The Ugly Duckling was written by Hans Christian Andersen, and published for the first time in 1843. In Italian, stories are generally recounted using two main past tenses: the passato remoto and the imperfetto, so even if you are "too old" for these kinds of things, this story, told by Arianna, is an excellent way to get some practice.

This story teaches us how important it is to accept those who might not look like us and to be patient about finding our place in the world. And sometimes something that seems like a defect, can be a gift.

Pimpa searches through a trunk for something to do and finds an object she doesn't recognize. She asks Big Armando and this really starts the ball rolling for an adventurous day.

Piggeldy and his big brother Frederick are out and about, discovering and learning about the world. This time they set out to find where the sky begins.

Piggeldy and Frederick take a walk on a path they'd been on before, but they are in for some surprises. They discover that "tidying up" doesn't always mean the same thing.

Let's learn some numbers and colors in Italian.

In Italy, August is the warmest month, and most Italians try to go on vacation for at least part of the month. The most important vacation day is August 15th, called Ferragosto.

As promised, Marika talks about the verb tenere (to keep, to hold), beginning with its conjugation. Let's keep in mind that Italian tenses don't always correspond to the English ones. For example, the passato prossimo is conjugated like the English present perfect tense, but is used differently in expressing events in time. The imperfetto is translated various ways in English. See this lesson about the imperfetto.

We learn in this segment that the verb tenere can mean not only "to hold," but also "to keep" or "to have."

Here's the last segment about the verb tenere where Marika provides several expressions using the verb. In some cases, we can use "to keep" and "to hold" when translating, but not always.

In 1749, King Charles of Bourbon (Charles III of Spain) or Carlo Terzo di Borbone, who was King of Naples at the time, commissioned an important campaign of archeological digs in an area near that city. Marika tells us the story.

The Villa San Marco is an amazingly well-preserved luxury villa from the Augustan period, with a wonderful panoramic view of Vesuvius and the gulf of Naples. Marika shows us around the four nuclei of the villa.

A triple interview of 3 teenagers who answer some basic questions about themselves. Are there more similarities or differences among them? Let's find out.

The 3 highschool kids tell us more about their types of schools and the subjects they are taking. Two of them give younger students some advice.

Marika describes some situations, asks a related question, and provides us with various ways to answer in the affirmative. 18 ways to say sì (yes).