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No swet, I understand, this is your virtual home an you decorate as you see fit I just tought that people may use it to practice what they learn... You know, after all, the action of talking is fun because it helps you to make new friends... Or to read a poem or watch a movie... and languages are but a means to this end and people learning languages may be infact eager to practice :grin: Anyway, thank you for answering

Di niente

nikolic993, your idea could be an alternative that might work but for that there already is the "conversation lounge" for any given lenguage... I think that implementing an actual chat would be better... to embed a chat into a forum page all it takes is some html programming skills and a free chat service to hook up to (chatroll as an example...) but to do so one must have administration privileges over this forum

Is there a Live Chat on this forum? Sorry for asking but if there is I can't find it wouldn't it be nice to have a live chat for each of the different language "Lounges"? :grin:

I almost forgot, about the greetings when you enter a pubblic place, well, let's say that it depends on the regions: northern folks are quite reserved so it might be uncommon, southern people are more friendly so they might greet people... but, since I come from the north, I am not 100% about southern people greeting habits...

nikolic993... to put it simply, YOU ACED IT!

Just bare in mind that italian has got formalities... referring to verbs these formalities present themselves in the form of a third person singular which is almost mandatory when you speak to an unknown person such as a bartender, your mother-in-law or an employee that is giving you a service (just like spanish language has its "Usted" or german has its "Sie") what you have written is all in the second person singular... which is reserved for friends... one more tip... if you pronounce them using the "english similarities" you just proposed (e.g. ciao = chow) no real italian will understand a single word... If that is your idea of italian greetings I suggest you just go for the smile...

coppia is pronounced with a short pause between "o" and "p" and the "p" is marked, lips closed to let the "p" explode copia has a fluid sound, no puase between "o" and "p" to pronounce the "p" the lips are barely closed

it is not just that... in italian a double consonant also changes the pronunciation of the nearest vowel... making it a totally different sound... with small training it is easy to tell the words apart not just by context but by actual sounds...

by the way... the response to a "how are you" is "sto bene", non "va bene"... "va bene" is a general response used to answer when somebody ask you about an ongoing action... e.g.: "how is your chess game going?" Natasha... you ain't no italian... yet...

"fabene" means nothing... "va bene" is the corect form, some illitearates say "vabbene" joining the two words with an extra b because they can't speak correctly and in some places like Rome and middle Italy they tend to multiply oral occlusive consonants such as "b"

Most of the time if you have a good internet connection nowadays it is easier to go in forums about your favorite topics and start from there... Talking about literature itself if you don't try to buy tailored books for learners Italian authors tend to be a little bit dense...

Sorry for reopening this old topic but to my knowledge it had a misleading answer and I felt like rectifying it...

Short answer is "yes, I'd understand Leonardo but it would be hard".... Florentine from 16th century isn't easy to understand nevertheless it is understandable... But I guess that nowadays it would be possible to understand only the language that comes from Florence area, the language on which modern Italian it is derived... Other dialects are totally impossible to understand even nowadays: e.g. A guy from Verona, north east of Italy has no chance of understanding a person from Vibo Valentia, south of Italy and vice versa if they were to speak their respective dialects Sorry for reopening this old topic but it seemed a good one and I didn't want for it to go unresolved...

Another errata corrige from the previous post: it is clear that the author of the post it is not italian because pronto means "soon" in Spanish, in Italian it means "ready", as in "I am ready to listen"....