Francesco De Gregori's inspiration for La donna cannone [The Cannonball Lady] came from a newspaper article about a circus performer who quit the circus for love.

You won't want to miss this lesson, where Daniela introduces direct object pronouns, as in: I buy the book - I buy it.

Daniela goes over the very important words and phrases that help you to understand directions and navigate around Italy. She covers verbs such as "to cross," and adjectives such as "opposite," and "behind," as well as the simple and articulated prepositions used with place names.

In this song from 1979, Lucio Dalla sings of two young people who wish they could change their lives for the better.

Daniela teaches us the essential verbs and phrases for asking directions in Italy.

Tiziano Ferro's breakup song, "Troppo Buono" ("Too Good"), was released on his 2011 album, L'amore è una cosa semplice (Love Is a Simple Thing).

Lisetta and Alessio show us how they like to taste their new, freshly pressed olive oil. Since oil can be used uncooked to dress salads, or used as cooking oil, they call the uncooked oil olio crudo (raw oil).

Daniela has her students practice conjugating a verb of movement in the passato prossimo (present perfect). There are plenty of details to watch out for: plural or singular, masculine or feminine, "to be" or "to have" as helping verbs.

Marika shows us her children's cozy bedroom. You may notice that there is an emphasis on drawing and coloring. Italian students are graded on their drawings.

Nino Buonocore, a Neapolitan singer-songwriter, performs his love song, Scrivimi [Write to Me]. Buonocore wrote the song in 1990 and it has had tremendous success ever since.

Daniela teaches us about conjugating one of the past tenses, the passato prossimo, for action verbs.

From the heart of Tuscany, famous for its olive oil, Tuscans Lisetta and Alessio talk about how olive oil is made.

Ah, time. So much depends on your point of view.

We continue getting acquainted with Marika's apartment. This time she shows us the hall with its furnishings.

Daniela takes us through the steps to construct the passato prossimo (present perfect) of verbs. Attenzione! Even though it looks similar to the English present perfect tense, the passato prossimo is used for actions completed at a specific time in the past, so in many cases it corresponds to the simple past in English, not the present perfect!