Mother-tongue, very experienced teacher LIVING IN ROME offers SKYPE ITALIAN CLASSES to English-speaking students.

Find out more about Elena

• 1) Do you speak this language fluently because of your origins or because a teacher inspired you to learn?

  I speak Italian because I was born in Italy, but also because I’ve made long and passionate classical studies to speak and write it properly, and I’ve met 2 very good and inspiring Italian teachers in my school years, while I speak English and American English because I’ve loved it since I was very-very young!

• 2) Can you name a living, historical or fictional character that you think is the emblematic representative of the language's culture?

  My favourite historical character actually was not an Italian by birth, but an Italian by choice, that is to say Emperor Federico II di Sicilia (1194 – 1250): being born in Germany and raised by a Pope, his destiny would have been to live in Germany and use his Italian lands just as subsidiaries of the Vatican State; instead, he chose to live all his life in Southern Italy, and to become patron of the poetry, writing, and art, and make his Italian domains a cradle of culture: I wish we had a Federico II nowadays too!

• 3) Is there a typical word, phrase, tradition or behaviour in the language that you particularly like?

  In my language there are many cute words both in meaning and sound, such as chiocciola (=snail) to indicate @ or ciucciotto (=pacifier) which is a lovely way to indicate something to be sucked by a baby.
  There are also circumstances that in my opinion cannot be properly expressed but with Italian regional expressions, for instance when 2 people can’t agree on anything because they’re both too stubborn, you can try to explain it with 1.000 words, or simply use the Sicilian expression pani duru e cuteddu ca nun tagghia (=stale bread and a knife which doesn’t cut) and express yourself perfectly!

• 4) Why does speaking this language matter to you?

  Teaching my language means giving people the means to really communicate and fully enjoy my culture, is there anything more beautiful and rewarding in the world? 😊

• 5) What is the main difficulty in learning this language and what can help the process of learning?

  I never lie to my students and I won’t lie here: Italian is very complicated a language, full of grammar rules which are contradicted just the moment you learn them: but so far, all of my students have shown exactly what it takes to learn it, that is tons of passion and perseverance which has led to their final great reward of talking and understanding the language and culture they’re fond of!

• 6) Provide a valuable anecdote related to your language learning or your days at school.

  Since I was very young I’ve always loved writing in Italian, and when I was in elementary I also started to write novels; when I was 9, my father, and all my family with him, moved from Nothern Italy to Sicily, and it was very difficult for me to start over in a new school, with a different culture and kids that I didn’t know; but I found a classmate who had the same passion of writing novels I had, so we started to call each other every afternoon on the land-line phone to update the other one on the progress of the novel at hand: of course we soon became BFF forever! Besides being a very tender memory to me to this day, this shows that even when technology was almost non-existent (no Internet, I-phones, ecc.), the passion for language and writing could help you meet friends and overcome difficulties.

• 7) How has travel or a specific trip helped you to increase your skill and knowledge of the language?

  I’ve moved a lot in my youth and lived in very different parts of Italy, so I’ve learned lots and lots of very different nuances of this language.

• 8) What makes you a Superprof in language?

  Experience, qualifications and expertise for sure, but mainly Passion and Love both for my language, the language of my students, and this wonderful job I’ve been doing for about 30 years now!
  The ability to feel sympathy and bond even with people far away from me helps as well I think. 😊