Italian Language Seminar All the Basic Italian in 10 Lessons Lecturer: Gianfranco Strazzanti

Preliminary session – days 1 & 2 Let’s start with a talk: Any question? Did you ever read any italian book or listen to any italian song? Is there something you really like or dislike about italian culture, history? Now we will have to focus on how Italian sounds and on the right attitude to pronounce it, even only the Alphabet letters… and then the not-easy-ones like double –zz- or –tt- or –ss- (pezzo, matto, grosso) . Then try to pronounce each vowel the proper way as vowels must be pronounced like in a more sounding pitch than the english ones. Finally the nightmare of any italian foreign speaker: the sound gl-… but it’s not as hard as it seems… Auxiliary verbs. Here and there we might use the colour-strategy consisting of using different colours to write down different verbs and keep them in mind quickly. IO SONO- I am, IO HO - I have got, IO SARÒ – I shall be , IO AVRÒ – (future form for AVERE, TO HAVE) And past forms: IO FUI or SONO STATO – I was, I have been IO EBBI or HO AVUTO – I had, I have had …to be continued Don’t worry, for any colour-blind students we shall find an alternative strategy!

Preliminary session – days 3 & 4 Verbs are the key-point, so let’s keep talking about Essere & Avere (i verbi ausiliari), trying to have a complete view of the whole phraseology connected to them …Io sono felice… Io ne sono felice, Io ci sono stato… Che ne è stato…? What do these mean? How do we use the pronouns - Ci & Ne - included in such expressions? Adjectives: how to turn them male, female or plural … and what about all the irregular forms? …L’Uovo (Egg), singular and male and Le Uova (Eggs), plural and female! Let’s listen to some Italian songs together!

Intensive session – days 5 & 6 At this point, we have to start learning all propositions by builiding very simple sentences and trying to read them together. Artcicles and Prepositions make our senteces work, so we have to learn them properly: IL – LO – LA (sing.) I – GLI – LE (pl.) (the) and soon after all the prepositions DI – DA – IN – CON – SU – PER- TRA – FRA of, from, in, with, on or up, for or through, between or among In some cases we can combine them: DI + LA turns into DELLA (of the, female) IN + IL turns into NEL (in the, male) and so on.

Cultural activities Listening to songs to learn new words and expressions. Possible listening activities: Caro amico ti scrivo, Lucio Dalla; Samarcanda, Roberto Vecchioni; Con il nastro rosa, Lucio Battisti. 2. Extracts from italian movies: Possible watching activities: Movies by Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti.

Sparks for our first italian basic conversations Conversation about the most important italian cities and places of Tuscany & Sicily.

Italian cities and places visit-worthy: Catania, called “Katané” by the ancient greek… Anfiteatro romano, half- buried by earthquakes and lava-streams coming from the Etna Volcano during the XVII century

Italian cities and places visit-worthy: Florence …also known as Firenze or even Fiorenza in the past. Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence Cathedral