Instantly Italy

Italian speaking practice and grammar tutoring

[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 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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[Hidden Italy] The Eclectic Italian House of a World-Famous Swiss Clown

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Discovering and visiting hidden places in my region is one of my favorite pastimes.

Liguria is a wonderful region and, even though some of its areas are quite famous among tourists (ever heard of Cinque Terre?), there are still a lot of hidden gems that very few people know of. Sometimes even locals have no idea certain places exist and so it’s always a pleasure to discover them.

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[Italian Books] The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante

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The Lying Life of Adults (La vita bugiarda degli adulti in Italian), one of Elena Ferrante’s most recent books, has been made into a Netflix series. 

Before Christmas, I read that this new show based on Elena Ferrante’s book would debut on Netflix on January 5th and I thought I had better read the book before watching the tv series.

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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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