by Serena | Oct 30, 2026 | B1, intermediate, Italian grammar
“Was it è stato or era?” My students ask me this all the time, and it makes sense: in English both are simply it was. In Italian they belong to two different past tenses, and choosing one or the other changes what you are saying. Here is the short version:...
by Serena | Dec 24, 2023 | Italian grammar, advanced, intermediate
Ci and ne are two tiny words (called particelle in Italian) that native speakers use all the time. They replace something already mentioned, so we don’t have to repeat it. They make your Italian shorter, more fluid and much more natural. They can look scary at...
by Serena | Dec 19, 2023 | intermediate, beginners, Italian grammar
Gli or le? Lo or gli? Indirect object pronouns are one of the topics my students find most confusing, mostly because English uses “to him”, “to her” or nothing at all, while Italian uses a short word placed before the verb. The good news: there...
by Serena | Dec 17, 2023 | Italian grammar, intermediate
The future tense: Italian vs. English The most important thing to remember when learning the future in Italian is that it is used less in Italian than in English. In fact, Italian has a tendency (which comes from Latin) to use the present simple to talk about the near...
by Serena | Dec 15, 2023 | Italian grammar, intermediate
Mi serve una penna. Ti servono le chiavi? Le serve altro? If you spend a few days in Italy, you’ll hear servire in every shop, office and kitchen. It’s one of the most useful verbs for everyday life, and it works just like piacere: once you understand one,...
by Serena | Dec 11, 2023 | Italian grammar, intermediate
In English, “need” does a lot of work. In Italian, the same idea can be expressed with dovere, servire, avere bisogno di and bisogna. They’re all correct, but they’re used in different situations and they’re not interchangeable....
