12/26/07 - An Italian Would Never Say That
You'll never sound like an Italian native if you persist in repeating linguistic "dead giveaways"—that is, grammatical mistakes, habits, or tics that always identifies a native English speaker regardless of how competent that person is in Italian.

12/12/07 - The Meaning of Sound
Buzz, whoosh, and crackle. We often create terms whose sounds remind us of the objects or actions they name. The sounds of many Italian words also have a relationship between specific meanings and even emotions.

11/28/07 - All In The (Language) Family
As Latin was developing into numerous Italian dialects from which Florentine was selected to be the national language, changes were taking place in other regions of what was once the Roman Empire. New linguistic entities were evolving into languages which today are separate and distinct from Italian. Or are they?

11/14/07 - La Vulgata Dantesca: Dante as Poet, Dante as Linguist
No one can deny the role Dante Alighieri played in the progression of Florentine from a dialect to Italy's national language. Considered one of the towering figures of European literature, Dante had another important role which tends to be overlooked, though. In addition to being an accomplished poet, Dante was also a linguist.

10/31/07 - You're In Italy, Speak Italian!
There are dialects of Italian (regional varieties) and there are dialects of Italy (distinct local languages). To further muddy the Tiber, the phrase dialetti italiani is often used to describe both phenomena.

10/17/07 - Double Double Italian Italian Consonants Consonants
The differences between Italian and English double consonants and how confusion can arise when comparing Italian doubled consonants to English ones. In Italian a doubled consonant is assigned two beats, though this distinction goes unnoticed by many non-natives.

10/03/07 - Erre Moscia: Dispelling Some Linguistic Myths and Legends
Speech impediment, snobbish affectation, or dialectal difference? The Italian letter r has a couple of distinct articulations that might make it a shibboleth.

09/19/07 - The Letter S in Italian: The Big Exception
Though it may not look it, the letter s in Italian presents exceptions to many phonological rules which govern the formation of syllables in Italian. While some of these irregularities serve to clarify mysteries previously unexplained, others only pose more questions.

09/05/07 - Italian Semantics: What Does It Mean?
The best incentive to learning a foreign language is to be able to express your thoughts with others—or just order something as simple as a panino in Italian from your favorite café in Italy!

08/22/07 - Italian Syntax: Trials and Tribulations of Word Order and Translation
Growing accustomed to the new structure of Italian will broaden your means of expressing yourself, not only in Italian, but in English as well. While most phrases lose some meaning in their translation, the further you take your studies, the more unique phrases you will discover in Italian that defy translation to English.

08/08/07 - Italian Morphology: Language Transformers That Train Your Brain
As you progress in Italian, you are constructing and morphologically training an Italian lexicon to recognize words and what they mean. By understanding the properties of a word, you can take shortcuts and save storage space in your brain.

07/25/07 - Italian Phonology: The Musical Side of Language
Knowing where to put the correct stress or how to have proper inflection and intonation can help you come closer to understanding Italian, regardless of whether or not you are a native speaker.

07/11/07 - Introduction to Italian Linguistics
Does the statement I can't learn foreign languages seem familiar? Linguistics, the study of human languages, has gotten a bad rap among many people because the term has often been identified with a limited number of topics, particularly grammar, which many people hate.

06/27/07 - Pazza For Pizza
If learning Italian were as common as ordering a pizza, then the Italian language would have the largest number of speakers in the world.

06/13/07 - L'Ultimo Viaggio: Welcome to America
Back in the U.S. after traveling for a year in Italy, Danielle is awoken by the sound of church bells and has a revelation.

05/30/07 - Not Just Spaghetti: English Day at a Tuscan Elementary School
When she visits an Italian elementary school on English Day, Danielle is anticipating a discussion about Italian culture. Instead, she gets a lesson in Southern Italian stereotypes.

05/16/07 - Mammone: Pronounced The Same in Sicilian
Danielle travels to Sicily hoping to dispel some of the negative stereotypes she grew up with. One evening she finds herself with a handsome man whispering sweet indecipherable nothings into her ear. But she soon discovers that a mammone is still a mamma's boy, even when speaking Sicilian.

05/02/07 - Calabrian Curses
After their misadventure in Calabria, Danielle and her friends continue further south and decide to cross the straits to visit Messina. But first, they encounter a gypsy and must avert the malocchio.

04/18/07 - Calabria Stinks
Stopped by the police and cited for not having a patente internazionale, Danielle and her friends are arrested and taken to the station. But they manage to avoid time in a Calabrian jail because they stink up the joint.

04/04/07 - Pilgrimage to Capaccio Part 2: Next Stop Capaccio
Danielle discovers what a pullman is, and finally succeeds in reaching her grandmother's hometown in southern Italy.

03/21/07 - Pilgrimage to Capaccio Part 1: Pullman vs. Autobus
In a pilgrimage to her grandmother's hometown in southern Italy, Danielle is stumped, not by an inability to communicate in Italian, but by an apparently English word.

03/07/07 - Ashhpet
Danielle escapes language purgatorio in Naples. She feels free to speak, make mistakes, and use the words she knows instead of suppressing all that she had been trying to hide in Florence.

02/21/07 - Draft Dodging
On a train south to Naples, two passengers alert Danielle to the dangers of the spiffero and protect her from drafts that might cause all sorts of health troubles.

02/07/07 - Troppo Snob
Danielle thought that her Italian background would set her apart from all the other American students walking around Italy in flip-flops and complaining about a lack of peanut butter. But in Florence, her Southern Italian heritage was as foreign as her fear of trippa.

01/24/07 - The F-Word
When she first arrived in Florence as a college student, fidanzato was the first Italian word that Danielle understood and to which she could excitedly respond.

01/10/07 - The Manicotti Incident
When Danielle was in the second grade, she was given a penmanship evaluation in which she was asked to write about her favorite food. Hers was manicotti, but she had no idea how to spell it. So, she asked her teacher.

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