Learning Italian: Step by Step and Region by Region

A preview of the content of the series; learning about vowels and consonants in Italian; important principles of pronunciation; the subject pronouns; the verbs essere and stare; daily greetings; practicing the elements of a simple conversation.

Discovering the island of Sicily; diving into a text describing Sicily's topography, history and ancient treasures; exploring Italian nouns as they express gender and number; looking at indefinite and definite articles; learning a practice dialogue.

The history and culture of Sicily; the plural forms of nouns; how numbers are spoken in Italian; practicing both elements; describing with adjectives; how adjectives reflect gender and number; practicing describing a Renaissance painting.

An overview of the region of Lombardy; learning the present indicative conjugation for "-are" verbs; covering useful verbs; talking about daily routines; discussing "Il Posto"; reviewing numbers in Italian; looking at da Vinci's "The Last Supper".

The cultural highlights of Lazio; practicing "second conjugation" verbs ending in "-ere"; building facility with these verbs in the present indicative using a text; learning idiomatic expressions using avere; ways of forming questions.

Reading texts describing two of the northernmost regions of Italy; their geography and landscapes; studying "third conjugation" verbs; important irregular -ire verbs; learning the calendar, seasons, days of the week and vocabulary concerning sports.