Italian For Beginners

Dr Federica Ferrieri

Dr Federica Ferrieri was born in Venice. Before moving to Belfast, she lived and worked in Amsterdam and Athens. She is a self-employed language teacher and a qualified life coach and restorative justice practitioner. She has translated Modern Greek novels into Italian, and is the author of a number of language books that are currently being published. Being passionate about the theory and practice of teaching foreign languages, she has been coordinating several language projects for non-traditional learners involving elements of drama, life coaching and restorative justice. She has been the Italian Honorary Consul to Northern Ireland since 2016.

Ms Giada Mangiardi

Born in Turin, Giada Mangiardi is an Italian teacher with a passion for languages in both the spoken form and the science behind them. After completing her Master in Linguistics in 2007 she moved to Ireland where she taught Italian in Limerick. After one year she moved to Belfast where she started work as a language teacher in QUB, BMC and the Crescent Arts Centre. Giada has collaborated in works dealing with minority languages.

Summary of the Content and Form of your Presentation

• This is a short video presentation on Italian pronunciation… at the restaurant! You will enjoy it if you are an absolute beginner and you have never studied Italian, but also if you have already studied the language a bit and would like to consolidate some pronunciation rules.
• The video includes four enjoyable role-plays at the restaurant, performed by your tutors Federica and Giada, who in turns are the waitress and the customer. In each role-play a set of three words related to the restaurant (food, cutlery, etc.) is presented and the most common pronunciation mistakes are corrected.
• You will already know the vast majority of the words in the role-plays (tagliatelle, lasagne, bruschetta…), but at the beginning of each role-play there will be a very easy matching activity for you to confirm the meaning of the words. You can stop the video to do the activity and then resume it to watch the correction, or you can do the activity on the attached handout.
• At the end of the video, the vocab sets are drilled again and four new words are introduced for you to apply the pronunciation rules and anticipate the correct pronunciation.

Summary of Learning Outcomes

At the end of this video presentation, you will:

• have learnt or consolidated the meaning of sixteen Italian words you may need at the restaurant in Italy;
• have learnt or consolidated their pronunciation;
• be able to pronounce correctly any Italian word including “gl”, “gn”, “che” and “ce”;
• be able to use some simple expressions to order food at the restaurant;
• be able to understand some simple questions that waiters usually ask at the restaurant.