Over the past three days, I have had three Italian tutoring sessions, first with my niece Sophie, 7, and then with my nephews Charlie, 12, and Peter, 10. As I have mentioned previously, they are the children of Brandt’s sister and are…
Besides some book-learning today (Italian grammar books, that is), I had some real-life Italian experiences as well: a brief conversation in the coffee shop, for one, plus I wrote an e-mail in Italian. Nothing too high-volume, but I love this…
Today I went to Brighton Beach to take some pictures. It has been six months since I was last here. The beach in January does not much resemble the beach in July. A lot of subway studying of Italian was…
Today Brandt and I went to Best Buy to get a new camera to replace our old, somewhat broken camera (the thingie that goes over the lens won’t shut anymore). Our old camera was not big, but this one…
Today I did some work in my new verb-focused grammar books. The beginning of each of the books is a little too easy for me at this point, but I am racing through them, and I think the reinforcement is…
I have finally begun getting requests for conversation partners from the board where I posted about two months ago, but I have not been responding to them. I feel guilty for ignoring these messages, but every response I compose takes…
Today, to get some pictures for the blog, I went to Jackson Heights, Queens, and found myself awash in languages. It was like the Tower of Babel, but positive. I photographed storefronts and signs with Korean, Bengali, Russian, Polish, Spanish,…
Today I had some trouble with irregular singular familiar imperative forms. And with coughing up that phrase for the preceding sentence. Also: yet another person I know speaks Italian! She is a college classmate of mine, whom I just came…
I woke up, did some verb drills, then went to the Bronx to take more photos of Little Italy. I stopped by Mike’s Deli, which is where I handed out cheese and salami in November, and ended up talking…
I woke up late today, because we had a party last night. I love planning and having parties again. For a long time, I didn’t. Once awake, I did hours of grammar work, still in my same verb book.…
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