Archives for December 2015

It seems as if Italy has closed up early for Christmas. Nobody’s working. The streets are quieter than usual.

That’s because the 24th of December is a ‘giorno semifestivo’ – a semi-holiday day.

You could find out more with this ‘boring but useful’ video + transcript from RAI but I’ll cut and paste the relevant part for you:

Un giorno può essere feriale, festivo o semifestivo. Nei giorni feriali si lavora; nei giorni festivi non si lavora; nei giorni semifestivi si lavora la metà del tempo normale.

So today’s ‘semifestivo’, tomorrow is ‘festivo’, and Monday 28th (sad face) will be ‘feriale’.

And the point is?

Assuming you’re also taking it a little easier today, you’ll hopefully be able to find a minute to benefit from our seasonal promotion, which ends tomorrow!

Pay a small deposit TODAY & save 20% on your 2016 Italian course, no matter what the length.

The longer you study, the more you’ll save!

But don’t worry if you haven’t yet got a clear idea of what you’ll be doing next year…

You don’t have to decide the dates of your course now – just pay a deposit to lock in your discount, then let us know the dates you want to study later .

For more information about the promotion, check out these recent articles:

• Best Offer On 2016 Italian Courses – Starts Today!
• Just 48 Hours (& Two Simple Steps) To Save 20%!

Or contact Stefi, who’ll be answering your emails and phone calls today (and tomorrow, ‘poverina!)

Remember, the ‘Save 20%‘ offer ends tomorrow (Dec. 25th).

It will NOT be repeated for 12 months.

Don’t miss out: click here to pay your deposit and save 20% on your course.

The Winter Offer on 2016 Italian courses ends on Christmas Day, which, as I’m sure you’re aware, is only two days from now.

If you’d like to study Italian in Italy, at great discount, stop peeling potatoes for a minute or two.

Cast aside worries about finding perfect last-minute Christmas gifts.

For, right now, you have two simple things to do…

Two Simple Steps

1. Confirm your course with a deposit.

Do this now >>

2. Complete the booking form. (If you haven’t decided the dates, skip this part and let us know later.)

Do this now >>

Got a question? Need help? Contact us >>

P.S.

Thanks to Marcia, who left a comment on yesterday’s article. I think she caught perfectly what I was trying to say, so I’ll reproduce what she wrote here below. Thanks Marcia, and Buon Natale to you too!

If a 78 year old widow from the midlands of the USA can organize a four-week study session at Madrelingua then ANYONE can do it! Still have fond memories of my time in Bologna and cannot imagine my life without that experience. I am trying to get back for my 80th. Certainly the experience is worth every effort including booking the flight!!!! Buon Natale a tutti.

(If Marcia managed it, you could too. Click here!)

P.P.S.

Read 26 genuine customer reviews.

Yesterday we covered the 24 Reasons To Study Italian In 2016.

Today, I have another number for you to consider – 6.

As in six of the reasons that people commonly cite as excuses for inertia and inaction.

These are the explanations people give for not making their dream of speaking Italian a reality.

“People like me don’t do things like this”

Not true.

We teach Italian to retired people, professionals, students, home-makers and the unemployed. From countries all over the world.

We once taught Italian to a chess champion, another time there was a film actor from California, a few years ago we had an ambassador. But in between, there were plenty of ‘people like you’.

“I’ve got commitments”

Don’t we all. But you are not, literally, enslaved. You do have some time to yourself, or could at least arrange some.

Careful! This is a dangerous one. ‘Commitments’, especially family, are often used as an excuse for not taking risks.

“I can’t afford it”

You probably can. An Italian course in Italy can cost as little as a few hundred dollars, less probably than what most people spend on a summer holiday.

If you’re not actually on the breadline, studying at our school in Bologna is likely to be within your financial reach, even if you have to save up for a while.

“It’s too complicated”

Nope. Actually, it’s very easy.

The hardest part is booking a flight (I HATE doing that.)

Otherwise organizing your Italian course and accommodation is fast, simple and completely safe.

“I’m scared”

This is often the real reason people don’t make that leap forward.

There are lots of things to be scared about.

The course will be too difficult, you won’t know anyone there, you’ll feel embarrassed, you won’t enjoy yourself, it’ll be like school, you won’t make any friends, and so forth.

If you have kids, you might remember reassuring them before their first day at elementary school.

And what happened next, when they came home after that first day, suddenly full of confidence again.

Everything was fine, none of their fears had been realized!

Fear can overwhelm and paralyze, but it rarely survives an encounter with reality.

Mostly, bad things just don’t happen. So why worry?

