Sardi and Toscani are nervous about choosing the godparents for little Valeria's baptism. Later, Toscani gets lucky about finding some evidence. When speaking to Raimondi about it, he almost comes out with a colloquial expression but thinks better of it. The complete idiomatic expression would have been una botta di culo [a stroke of the butt]. Culo [ass] is often used to mean "luck," either good or bad. So he had a stroke of luck, or, in modern language, "he got lucky."

The popular TV series Commissioner Manara takes place in Tuscany, so in this video, Marika explains some of the peculiarities of Tuscan speech. She also gives some important tips about using articles when referring to family members.

In the last lesson we learned to place non (not) before the verb in a negative sentence, but when there are other words involved, it gets a bit more complicated, especially when we have object pronouns in the mix.

We see the inside of house built into the rock. It is fascinating to learn how families coped with the problems of water, humidity, and cramped quarters.

Adriano decides to leave running the factory to Marcello and goes off on his own to work on his other projects. But country roads are dangerous in the pouring rain...

Eva hides at the beauty center in order to spy on Biagini. In the meantime, Lorenzo and Dante have a man-to-man talk.

They still don't really have a lead, but Manara is convinced the two murders — Viazzi and Ponti — are connected. They have to look into Ponti's past.

Daniela explains how to turn a positive statement into a negative one, and how to form a negative question and its negative answer. The magic word is non (not).

We enter a fascinating church carved right into the rock: the Church of the Madonna di Idris. There are some surprising discoveries awaiting us.

Adriano is very happy with how things have been going for the new Olivetti portable typewriter, but his siblings and partners in the business are not so happy. For one thing, they don't like not seeing any of the profits.

Eva's friends can see right away that she is feeling different. It's written all over her face. But she also has an idea for their next caper. At the restaurant, Eva and Dante talk about the previous night, and about whether Lorenzo knows or not.

The episode revolves around little Valeria's coming baptism. Sardi is able to change Luca's dark mood with a DVD. Ada tries to figure out who sent her flowers, and she also reveals some information obtained while shopping for a baptism gift.

Here are some more idiomatic expressions from La Ladra. They involve music, horses, and sweets.

Matera is all about caves and grottoes. There were many natural caves that were expanded to be used as dwellings and churches, and other man-made grottoes as well.

To finish up about relative pronouns, Daniela illustrates how we can use the adverb dove (where) to replace the relative pronoun in cui or nel quale, both of which mean "in which."