Honest answers about learning Italian online, written between lessons by Marcella Mammino.
Prego is the polite everyday reply to grazie, but it also turns up at a door, at a counter, on the phone and when someone hands you something. A teacher from Catania explains the one thing the word is doing, why Italians say it, and what to say back.
Read the article ↗Sicilian and Italian are two different Romance languages, not a language and its accent. A teacher from Catania who speaks both shows what you actually hear: the vowels, the retroflex dd, real word pairs side by side, and why your family's Italian may have been Sicilian all along.
Read the article ↗Sicilian and Italian both come from Latin, but Sicilian didn't come from Italian. A teacher from Catania explains why the word "dialect" causes so much confusion, what Sicilian actually is, and whether you should learn it.
Read the article ↗There are alternatives to Preply, and they fall into a small number of genuinely different types rather than a list of similar websites. I teach on Preply and independently, so here is what each one is good for and where each one falls short.
Read the article ↗Both are marketplaces where you book one-to-one lessons with a tutor. The real difference is not the lessons, it is how you find, pay for and keep a teacher. I teach on one of them, so here is what that looks like from the inside.
Read the article ↗Book a trial lesson and let's begin with a simple buongiorno. What are you waiting for?