learning materials.

As you may know very well, piacere is a very tricky verb, one of those Italian verbs that seem so easy yet cause lots of problems. 

This is why last month I wrote a blog post explaining how to use piacere and some other similar verbs. Actually, the post was mainly focused on piacere and some people asked me if I could focus a bit more on the other verbs working in the same way.

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[Italian Grammar] The Verb “Piacere”: How To Use It and How It Works

If you want to Be Italian For A Weekend, you can join the Vespa ride and get a three-day email crash course about Italian culture! You will also get full access to Your Italian Toolbox, a library of Italian learning materials.

I have been chatting with students of Italian for quite a while now and I have noticed some recurring mistakes. 

Moreover, I have noticed that many of my students struggle with the same grammar topics and most of them are weak in the same areas, so I have decided to write a series of posts about Italian grammar.

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Learning a Foreign Language is Hard: Stop Apologizing For Your Mistakes and Be Proud of Yourself!

If you want to Be Italian For A Weekend, you can join the Vespa ride and get a three-day email crash course about Italian culture! You will also get full access to Your Italian Toolbox, a library of Italian learning materials.

I have been meaning to write this post for a while and the time has finally come. 

The Italian Writing Challenge, the creative project that required participants to write a short Italian text on a different topic every day, is over and it has been an awesome experience.

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Happy Birthday, Instantly Italy!

If you want to Be Italian For A Weekend, you can join the Vespa ride and get a three-day email crash course about Italian culture! You will also get full access to Your Italian Toolbox, a library of Italian learning materials.

Instantly Italy is turning five this week and I almost can’t believe it!

Five years ago, about this time, I was waiting patiently for my webmaster to tell me that everything was ready and that we could go live. My dream was coming true but I have to admit that I had no vision for the future in my mind.

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Italian Sayings That Come From American Movies and TV Series

If you want to Be Italian For A Weekend, you can join the Vespa ride and get a three-day email crash course about Italian culture! You will also get full access to Your Italian Toolbox, a library of Italian learning materials.

You probably already know that foreign movies are dubbed, here in Italy.  

This is a horrible habit and one of the reasons why Italians have such a low command of English but we can’t help it. That’s how it has always been, how it is and probably it’s a tradition that will never change. I am sure the future will bring significant changes in Italian society but movies will always be dubbed.

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#italianwritingchallenge: A Monthly Challenge to Practice Your Writing Skills in a Fun Way

If you want to Be Italian For A Weekend, you can join the Vespa ride and get a three-day email crash course about Italian culture! You will also get full access to Your Italian Toolbox, a library of Italian learning materials.

Who is up for a challenge? 

This week’s blog post is a bit different from the others but, after the success of #tiregalounaparola, I have decided to incorporate more creative projects into this blog.

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Italian Vocabulary for Social Media and Smartphones (Downloadable PDF and Audio File Included)

If you want to Be Italian For A Weekend, you can join the Vespa ride and get a three-day email crash course about Italian culture! You will also get full access to Your Italian Toolbox, a library of Italian learning materials.

Smartphones and social media are a huge part of our daily life, nowadays. 

We use them constantly and we probably couldn’t live without them. They play such an important role in our life that we undoubtedly talk about them quite frequently in our conversations and, if we do so in a foreign language, we need to know a specific set of words and phrases.

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#tiregalounaparola: A Creative Project To Use Your Italian (and Make New Friends Too!)

If you want to Be Italian For A Weekend, you can join the Vespa ride and get a three-day email crash course about Italian culture! You will also get full access to Your Italian Toolbox, a library of Italian learning materials.

Studying languages is undoubtedly nice but the real fun begins when you put them into use. 

Spending time on books and apps to learn grammar and vocabulary is great but the satisfaction that comes from finally being able to make yourself understood is unbeatable.

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What is “Ti aiuto io”?

If you want to Be Italian For A Weekend, you can join the Vespa ride and get a three-day email crash course about Italian culture! You will also get full access to Your Italian Toolbox, a library of Italian learning materials.

There is a new service I have been wanting to offer for a while and, finally, the time has come.   

When I started Instantly Italy, I was still working as a translator full time and the only service I could offer here, besides the e-courses via email, was Chiacchieriamo.

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Italian Language For English Speakers: English-Italian False Friends (Adjectives, Adverbs and Verbs)

If you want to Be Italian For A Weekend, you can join the Vespa ride and get a three-day email crash course about Italian culture! You will also get full access to Your Italian Toolbox, a library of Italian learning materials.

It’s time for a new round of English-Italian false friends. 

As I told you in my previous post about English-Italian false friends, there are so many of them that I had to split the topic in two to avoid writing an incredibly long post.

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