Our English Lab

Only once I ‘ve drunk too much, many years ago, enough to feel bad. Between all alcoholic drinks I prefer wine and not strong drinks (spirits?). For me it doesn’t matter if alcohol is free or not: also at home I drink always wine at lunch and dinner, sometimes also even afterwards, so I’m trained to drink and I manage alcohol very well.

What actors do you particularly enjoy watching? Why do you like them? Which performances particularly?

It's hour of drinks. I prefer grappa, vodka, wine, beer, and also alcohol drinks

Sometimes vessels' capitans ask to me : "Agent, I have 230 bottles of bear, 50 bottles of wine and 20 bottles of assorted spirits in my bound store... total I have 300 bottles of spirits to declare to the custom officers, right?"

And I reply to them laughing : "No Captain, you have only 20 bottles of spirits... because here in Italy, we doesn't consider bear and wine as spirits!!"

They look at me like a martian.... "Really?.... they say... "Sure, captain"... i confirm...

In this way they are not forced to insert bear and wine into the bound store and close it under seal during vessels stay in port, to comply with italian regulations...

"Ah... what a beautiful place is Italy".... they comment.

"Yes, Italy is a beautiful land" I reply.

A gorgeous place. I miss Florence...



I don't drink so often alcohol recently. But a good wine sometimes is nice to have.

My favourite actors? Recently I've admired Brad Pitt's talent, but also Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, though the last is not so entertaining for me. Other actors I like are James Cagney, Robert Mitchum, Jack Nicholson and many others that I'm forgetting for sure.

I remember particularly Jack Nicholson in "As good as it gets", not a great direction or genre but an outstanding acting from Nicholson. In his eyes you can see various emotions run after the other, without him moving.

Do you agree that great acting not only be a matter of character or deepness of interpretation, but it's also due to more superficial facial traits, so that many actors would lose a great deal of their consideration without their wrinkles, or the low tone of their voice?

Yes, I agree. For this reason I think botox should be banned for actors. Acting is all about expression; why would you want to iron out a frown?

About the voice: I once listened to Meryl Streep not voiced: I didn't like her voice at all! I' m very sensitive to the voice.

Furthermore there are many differences between theater and cinema actors: I think it is much more difficult to play a character in the theater.

Tell me, do you do some exercise during the quarantine? What do you do?

If you want, i bring a big kiss for you to Florence ...but i don't know when i can go back too! (I hope i have written correctly)

Yes please do!! I hope that you’ll be able to go freely there very soon ^^

I am not in quarantine here, though bar and restaurants are closed. I went several times to the swimming pool, but it’s closed as well. So in order to keep in shape I often go to a park near my house, Oosterpark. There are lots of free to use gym machines here and there in the city, they aren’t electronic but are very useful. I’m not using them at the moment because of the risk tied to the virus, so in this period I just run, but not everyday. I have gained some kilos for that but I don’t mind, I always gain and lose them very easily.

Have you gained weight during this period of quarantine? If yes, do you think that once finished you’ll lose that much easily, or will you need to make extra exercise and diet?

Are they lookig for an hotel receptionist? I would like to change my job, returning to my previous one!!

Now? No Way!
Nobody's hiring now. Hotels are mainly closed; some of the biggest are open, but are passing through harsh times. I've heard a lot of bad stories about Italians who lost their job here, not being able to pay the rent. I've been one of the lucky ones, but a halfth is in bad conditions. Dutch people are still very fine, though the crisis in the tourism will have bad consequences. At least I hope that some companies of booking online will bankrupt, they're fucking crooks.
If you have some money and you can afford to pay a deposit, a rent and take it easy for months ok, otherwise I don't advise to look for a job here in the tourism.
Maybe if you are willing to work at night, but you need a lot of luck anyway...I'm confident that within June the situation will be clearer. We're receiving lots of reservation for September on, the city is open, people will come here from everywhere is possible. This summer is a huge question mark...

Yes, I have gained some kilos, but I hope that I will have lost them when all the restrictions will finish. In the last years I don’t lose weight very easily. I have to pay attention to the diet and I have to exercise a lot if I want to keep in shape.

What are the most common crimes in your town?

