In this podcast I will be speaking with my friend Daniela Mancini!  Daniela is an Italian teacher at Scud’It in Rome. I had the immense pleasure of studying with Daniela last July during my language and painting program. Daniela is a lively and entertaining teacher. She has also written a book about the Subjunctive tense: Congiuntivo. Here she is to talk more about herself, her home town of Frascati, her hopes and dreams and what it is like to teach at Scud’It in Rome. See program notes in Italian and English on the Studentessa Matta Blog. www.studentessamatta.com

Today I’m back with a new podcast in which I will be talking about a wonderful Italian city - Siena! Today my guest will be Sarah Mastroianni, a young woman who was raised in Toronto in Canada - the daughter of an Italian father and a Canadian mother. Several years ago, after traveling in Italy, she fell in love with Italy and in particular, the city of Siena. Now she considers Siena her adopted town. In this podcast you will learn more about Siena and Sarah will also talk about her work, about her experiences with the language, her love for Italy and especially her passion for Siena and her reasons for moving there!

In today’s “Tutti per l’italiano” podcast we will be talking about Homestay Italian Language Vacations that are offered through the Matta Blog. Homestay Language vacations are a wonderful opportunity for you to travel in Italy and stay with an Italian teacher and their family. Nothing is more effective for learning a foreign language than to live in close contact with a tutor who is specialized in teaching their native language in the country where this language is spoken! You will become an integral part of the family, enjoying meals and domestic life, living like a true Italian. Spending an entire day in a family context, combining a few hours of “traditional” teaching to the many stimuli that daily life offers, is the most natural and less stressful way to make progress in learning a language.

In this episode we are going to be talking about an on-line learning site called italki. It is an educational site that helps foreign language learners connect with on-line teachers and chat buddies. In today’s podcast I will talk a little about my personal experiences with the italki site and you will also hear from three Italian teachers all of whom I have met through the site. They are Francesca Mazza from Lucca, Maria Fusco from Napoli and Olivia Cini originally from Tuscany, but who is currently living in Malta.

Buon giorno cari ascoltatori. Benvenuti! Welcome! Today we are talking about art & plein air painting and we will be hearing from Kelly Medford, an American artist who lives in Rome. Kelly is a wonderful artist and she teaches seminars on how to paint from nature using oils and watercolors. She also teaches us a new way of seeing and that art is personal experience that each one of us can develop and enjoy. I will also be discussing the upcoming "Matta" Language and Art Program that Kelly and I are planning together the first week of July 5-14th 2015.For more details on our Rome trip visit the Matta Blog. You can also find the text for “Tutti matti per l’italiano” in Italian and translated into English on the Studentessamatta site: www.studentessamatta.com. 

Welcome to the second part of the 2-part podcast “C’è chi viene e c’è chi va”. Last week I began to speak about the differences between living in Milan and living in San Francisco. In the first part of the podcast we heard from Gloria an Italian from the Milan area who now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. In this second part of the podcast, we will continue to discuss the differences between San Francisco and Milan. In this episode we will hear from Christina an American from the Bay Area that has lived and worked in Italy. Both women, an American and an Italian, were transplanted into new culture in new and different countries than that which they were raised. They share similar qualities, of being independent and adventuresome, but obviously they have different and unique perspectives. They represent the flip side of the coin of living abroad as a foreigner.

In this podcast we will be discussing the differences between Milan and San Francisco in a podcast that I’m calling C’è chi viene e c’è chi va - “Those who come and those who go" - the differences between Milan and San Francisco. We will hear form two women who are similar but different. Gloria is an Italian from Milan who now lives in San Francisco. Christina is an American from San Jose, a city very close to San Francisco, who used to live in Milan. Through their experiences and insights, we will explore the flip side of Italian and American life.

In today’s episode we are talking about traveling to a foreign country for the first time and what it is like to live there for an extended period of time. We will be hearing from two young Italian girls - Antonella from Napoli in Campania and Marta from Lecce in Puglia. This past year both young Italian adventurers have travelled to the U.S and have lived in the states for several months. They will talk about their experiences, the things they discovered, the myths they dispelled, the things they liked and the things they missed about Italy.They also tell us about their future plans, and what they now want to do with their lives after having lived abroad in the United States.