Must I Spoon-feed you? New RSS Feeds for Learning Italian

As observant readers may have noticed, I've added some RSS feeds in the side panel of my blog.  One provides a new Italian vocabulary word with a short definition, changed every day.  Another one is an automatically updated feed from a language learning video set called Coffee Break Italian.  I've sampled a view of these brief podcasts, which consist of short, fairly easy Italian conversations, and find them helpful for beginning Italian learners.  They're probably not challenging enough for intermediate or advanced learners.  The third feed is just some Italian food articles for fun. 

Sample Marco's Charming Technique of Learning Italian

I'd also like to mention another interesting beginning Italian resource I discovered on YouTube.  It's Marco Nesida's Italian Course.  Go to https://www.youtube.com/ and enter a search for Marco Nesida.  There are several versions of the course, many geared toward Spanish-speaking learners, so be sure to find one for English speakers.  I've showcased a sample above. What I personally find endearing about Nesida's videos is their positive, encouraging attitude and tone.  If Marco does not truly love people, then he's doing a great job of making me think so.  This is not surprising, because he is a professional motivational speaker in Italy.   I also like the fact that his English is far from perfect.  It gives the course a very human aspect--we sympathize with his mispronounced words and incorrect stresses (he pronounces 'practice' as pract-ICE (with a long ''I' as in ice cream).  It sounds charming, and he does gently apologize for his mistakes.  It sort of makes it feel like we're all in this together.  Indeed, one Italian sentence he teaches is La vita è un dono (Life is a gift.).  Again, he starts with very basic beginners' Italian and does a lot of repeating of the material in various speeds, but he just wants to make sure we learn to pronounce Italian correctly.  Italian sounds are deceptively similar to English ones, but there are subtle differences.  For example, he points out that English speakers often mispronounced the ever-popular word ciao.  It's almost 'chow,' but not quite--you can't ignore that 'i.'  It's more like Cheeow, but delivered so rapidly that the 'ee' sound is barely perceptible, but definitely there, almost rhyming with a cat's meow.   Before seeing this pointed out, I was pronouncing the word very close to 'chow.'  

So, it's always good to have a lot of varied resources to pump up our skills.  I'll always be on the lookout for more.