Learn Italian in Thirty Minutes
For our wedding in Florence this summer, we created an Italian language learning CD for all of our guests.
Our CD is only 30 minutes. That’s all it takes to achieve fluency, right? The CD teaches you the basics of Italian, and gives an overview of Italian coffee, culture, driving regulations, and history since 1920.
And we threw in a few key phrases for attending weddings.
Anyway, it seemed a shame that our guests were the only ones to benefit from this highly concentrated language education resource, so you can listen to the CD here:
(Thanks to Flavio Castelli for his help with a few parts of the script.)
No' on 5 December 2009 at 10:54 pm
There are some typos that lead to a 404 on the last 3 files.
http://nat.org/learnitaliancd/ to fix them
Nat Friedman on 5 December 2009 at 11:32 pm
Oops, thanks for pointing this out. Fixed.
rob on 5 December 2009 at 11:12 pm
This is truly hilarious stuff! Thanks for sharing.
Zac Bowling on 5 December 2009 at 11:24 pm
neat
Sandy on 5 December 2009 at 11:38 pm
I am dying, the second lesson is hilarious! This must have been a great experience for your guests.
Hands, Adrian on 6 December 2009 at 12:10 am
busted link on “4 Numbers”
Nat Friedman on 6 December 2009 at 12:32 am
Fixed!
ao2 on 6 December 2009 at 12:12 am
My Italian ears found it weird at times, but enjoyable overall.
The speakers —professional, with a subtle milanese inflection?— use a very clean diction, that’s a pretty good learning material.
Compliments,
Antonio
Nat Friedman on 6 December 2009 at 12:32 am
Very perceptive. Professional voice actors from Milan.
nixternal on 6 December 2009 at 1:28 am
The slippery plastic crocks and the big american fanny pack had me rolling on the floor. This is great stuff!
AlbertoP on 6 December 2009 at 1:33 am
Very nice!
Giuseppe on 6 December 2009 at 3:57 am
Che figata
Sounds like Luca Bolognese is speaking.
Donatello on 6 December 2009 at 2:00 pm
Sigh.
I’m Italian. But this post is full of cliché about italian people.
Italian people is very different from place to place (in 2 thousand years of war and division we have the same diversity like Alaska and New mexico in only 1000km)
Please read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italy and http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italia
Bye
Donatello
Nat Friedman on 6 December 2009 at 2:10 pm
Maybe you didn’t notice, but it’s full of clichés about Americans and Germans too.
It’s a joke dude, chill out.
Donatello on 6 December 2009 at 8:34 pm
ok
Now i feel good
Ps: if you will come in Italy try to visit Torino (Turin) in the north -west, and Cuneo (little but beautifull) in the near.
Byeeeeee
d on 6 December 2009 at 4:27 pm
ahaha, splendido. Il pezzo sul caffè è superbo.
ahaha, awesome. The part about coffee is excellent.
now repeat with me.
suse on 6 December 2009 at 6:32 pm
Thank you Nat for this post. I’m going to Italy this Christmas. I’m not native English nor Italian speaker so after some learning I will be speaking strange mix of these two ^^
Bogianen on 7 December 2009 at 3:28 pm
Hilarious
The male actor doesn’t obviously know what a bicerin is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicerin
Shame on him.
Rotfl
Matteo on 7 December 2009 at 6:20 pm
Complimenti per la guida.
C o m p l i m e n t i p e r l a g u i d a .
Now try it yourself!
And… Auguri per il matrimonio!
Nenad on 8 December 2009 at 2:02 pm
“…and if you want dirty water, you can ask for Cafe Americano…” :p
Hillarious!
Arlyn on 8 January 2010 at 5:43 pm
You sound like horrible people. Here you are, purporting to be helpful to visitors, and making slimy remarks about tourists every chance you had. As upscale Italian as you may be, you sound very ignorant about your country and people and very surely about others. Truly disgusting.