NEW WEEKLY SERIES - Practice With Dialogues

This is an AI-created illustration. Content on this blog never is.

Examples and sample sentences are all fine ways (provided they are well written, which is rare) to demonstrate the use of a pattern or form or construction. But they still have one problem- they lack enough context.

That's where dialogue takes center stage.

IF well written, elements in dialogue all work to support that one structure that is being demonstrated.

Dialogue provides context, explanation, and repetition all dipped (IF- well written) in realism, wit, interesting characters, new vocabulary, idioms, and the subtle--or not so subtle-expression of the human traits that make language evolve.

This is the first installment of a weekly series (every Wednesday) to help you get exposed to language structures through dialogue.

If it has to be in written form, let it be written speech you can read and practice with aloud, instead of the usual unrealistic, poorly penned sentences that sterilize language to a colorless lab routine.

Each installment will present one structure or function not through ineffective definitions and sterile examples but through realistic dialogue lines.

In other words, when Italians use it, that's how they use it.

Each episode will simply introduce the structure and one of its functions (e.g. combining pronouns "ci" and "ne" to indicate the presence of a quantity of something in a specific place). No grammar, no abstract definitions.

Then, the structure will be demonstrated through three brief dialogues.

How do you use this resource?

You read the dialogues, recognize the structure and its function, read them again, then read them out loud.

Let them sit a couple of days, then come back and read them again.

Out loud.

Drilling isn't just repeating patterns aloud. It's also exposing yourself to that pattern in all its forms the same way you do--naturally and spontaneously--in your own native language. With an added pinch of intentionality.

First episode of "practice with dialogues" coming up this Wednesday.

As always,

Be well and speak well.