Archives for February 2016

Certify your knowledge of Italian with a CILS exam!

February 25, 2016 by Daniel

Learning Italian is one thing, but wouldn’t it be useful to have a recognized international qualification to certify your knowledge of the language for future employers or for university entrance?

The CILS exams, organized by the University of Siena, will allow you to do just that!

You can choose between six different levels, according to your ability, and take the exam at our school in Bologna any June or December.

A CILS certificate would look great on your CV / resume and enrollments are already open for the June 2016 session.

Find out more about CILS exams on our website. If you’re working or studying in Bologna, you can register for the exam at our school. If not, do it online through our shop.

Madrelingua can help you prepare for your CILS exam in three ways:

with a regular or intensive Italian course in the period before the exam session
with Italian evening classes, if you’re working or studying in our city
or individually, with personalised Italian lessons, either face to face or online via Skype

Most popular articles re-visited: “How long to learn Italian?”

February 18, 2016 by Daniel

Search in Google for ‘how long will it take to learn Italian’ or similar and you’ll likely come across an article I wrote back in 2013 on that topic.

A good chunk of our Italian school’s website traffic each day comes from people asking Google that question.

The article starts by answering a few common questions about learning languages, for example:

does it help to be young?
do you need a great teacher or an expensive course?
is it faster if you live in a country where the language is spoken?

Then it looks at some of the factors that could speed up your progress, and warns of things that might slow you down.

Finally, the article shows you how to estimate the time it will take YOU to reach your desired level in Italian.

If you’d like to take a look, here’s the link you need: How long will it take me to learn Italian?

And, if you find that interesting, there are links to other articles on learning Italian here.

Or you could find out more about our Italian school…

About Us | Italian Courses | Prices | How to Book

Italian evening classes – start date postponed for a week!

February 11, 2016 by Daniel

Just a quick ‘avviso’ for anyone working or studying in the Bologna area who needs to take Italian evening classes over the next few months.

Our evening courses (two three-hour lessons per week from 6 to 9 pm) were due to begin on Monday next week, but Francesca and I met yesterday and decided to put back the start date by a week to allow more time for testing and enrollment.

Evening class info. including costs and the new start date is here. To sign up, drop by the school. Details of how to find us and the reception opening hours are here.

But what about those of you who may be a very long way from our city, but are still itching to improve your Italian?

Well, two possibilities come to mind.

You could, for example, plan to visit us in the spring or the summer and take an Italian course of whatever length best suits you, from a week to a year! Find out more about Italian Courses in Bologna.

And/or, especially if getting away is not an option, why not think about taking individual Italian lessons via Skype with one of our regular Italian teachers? Details of online Italian lessons.

Coming soon…

If you’d like to certify your knowledge of the Italian language, the next session of CILS, Italian language exams organised by the University of Siena, is on June 9th 2016. If you’d like to take the exam at our school in Bologna, enrollments are already open. Exam fees can be paid though our online shop.

I’ll be writing more about CILS exams over the next month or two, as the enrollment deadline approaches.

Alla prossima volta!

P.S.

Besides running a language school, we also offer lots of free materials for learning Italian online. Have you seen, for example, OnlineItalianClub.com? It has literally thousands of pages of free exercises for you to do.

For beginners, there’s also our new project DontSpeakItalian.com, which combines 10 pages of grammar explanations with 10 interactive exercises, 10 dialogues, 10 listening practice texts (with transcripts) and 10 vocabulary lists. That’s a total of fifty pages of study for you, absolutely free!

DontSpeakItalian.com (50 pages of material for beginners, or near beginners)

OnlineItalianClub.com (1000s of pages, for everyone!)

Discounts on Italian Courses – Where To Find Out More!

February 4, 2016 by Daniel

If you’re planning to learn Italian in Italy this year, you’ll naturally want to be sure you’re getting the best possible price!

So today, a brief summary of what discounts are available on Italian courses at our school in Bologna.

In December each year we do a ‘best offer of the year’, which is normally 20% on any group course. If you paid a deposit then, you’re good for your 2016 course!

If not, you could still benefit from one of our lesser (but still generous) reductions:

Get a 15% discount coupon for signing up to our mailing list
Returning students are always entitled to 10% off our courses
Over 60 or under 30? So save 10% on list prices
Or sign up with a friend or family member and get a 10% discount for each of you!

We don’t discount individual or online lessons – discounts apply only to group classes. And you can only use one discount at a time.

But when you’re checking our prices, you’ll see that longer courses cost less than shorter ones – so the longer you study, the more you’ll learn, and the less it costs!

Check out the useful summary of available discounts on our website.

Or contact us for more information.

So, what are you waiting for? Time to start planning your 2016 Italian study vacation in Bologna!

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