Graduate of International HS in Rome & Boston College (B.A. Italian w/3 M.A. level courses, cum laude.)

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I mistakenly had a WebCam lesson rate of $0 In my profile that I just updated having received a request for WebCam lessons from someone I hope doesn’t think I just do this for free out of love, as tempting as that is. I do it for a lower fee on WebCam and in person, and I do all my tutoring of Italian out of love. please discuss package rates with me during our free consultation or first lesson because I obviously prefer a certain amount for exclusively WebCam packages of five or 10 in person at or very close to my residence versus in person at or close to the students residence especially if it’s a bit of a long drive and a cruise lots of miles and gas or involves rush-hour traffic. my lessons already take considerably more than an hour, although they are charged by the hour, so I am happy to invest a little time catering a lesson to individual students who have a variety of needs, but I’m not going to expend a great deal of time commuting to in person lessons without a stipend commiserate with the commuting distance and time such as rush-hour versus non-traffic time frames. The free first lesson, which is more like a consultation is to go over your goals learning styles thoughts about what kind of Italian you want to learn if it’s niche conversational versus business, Italian, for example, and candidly decide if we are compatible. of course I welcome package payments and commitments right away as I will quote you a discounted rate that isn’t simply your WebCam or in person lesson rate multiplied by five or 10, so please let me know what your inclinations are; ideally one consistent hour per week is a typical place to start and I will have to charge for lessons canceled last minute, but I’m happy to reschedule without penalty in the interest of weekly lessons and progress. you can pay me by month as well as by packages of 5 to . Besides discussing your goals and how I would approach your language-learning & current level, I would appreciate knowing whether you have some knowledge of Italian, and what aspect you are, hoping to focus on the most, such as verb conjugations and vocabulary for beginners versus improvement to a solid foundation, like reading, short stories, or doing translation exercises and quizzes or vocabulary challenges. I learned on many occasions that when you memorize one word for something in Italian, you’ll be surprised to discover synonym. Italians will be the first to admit they often have several words for the same thing. Having a choir Italian as a second language, I have great empathy for anyone, struggling with pronunciation. I am not the poster child of flawless native pronunciation, but by American standards, I can try to reduce your spoken accent, so you are not difficult to understand when speaking with Italians. If you’re into grammar exercises and similar learning methods, I can give you homework assignments to review the following lesson without letting it take up too much of our lesson time. It’s easier to explain why answers are wrong when it comes to complicated sentence, structures, and more nuanced errors than simply forgetting a vocabulary word. I’m realistic about homework being an honors system of not cheating with Google and Google Translate but there are actually occasions where we can utilize that resource and decide if we find the translation accurate or true to what we are trying to say in English. My biggest tips would be not to fixate on literal translation and exact word matching And to memorize some of the most cringe mistakes, you can make, while having no hesitation to make mistakes in general I vehemently disagree with teachers want you to think too hard and too much before you speak that’s not appropriate for learning a new language. Don’t fall into that American pitbull where you literally translate the word excited because that has a different connotation in romance languages and sometimes the double consonants in Italian will get you as they still get me. Failure to empath pronunciation of a double consonant isn’t usually a big deal, but the verb for “to sweep” is very very close to a verb for something naughty where it’s going to come off as a double entendre anyways, but in the wrong context, it could be embarrassing. I love my humble learning moments of making mistakes like having a huge meal with Italians and declaring “Sono vuota”!” right after (instead of saying
I was full, I said I was empty.) I also asked a fluent Italian friend about the pretty cocktail she was drinking so I could order one for myself and for some reason she thought I was asking how to say cocktail napkin in Italian, so I went to the bar, ordered my alleged drink and was handed a cocktail napkin. These things are just silly & I love them. I hope I can provide a fun nonjudgmental, but also productive and diligent learning environment for you. My dialect specifically Roman dialect is pretty terrible. If you show up speaking a bunch of bada-bing bada-boom Italian that’s actually southern dialect, derived Americanized, Italian. I might be a little mean to you, but in a playful way. Just don’t take the words you hear all the time in American Italian vocabulary as gospel. From the Sopranos to Joey on friends etc… Whether we meet in person or remotely, I will have to send you materials for lessons. I don’t require a specific or expensive textbook, and I am wanting to buy more Italian language, exercise books, and learning/teaching books than I have, But they’re always outdated anyhow, so I’ll throw together an up-to-date lesson that doesn’t date itself prioritizing how to say “fax machine” and similarly top priority vocab words (just kidding they’re obsolete). You’ll have to force yourself to say English words with Italian accents, which is always fun. If you’re an intermediate or somewhat advanced learner, I’ll throw together an assessment of your level & strengths vs. difficulties.. it’ll be a pretty run-of-the-mill assessment test supplemented by a little chat in Italian btw us to see how you are with immediate conversation w/o the written word or other resources to lean on. Google Translate is pretty damn good, but imperfect. The first time I test or assess you I’m gonna forbid a phone and stuff where you can transcribe Google translate verbatim or something. I sometimes check my own translations on Google Translate to tweak a few words when I don’t like the English translation or vice versa as far as Google’s word choices And assumption of a masculine subject as the default versus the feminine of a given word. An example would be “(io) sono una donna sposata.” v. “ Io sono un ragazzo che non È ancora sposato perché sono troppo giovane..” The difference is, I am a married woman With married ending in the letter a versus I am young man not married yet because I’m too young married, and o because it applies to him. There’s a famous Italian book called “I promessi sposi” where the word for married, or betrothed and in the letter I because it’s plural and it takes the masculine by default when of plural number of people includes any males. OK I’m blabbing and way too much detail but I hope that helps and since I got a request for WebCam videos that were literally advertised at zero dollars, I apologize for the clerical error and hope you didn’t actually want to hit the ground running with three point balls to the walls web camp lessons based on the rate. I would hope you realized it’s a mistake