Learning Italian with Chiara - via Zoom

Native to Italy

Chiara Borghesi who has a number of years experience teaching Italian, is now living in the lovely city of Siena.

After years spent in the US, England and various parts of Europe organizing Language Study Holidays and Cultural Trips to Tuscany, Chiara came back to Tuscany to settle down. She is passionate about the region and enjoys meeting the interesting and heartwarming people who live there.

Her online lessons in Italian are casual and based primarily on conversational participation with screen sharing to enable seeing the words and having the ability to keep copies of the lessons. This is not a scholastic endeavour - rather it’s just fun and an adventure in learning Italian for a couple of Italophiles who are missing Italy and are taking this time out to learn the language. When the borders open up again, we hope to be able to say do more in Italy than just order coffee. (Although that in itself is most important.)

Coach Chiara is fluent in English and has a good deal of experience dealing with tourists and local businesses alike. We invite you to try a session with us and see if this might be a good fit for you.

If you’d like to contact Chiara directly for lessons, here are the links to her two websites on the Italian language and culture.

Blog: chiarastuscany.com

Website: chiarasexperiences.com concerning lessons and experiences

Hot chocolate mugs in video above made by Laura B Pottery in Summerland, BC.

A few mildly interesting facts about the Italian language…

Whether you're just getting started with Italian or approaching fluency, here are some facts about a language known for its beauty, romance and musicality:

Did you know?

There are 21 letters in the Italian alphabet. The letters j, k, w, x and y don't exist in Italian, except for in words that have been borrowed from other languages, like the word 'jeans’. Ironically this is apparently often the only entry under 'j' in Italian dictionaries. Some of the dialects do use these letters though, particularly 'j' and 'k', and for that reason they appear in some proper names of people and places.

If you speak French this will be helpful considering that the Italian vocabulary is 89 percent shared with French… similarly to Spanish.

Did you also know that Italian is the fourth most studied language in the world? Perhaps because it is known as the Romance language and who doesn’t like a bit romance. In fact, the word ‘romance’ itself was originally an adverb of Latin origin, "romanicus," meaning "of the Roman style".

Try saying this fast…

The longest word in the Italian language is generally said to be 'precipitevolissimevolmente' meaning 'very quickly’. Or this one - which is a 'quattrocentocinquantaquattromilacinquecentoquarantaquattresimo' - that's the written form of '454,544th'.

E infine "allora"

The last word on the word ‘allora’. It’s a very good word that you can use to preface pretty much anything in the Italian language:

“Allora? Com'è andata?” “So? How did it go?”

“E allora?” Well then/What now/So what?”

“Allora, cominciamo la lezione...”Right then, let's start the lesson...”



Partially derived from The Local article on Italian