Michele Zarrillo sings L'elefante e la farfalla [The Elephant and the Butterfly] at Rome's Auditorium in 2014. It was in 1996 that Zarrillo first sang this beautiful ballad.

Marika has more tips on how to divide syllables and some fun practice words, too.

The Ugly Duckling realizes that he isn't so ugly after all.

La luna di traverso (the moon on its side) is a way of saying "bad mood." Dixi got up on the wrong side of the bed, but being a magical little elephant, he has the actual sidelong moon on his hands. What to do?

By popular request, Marika has a great lesson on dividing words into syllables.

Vasco Rossi in his hit song Un senso sings about the meaning of life. He's accompanied by an orchestra in Reggio Emilia's Teatro Municipale.

The adjective forms learned in the earlier two lessons are used for a wider selection of nationalities.

Marika has a nice group of Italian idiomatic expressions using the verb prendere (to take).

Hans Christian Andersen's classic fairy tale, "The Ugly Duckling", is presented in Italian. These fairy tales are so familiar that they allow us to fully concentrate on the words and spare us the worry of not understanding what's happening in the story.

Where are you from? Michela explains how to answer the question in Italian, whether you're a man or a woman or in a group.

Here is Tiziano Ferro with another breakup song. This is from the album Nessuno è solo (Nobody Is Alone), 2006

There are plenty of idiomatic expressions connected with certain verbs. Marika tells us about expressions with dire (to say).

"Puss in Boots" underscores what we all know—cats have everything figured out.

Michela's lesson on nationality also concerns intonation, which is so important in signaling a question.

In many languages, animals are used to describe human characteristics, but not every language uses the same animal for the same characteristic! Marika shares with us the Italian point of view.