“It’s just a dream”

Day-dreams are a welcome distraction from real life. We all have them, which is just fine.

But what if learning Italian could be more than ‘just a dream’?

Mastering a foreign language is a long process but a worthwhile one. And it’s never too late to start.

The first step, however, is to acknowledge that it’s NOT just a dream.

That you actually need to take action to get things going.

++++++

If you know what’s stopping you from taking steps to achieve what you want, it’s not usually rocket science to work out how to move ahead, what the next step needs to be.

But it IS easier to go with the excuses. Inertia seems more common than momentum, doesn’t it?

More Articles About Learning Italian | FAQ

I assume you’re interested in learning Italian, or you wouldn’t be reading this article.

But wanting to is one thing.

Actually deciding to give it a go (or to keep at it, if you’ve already begun) is quite another.

Perhaps you need reasons to convince your partner, parents, children or grandkids that taking an Italian course at Madrelingua is an excellent idea?

Or maybe the person you really need to persuade is yourself?

No matter. Here are twenty-four winning arguments for you to employ!

Why Learn Italian?

1. As a personal challenge
2. So you feel less like a Martian when traveling
3. To spend some time working or studying in Italy
4. To emigrate to Italy, or to integrate better if you’re already here
5. To make your resume/CV stand out from the crowd
6. To improve your study and cognitive skills (or to ward off decrepitude!)
7. To build your self-confidence
8. To impress others
9. To set a good example to your kids
10. To avoid boredom
11. To better understand others
12. To boost your career
13. To gain new opportunities
14. To develop your communication skills
15. To become a more interesting person
16. To communicate with Italian family or friends
17. To rediscover your roots
18. To explore cultural or religious interests
19. To understand Italian music, movies or literature
20. To get better academic scores
21. To discover Italian food and wine (not just what’s in your local deli)
22. To even the score with Italians who speak your language
23. For a sense of achievement
24. Out of the sheer joy of learning

Cavolo, I’ve almost convinced myself!

More Articles About Learning Italian | FAQ

At Unieuro, an Italian consumer electronics retailer, you can pick up a pink iPhone 6s Plus 16GB 4G for €889.

But frankly, that enthuses me less than it would have a few years ago.

According to this article in the Guardian, a British newspaper, our future will be less about material consumption and much more about ‘experientialism’.

The writer suggests that we’ll look for happiness, identity, status and meaning in experiences, rather than in material things to use and throw away soon after.

There’s something called ‘the experience economy’, apparently. And the journalist, James Wallman, claims that:

Where once many of us were impressed by what a person had, now we’re more likely to be interested in what they do.

How true. (Read his article.)

So, what sort of experience could you have for the €889 that you might otherwise shell out at Unieuro?

A two-week Italian course, for example, with accommodation (the basic variety – staying in an Italian home), would come to significantly less than the €889 price tag of the ‘iPhone 6s Plus 16GB 4G’.

Don’t forget to add the cost of your flight, plus coffees, cocktails and good eating, based on approximately what you’d spend if you stayed at home with your new gadget.

And there, you’re living the ‘experience economy’, rather than contributing to the planet’s electronic waste mountain!

But bring along your reliable old smart phone when you come to Bologna. You’ll want to take lots of photos to show the folks back home what you’ve been up to!

More Articles About Learning Italian | FAQ

As well as being generally ‘super’, Superman could fly. Superwoman sort of whirled around some, as I recall.

Spiderman could swing from tall building to tall building, which saved a lot of time spent in elevators.

The Incredible Hulk couldn’t fly or climb walls, but was very strong when roused, which could come in handy when dealing with Italian bureaucracy… Issue my visa now, or I’ll turn green and smash up your consulate!

And let’s not forget Harry Potter, who had an invisibility coat and could do magic. I’m sure you can see the potential there.

So wouldn’t it be great to have super-human powers?

Personally, I’d have liked to have been good at languages. Years of not learning much French at school convinced me that I’d never be able to hold a conversation in any foreign tongue.

Then (this was back in 1990), a girlfriend convinced me to quit my well-paid government job and take to the hippy trail with her, destination India!

Actually, we just bought the cheapest flight we could find, which was with Ariana airlines, the Afghan flag carrier.

Departing from London, the plane touched down briefly in Prague, Moscow and Kabul. And after eighteen hours of rubbish curry and warm beer, we finally arrived in New Delhi!

On the bus from the airport into the Indian capital, I saw an elephant, and dreamed of learning Hindi…

But, no doubt due to my lack of the relevant super power, during the subsequent months spent bumming around the subcontinent, I was never able to manage more than a few basic expressions and menu items. Aaloo (potato) is the only word I can still remember.

