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.

How possessive adjectives and possessive pronouns function in Italian; their use in text describing the geography, landscapes, coastline and houses of the Puglia region; important vocabulary about the family; discussing two films set in Puglia.

Traveling to the regions of Abruzzo and Molise; digging into the use of prepositions in Italian, which connect all the parts of speech; how prepositions express unspecified quantities; vocabulary about the weather and seasonal activities.

Modal verbs are verbs that precede another infinitive; working with dovere, potere and volere; Liguria's natural beauties, towns and culinary and artistic riches; the verbs conoscere and sapere; the creations of Genoese architect Renzo Piano.

The imperative mood expresses commands; exploring the two types of imperative verbs in Italian; when to use each; irregular forms of the imperative; practicing the imperative by describing the Campania region, famous for its capital of Naples.

Focusing on the central region of Emilia-Romagna, which boasts many attractions; studying direct object pronouns; looking at two vital adjectives, buono and bello; using them in describing the sights of Emilia-Romagna.

Studying indirect object pronouns; exploring double object pronouns; practicing the verb piacere, which expresses likes and dislikes; exploring the multilingual region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia; highlighting its beautiful and diverse scenery.

Discovering the rock-carved houses and lunar landscapes of Basilicata while returning to Italian nouns; working with their plural endings and irregular forms; adding interrogative nouns and pronouns; Carlo Levi's novel that makes Basilicata famous.

Practicing key Italian reflexive verbs along with their pronouns; the scenery of the Marches region; Renaissance and medieval architecture; the legacy of Raphael and Rossini; the vocabulary of the body; how to tell time in Italian.

Focusing on the splendors of the Veneto region, from its visual artists to its literature; adding reciprocal verbs, which describe actions that are shared reciprocally; exploring negative constructions; the expressive range of Italian adverbs.

Studying text describing the attractions of the Piedmont region; working with the present progressive construction; learning about Italian suffixes; word endings that convey extra meaning; expressive Italian hand gestures.

How indefinite pronouns work in Italian; discussing ancient sites, agriculture and tourism in Sardinia; exploring the pronouns ci and ne, which replace phrases within sentences; how the beauties of Sardinia are depicted in Italian films.

Reading text about Umbria's attractions; working with the basic past tense, the passato prossimo; learning to form this compound tense with avere; using it in discussing Umbrian culture; regular and irregular participles.

Learning about Tuscany's medieval cities, food specialties, artists and writers; how the passato prossimo tense is used with the auxiliary verb essere; expressions of time; describing the life of Florentine painter Sandro Botticelli.

The imperfetto describes actions in the past that are ongoing or not completed; reading text about the beauty, prehistory and legacy of Calabria; conjugating the imperfetto; choosing where to use it in text on the treasures of ancient Calabria.

Taking a second look at Liguria; studying the impersonal voice; how this voice expresses what people can do, see or experience; returning to modal verbs, conoscere and sapere; how these verbs take on different meanings based on the tense used.

Returning to the Campania region while reviewing the imperative mood; how the imperative functions with pronouns; exploring both the informal and formal imperative, double pronouns; practicing them in describing Campania's attractions.

The sights and history of Rome; learning the future tense in Italian; the conjugation of the future tense; the verb stem changes that characterize it; the meanings of the future tense; its use to express probability; the future perfect construction.

A return to the region of Tuscany; expanding knowledge of the past tense in discussing Tuscany's topography, food culture and literary giants; learning to make comparisons of equality and of inequality; exploring Italian superlatives.