Most common crimes in Amsterdam are undoubtedly tied with drug dealing. Hard drugs, e.g. cocaine, md, ketamine or speed are commonly sold in the streets without any real danger for the dealer and the buyer. Even weed trafficking is largely illegal, since weed or hash can be sold and smoked inside a cooffeeshop, but it is illegal to grow, import, transport and even stocking quantities over 500gr of weed. It is obvious that with such a juridic void, criminality bridges it where it can. There's a strict control on weed's quality, but only with random test in cooffeeshops, not before.

Actually I've seen drunk and hallucinated people most nights ever since I've started working here, but it is actually unlikely to see people get violent. The center is constantly monitored by thousands of cams and if there's a problem, police is always there in a minute, this discourages anyone to abuse Netherland's tolerance. Don't annoy anyone and nobody will bother you for smoking a joint while walking in the street, even it's not legal.


Is there any felony that you would not compromise about when it comes to punishing, as a civilization marker, such as when judging violence towards weaker categories, or stealing public money while having a public role, or something else you would be ruthless about?

English learning part one: aim and self-evaluation

With this post I'd like to start sharing some insights about English (or any foreign language) learning.

There is plenty of aspects involved in it, in that learning a foreign language, as non-native speakers, is not learnt as the mother tongue is. Moreover, having a clear vision of others' perception of our skills is often highly biased, so some consideration about the aim when learning a new language is.

Any language skill can be broken down in four aspects: reading, writing, comprehension and speaking. These parts can be analyzed all the more; for instance, speaking can be seen from different standpoints, such as richness of vocabulary, fluency or pronunciation.

Usually people who live abroad have problems judging their own skill level. They definitely sound not native, are often not corrected and their mistakes are not even perceived as such, given that "well, he/she's foreign...."

After high school, I traveled to England several times. I was shocked by how a just graduated language student could not understand a goddamn thing. Moreover I always mentally translated single words from Italian to English, hence my speaking was really weird and not natural. My teachers were on average not up to the task of teaching properly. Unfortunately I think that Italian schools reflected the carelessness, political, light preparation of professionals, especially the preparation of public servants in a very political age, around the seventies. Many of them watched movies in english as the sole updating after getting the degree, so many of them thought us American English, or a personal mix, many probably didn't even know.
Even with literature, they taught us the same ten works they used to speak about. When at the high school I met a teacher, not mine unfortunately, Alberto Becattini, speaking English like a British (and no other of his colleagues) I was shocked.

However, if an optimal comprehension is what is looked for, living in a foreign country hits the spot. It's not the easiest part, but when abroad understanding is vital, so there's no way to avoid making the brain train 24/7. This does not apply to pronunciation and writing, and only to a very short extent with reading. Unless they are asked, locals do not correct or comment your English, so it is very easy to get stuck at a good comprehension level and nothing more than a clumpsy speaking.

My love for Germanic languages and English in particular and my eagerness to be fluent and respected (yeah, well...) did the rest. So my aim was to be a native speaker. It's not so feasible, but it is a clear purpose to make you keep going. That made me a long-life learner.

Another aspect that is not at all considered when teaching English, it's phonology. How to pronunce sounds.
The vowel sound in the word "man", does not exist in Italian. Our "e grave" is perfect for the plural, men, but "man" and "men" are not to be pronounced the same, contrary to what is usually told in our classrooms. They may seem slight changes of sound, but they are immediately detected by a native speaker. Learning phonology as an adult is a bigger headache, but it's the only way not to be just funny and eternal outsiders, when abroad. It all starts noticing the real sounds that people say and not the sound we are used to.

So, making a long story short, if a good and proper English is the set prize, it is very important to plan how to learn a language, considering the biases of a foreign living abroad, the lack of corrections.

Comprehension, as said, is not such a problem. It will come. Other aspects not, so at least speaking should be very well considered.

I made some researches about how a language should be learnt to replicate the learning of a native speaker. There are many courses around, they are very different. I'll get to the point and give some advice... next time, I'm a bit tired now. It should be much shorter, anyway! Good night!

English learning part two: methods and courses

Well, I'm still up, so let's finish this post at least.