Neither did I see any other elephants.

Back at home, a white-collar jobs crisis had hit London. I spent the next eight months on unemployment benefit, wondering what to do with my life. Finally, my mother convinced me to train as a language teacher (the irony).

Which is how I ended up teaching English in Turkey, then to Japanese kids in a residential school in Britain, then in Poland, and then back in London, where I met my Italian wife.

During those years I came to realize that it wasn’t just me that lacked language-learning super powers.

In fact it became increasingly obvious that no one else was that great at picking up languages either. Which was fortunate, as it was keeping me gainfully employed.

It was apparent that people weren’t ‘good at languages’ in some magical way – it was just that the successful ones kept at it, taking course after course, until they eventually achieved their goals.

While I was busy earning a living helping people learn English, I somehow got to be fairly fluent in Turkish (girlfriends, bars), able to score a table tennis match in Japanese, and good enough at Polish to be able to order a meal and tell the taxi driver where to go (Polish is hard!)

And after many years of trying, I’ve even reached an advanced level in Italian. I run a business here in Bologna and so have to read contracts, deal with accountants, and so on. And here’s a funny thing – the more I have to work in Italian, the easier it gets.

Back to the point, then.

Perhaps anyone who got angry enough could smash their way through a door, like the Hulk?

Maybe spending time hanging from tall buildings on a rope made from a spiders’ webs would make you more agile and strong enough to climb up walls?

I suppose I finally acquired the super power of being ‘good at languages’ by putting myself in situations in which learning at least something was necessary. And by allowing myself plenty of time before expecting magical results.

So if you’d like to speak and understand Italian, forget the kryptonite.

Instead, try getting yourself to Italy, where you’ll be able to interact with others in Italian and use the language on a daily basis.

Or maybe I’m wrong, and learning languages IS a super power that only other people possess.

But you won’t really know unless you try, will you?

More Articles About Learning Italian | FAQ

It is absolutely normal to have doubts and concerns before starting something that you haven’t done before.

So most of our future students have questions, which of course we’re quite happy to answer.

Recently, Stefi and I sat down together to brainstorm the questions that people tend to ask. Here are just some of the many we were able to come up with:

• Is the school in the center?
• What sort of social events are organized for students?
• How long will it take to complete a level?
• What are the nationalities and average age of your students?
• Do the teachers speak English?
• Will I get lots of speaking practice?
• Do I need to buy a book?
• How are the lessons structured?

There were lots more, and we typed them all out neatly, along with suitable answers, to create a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page.

The idea is to reassure, of course:

“Look, we know what we’re doing. We’ve got that covered for you. You’re going to be fine! Make the leap. You CAN learn Italian. You won’t regret choosing our school.”

View the FAQ here.

Assuming you’ve taken a look, I wonder if anyone reading this has any questions we haven’t thought of?

If so, please email us, or add your question as a comment on this article.

For example, “Will an Italian course make me richer and more attractive?”

The answer to which is: “Well, it might. Certainly couldn’t do any harm…”

More Articles About Learning Italian | FAQ

We’ve been publishing articles about learning Italian on the Madrelingua website for around three years now.

Before that there was an older site, now defunct, which we began way back in 2006 and which was killed off by one of Google’s many algorithm updates.

Over the years, I’ve always tried to write articles I think will be helpful to people who are unsure how to proceed, in particular with regard to choosing Italian courses in Italy and understanding how best to approach the learning process.

It’s fun to do, especially as I work at a language school and have tried to learn Italian myself over the years.

But thinking up new topics CAN be trying, which is why I’ve been attempting to work out what subjects I haven’t already covered in previous years.

I spent the best part of this morning (Italian time) reading back through three years’ worth of articles, hoping to identify any gaps.

The reason being, of course, our current promotion, which started yesterday (an unbeatable 20% discount on 2016 group Italian courses – details here.)

Anyway, while I was reading, the idea came to me: why not collect links to the most popular and helpful articles on one page, so that anyone interested can browse them?

So that’s today sorted: here are the Best ‘Learning Italian’ Articles from our archive, all linked to from one place, so that they’re easy to browse through.

Click here.

Oh, and don’t forget to check out the details of our Best Offer On 2016 Italian Courses. The deadline is 25th December, but people are already taking advantage of the discount.

Tomorrow I’ll be asking you to help me with our new FAQ. Is there anything ELSE you need to know about learning Italian in Italy?

If any questions occur to you, do me a favor and note them down, will you? That way I can answer them and also add them to the FAQ for everyone to see.

Or you could contact Stefania directly. She’s always happy to help and will answer emails 24/7 (or almost.)

A domani!