A New Book: “MALINTESO: Crazy Misunderstandings When Trying to Speak Italian”

Great News! I just published my second book about Italy, called MALINTESO: Crazy Misunderstandings When Trying to Speak Italian. Now with an (temporary) Introductory Promo-price of only $0.99!

Learning Italian in Practice

Without any pretence, this book is devoted to a number of amusing accounts and anecdotes about the Italian language. Ever since I moved to Italy, I have quite often come across words and phrases which I never knew existed and never learnt in my Italian lessons, probably because they seemed unimportant at the time. After all, grammar was the be-all and end-all of learning the language! However, it’s these finer points that make it so interesting. Using the alphabet as my guide, this book provides a miscellany of information, for each letter one or more short anecdotes.

A for Andrea

For example, the A is represented by a story about the name Andrea that confused me a lot:

“I couldn’t make head or tail of it. The question was about a ‘he’ and a ‘she’, but which one was the ‘he’? The conversation I had just listened to made no reference to a man, only to Roberta and Andrea. Nonplussed, I made a guess and placed a cross against one of the two possible answers. Probably wrong, but never mind. I was sitting the aural exam at the University of Utrecht in which I had to answer ten questions on short exchanges I’d just been listening to on the headphones. Although scant attention had been paid to listening skills on the Italian course I’d been following, I was confident about all my answers, except for that one question. After the exam, a number of us got together, discussing the possible stumbling blocks and pondering on whether we’d passed or not. Strangely, none of my fellow students mentioned the one impossible question I had slipped up on. Not wanting to embarrass myself in the group, I eventually summoned up the courage to take aside the student with whom I felt most comfortable and ask her how she’d tackled the question.” Continued in the book.

An interesting follow-up of my best-selling book Living in Italy: the Real Deal!

Living in Italy: the Real Deal - Expat Stories

Would you like to know how we found our house and moved to Italy? Then read our book!

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