When children start learning what will be their own language, they learn sentences, not words. At school, while learning how to write, they will likely write a bunch of words all attached. This means, learning words won't make anyone a decent conversationalist. Often students write huge lists of words and the translation beside. It is a good exercise, since writing is much more useful for learning than just repeating. However, excessively long lists are worthless, very often never checked again. Dictionary does it better.

Some English courses are based on words, such as Babbel, a very-well known course, since it has been invested a lot in marketing. A good course must encourage you to go ahead, learning a language is not easy and takes time and passion. if you have an extra-boring course that teaches you mainly words... it's wasted time. A good course doesn't even need to have a lot of words inside it, words to translate and translators are everywhere. Also, focusing on grammar doesn't help a lot, it's not latin, unless you want to spend a lot of time before even being able to say something. English is not easy, but it's considered so because most people use a simplified version of it, and because you should be able to say something intelligible. If not, beware of what you want. Learning sentences and then, when you already have a good basis of conversational skills and a method that hooks your interest on the language, the work is done, you are walking downhill.

Same goes for Duolingo, often considered an alternative, but not good according to several people on forums about learning english. It's just famous. Surfing the web it's full of websites that speak well about them, sometimes pretending to be making a comparison when they are clearly selling you one of them, easily spottable.

I don't know much about Rosetta Stone and Pimsleur methods. I made a thorough research about courses several years ago, while interested in a good German course to improve German, when I lived in Berlin. I have chosen another one, but I don't remember why.
My choice has been Assimil books (with audio). This courses are really good. The method is intuitive, they aren't boring and are an excellent method to learn while listening real language.

The method consists in a book, where opposite pages content is the English part and the translation part, in Italian. They are conversations between two or more people with exercises, but the genius of this method lies in the way those exercise, though well designed for learners, are to be followed.

I'm pasting the method, explained in the introduction, so that you can see what is all about. There are two phases, a passive one, and an active. Just as with children, who first listen for long, and then start acrobating to speak themselves. No grammar as a start, it's suicide especially if you are not at school and want to learn in your spare time, not a list of words to fill in a blank. Grammar will come, but it will be learnt in the process of studying, until it may be utterly forgotten, but still applied. Children do not learn words and certainly they do not study grammar. They learn much later the grammar that they already use.

So, here it's the method:

Well yes, repetition, repetition repetition. That is the key for learning anything. The key for repetition is making this process enjoyable, or it will be very easy to quit.

Let's move to the active phase:

Of course, there are books, apps, pdf's, websites, forums and youtube channels. We'll go over this, too, to see how to take advantage from them better. I think that, even in the constant shift of sources, following a basis course gives a reference in your study, gives you a reason to follow it to the end. It might be possible to retrieve such courses online, using torrents or just lloking for them. It's better to buy them. You have something new, that you have expected, the expense will motivate you to go ahead, a downloded course is very likely to be forgotten, it was free anyway...

Ok, now I'm really going to bed Good night!

Thank you, Jerda, for your suggestions! The most interesting thing I think is that we could improve our English learning sentences and not only words. It is also important to repeat previous lessons, I often forget it.

However now I’m taking English lessons on-line: before coronavirus I went to British school twice a week: we were a group of ten people. Now the school (which is the most expensive in the city) has organized online courses that I like very much also because we are only two / three students. The other people don't want to take online lessons.
The teacher is British native speaker and very smart; he is the best English teacher I have ever had. The book we have is also excellent, because it teaches really useful words and phrases. Furthermore, I can listen to the whole part related to listening whenever I want on Internet.
Moreover I read English books for my level and once a week I have conversation in English for an hour with native speaker girl. I don’t like very much listening English films, they are too long. However I know I could do more alone, but I don’t take the time.
In the school I attend there are always exams at the beginning and at the end for all the four skills. Even the teacher and his lessons are always monitored.


Yes, there are some felonies of violence towards weaker people, like pedophilia and rapes, but also murders, that I would punish very severely. Briberies and frauds don’t seem to me very great crimes; in these felonies there is no physical violence against people which can have serious consequences on a person for all his life.


Are you in favor or against the death penalty? Or do you prefer life sentence?