The Beginners’ Italian group restarted recently after a hiatus because of the pandemic. We are somewhat unusual for a language learners group in that we do not have an experienced Italian speaker to lead us. Instead, we are all beginners with an enthusiasm for Italian things and a desire to learn more. We take it in turns (as individuals or in pairs) to plan and lead each session. We are all pretty much absolute beginners; some of us can speak the odd holiday Italian phrase to order a beer or summon a bill! We decided the best way to build up our language is by following the BBC Talk Italian book and audio course. We do some home study, and spend the meetings practicing the things we have learnt. And of course chatting about our previous experiences of Italy, and our plans for using our newly-won language skills in the future! Our main objective is to learn some practical Italian, but have fun doing it. Steve Goodall

Beginners’ Italian is a new group for Bramhall U3A, having started in September 2019. We are somewhat unusual for a language learners group in that we do not have an experienced Italian speaker to lead us. Instead, we are all beginners with an enthusiasm for things Italian and a desire to learn more. We take it in turns (in groups of two or three) to plan and lead each session. Our learning programme is based around the “BBC Talk Italian” book and audio course. To start us on our way, we called on a fluent Italian speaker to guide us on pronunciation, and they have agreed to help us again when needed in the future. Although we are a new group, we have already sampled some Italian food and drink, and played bingo in Italian! Steve Goodall