‘Buona Pasqua’ (Happy Easter) from all of us here at Madrelingua Italian Language school in Bologna!

The school will be open throughout the Easter period, except for Monday 28th March, which is an Italian national holiday.

If you’re hoping to learn or brush up your Italian over the holidays, here are the links you need to find out more:

Italian courses | Prices | How to Book | Contact us

And in case you were wondering, Italian courses lasting one or two weeks will be discounted to compensate for the missing day on Easter Monday.

See you soon in Bologna!

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!)

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!

Italian Courses | Prices | Accommodation | How to Book | Contact Us

This is going to be a short article as taking one-to-one Italian lessons via Skype with one of our regular teachers is actually very simple! Follow these steps to get started learning Italian online:

1. You need a broadband Internet connection. It should be good enough that you could, for example, listen to music or watch a video without irritating interruptions. If you can do those things, you’ll likely be fine with online classes.

2. Next you need Skype on your computer or tablet, plus a working microphone and audio. If you’ve ever made a Skype video call, you’ll know what I’m talking about. If not, find a child and ask them to show you. Skype is easy and free to download and install. Most computers have it already, but if yours doesn’t, go here to download a copy: http://www.skype.com/en/

3. Finally you need to treat yourself to one or more online lesson credits from our shop. If you just want to see what studying Italian online is like, start with just one (that’s fine!) But if you’re fairly sure that this type of teaching offers the flexibility and support you need, then go for five, ten or twenty credits and so save money on each lesson.

4. When your payment has been processed, our Stefania will be in touch to find out what your needs are, and what day/time would be be best for your lesson. She’ll choose you a suitable teacher and put the two of you in touch.

That’s it! You exchange Skype names with the teacher, agree a day/time for the lesson, and you’re good to go. After the first lesson you can organize the next one directly with the teacher (in Italian, of course!)

Lessons last sixty minutes. Lesson content is flexible, according to your needs and preferences. You could study grammar, practice speaking, follow a course book, or any combination of these things.

Find out more:

Online Italian lessons | Italian courses | Contact us

OK, you’re probably nowhere near Bologna, Italy as you read this.

But just in case, did you know that as well as running intensive Italian courses throughout the year, Madrelingua also offers Italian evening classes?

The evening classes are two nights a week, each for three hours. They’re designed for people who are working or studying in our city, need to learn Italian, but aren’t free during the day.

We organise evening class modules which are three weeks long (18 hours of classes.) That’s more or less equivalent to a one-week intensive course.

With four evening class modules, lasting twelve weeks, you’d improve your Italian an entire level!

Evening classes start soon, on Feb 15th 2016 (details here.)

Or for those with more free time, the same progress could be made on a regular course (20 hours per week in the mornings) in just four weeks.

Find out more about:

Italian Evening Classes In Bologna | Regular Italian Courses | All Course Types

I hope you’ve had (or are having, depending on your time zone) an enjoyable Christmas Day.

This is the final message about our ‘Save 20%’ promotion, which ends in just a few hours.

So I’ll be brief (and thanks so much for your patience this far).

If you haven’t already done so, you still can make a big saving on your 2016 Italian course by paying a small deposit.

You don’t even need to tell us when you’ll be coming – just pay the deposit NOW, THIS EVENING, to lock in your discount.

You can let us know the dates you want to study later, when you’ve made your plans.

The ‘Save 20%’ offer ends at midnight tonight (Dec. 25th).

Last chance… Final reminder!

Click here to pay your deposit and so save 20% on your next Italian course, which can be of any length.

For more information, read the articles here and here.

Or contact Stefi, who’ll be going to bed soon but still has time to answer your questions first.

(Here’s that link again!)