No one likes paying bills, ma vanno pagate (but they have to be paid). Marika goes over some of the most common utilities and special taxes you have to pay if you live in Italy.

When you rent out a house to someone or rent a house from someone, it's important to know who's who. Marika explains how it works.

There are plenty of Italians living in Germany. Cettina from Sicily interviews Alfonso, also from Sicily, as it turns out. Here are some easy questions and answers for when you meet someone for the first time.

Although the si passivante (passivizing si) is a kind of si impersonale, it has some very specific differences. Daniela explains them and provides some examples.

Are you ready for the passive voice? In many ways, the Italian passive works as it does in English. If we have a subject, a transitive verb and a direct object, we can form either an active phrase or a passive one. But there are some rules, and Daniela sets out to explain them.

Daniela gives us various examples of how to close a formal letter as well as the complimentary closing that precedes the signature. As you will see, these are quite different from the ones in English letters. We then recap the parts of a formal letter.

What do we call the people we are writing to if they are professionals? Daniela gives us some answers. And she gives us some practical examples about how to actually begin writing the body of the letter.

As you shall see, Italian has a range of salutations at the beginning of formal or business letters, where various adjectives are used in place of "dear." Not only that! They also have curious abbreviations to be familiar with.

Knowing how to write a formal letter is very important, especially if we are looking for a job, making a complaint, or even just trying to get some information. Daniela shows us how.

Even informal letters have a certain form. The words we choose to open and close the letter set the tone. Daniela gives us some examples of how to open and close a friendly letter.

If you're not sure how to write a letter to your new Italian friend, Daniela is here to help. She tells us the parts of a letter and some options for the greeting and the salutation.

Just as infatti (in fact) has become one word made up of in and fatti, so also has affatti (totally) succumbed to the same fate. But here, there's a catch. It can have two opposing meanings, so you have to be careful. Daniela explains.

This wonderful word may be one of the first ones you learn while traveling in Italy. It's incredibly useful as a one-word answer and in many cases, very easy to use. Daniela explains everything we need to know. See also this lesson in English about magari.

Ormai (already, by now, at this point, by this time) is a wonderful word Italians use all the time. However, its definition isn't always easy to pin down. Daniela tells us about three nuances of the word and gives us a host of examples.

Daniela uses the lesson's final segment to highlight the differences between infatti [in fact, indeed] and in effetti [in fact, in effect, effectively]. She also draws distinctions between the expression in effetti and the word effetto.