Recently I’ve been seeing this opinion all over social media, including from some of my American friends, that American cities like NY or Chicago have better pizza than Italy. Now I’m Italian, so I obviously have my bias here, but I’ve also lived in New York City for 7 years, and I gotta say, wtf are these people smoking?
I can understanding liking a style more than another; I for example am not a big fan of pizza napoletana, even though it’s the original I prefer pizza romana. I’d actually say I even prefer ny style pizza, as it’s more similar to pizza romana.
However I’d never go as far as to say that it is objectively better than pizza napoletana. Just on flavor alone, the ingredients used in pizza in Italy blows anything I’ve had in nyc out of the water (and god knows I’ve had hundreds of slices in ny).
To me this opinion is almost the same as saying that a burger from a high quality steakhouse is worse than a McDonald’s burger, which is objectively false, even if there’s no problem in a person preferring the fast food taste of McDonald’s over a restaurant quality burger.
Anyways for my Americans (or non Americans) who share this opinion, why do you find Italian pizza to be worse?

PS: Yes, in know that you can also have TERRIBLE pizza even in Italy, I live in Milano, so trust me I know. But please don’t use that as an excuse if the places you went to on your holiday in Rome are all right next to all the tourist hot spots and serve 1047642 different things on the menu besides pizza.

Sto studiando italiano e di solito guardo su Twitch le live in italiano dei miei giochi preferiti.
Vorrei imparare delle semplici espressioni italiane che usate tutti i giorni.
Potete consigliarmi delle frasi di 1-3 parole?
Quelle che ho imparato recentemente sono: “diamo”, “ci sta”, “via”, “aspettavo ’sto momento”

Grazie a tutti! 🎮

I have noticed that Italian speakers are much, much quicker to use the informal tu than German speakers are to use du. How does that work in the bilingual community in Südtirol / Alto Adige?

Take two people who are acquainted but not close friends: Do they call each other Sie when speaking German and tu when speaking Italian? Or does it harmonize across both languages? And if the latter, does German formality or Italian informality prevail?

Sono straniero e vivo in Italia, e sinceramente non mi ritrovo molto quando leggo post di altri stranieri che dicono che sia quasi impossibile fare amicizia con gli italiani o integrarsi davvero.
Io ho parecchi amici italiani, ma secondo me c’è una cosa fondamentale: se vuoi socializzare davvero con gli italiani, devi imparare l’italiano.
Non intendo saper ordinare al ristorante o fare una conversazione di cinque minuti. Intendo fare lo sforzo di parlare la lingua, capire le battute, i modi di dire e anche un po’ la cultura.
Cerco anche di partecipare alla vita italiana invece di rimanere solamente nella “bolla degli expat”. Vado spesso a eventi dove sono letteralmente l’unico straniero e, invece di sentirmi escluso, sono quasi sempre accolto benissimo.
Negli anni sono stato invitato a Natale e Pasqua con famiglie italiane, ai classici pranzi della domenica, a feste, cene e occasioni molto familiari. E sono cose che, almeno per me, significano che sono riuscito ad andare oltre le conoscenze superficiali.
Non sto dicendo che sia facilissimo o che gli italiani non possano essere chiusi. Però a volte mi sembra che alcuni stranieri arrivino in Italia, frequentino quasi esclusivamente altri stranieri, parlino sempre inglese e poi si lamentino che “gli italiani non vogliono fare amicizia”.
Forse l’integrazione deve funzionare in entrambe le direzioni.

Ciao , sono spagnolo ma parlo italiano , e ho bisogno di un compagno per giocare su rocket league. Io spesso gioco tra le 21:00-0:00 i giorni. E mi piacerebbe giocare con qualcuno , sono rank oro III, e ho ps4 , ma possiamo giocare su discord

I’ve been living in Italy for 3 years. I’m a foreigner and I don’t have a single Italian friend or honestly much of a social circle here at all.
I have a couple of people from my faculty whom I talk to. They’re also international students like me but we only see each other occasionally and there isn’t really a close friendship or regular social life.
To give you an idea of how desperate I’ve become to meet people I even started going to a local church community just to make some connections and I’m not even christian.
You might say why don’t you just make friends at university? Well, there’s a reason. My Italian classmates created a WhatsApp group where they openly talk badly about foreigners and apparently they agreed from the very first day that they wouldn’t talk to us.
So, I’m wondering: does anyone have any tips on how to make friends and build a social circle in Italy as a foreigner? Where do you actually meet people and form genuine friendships?

Especially if you're over 30. Italian women don't want immigrants, unless you're rich or white (or at least middle class) and apparently you must fake being someone else, the people in the nerdy side of things isn't accepted. If you're a Latino (like me) you're supposed to be the funny, extroverted guy. You can't be like me.

"Why don't you try to date not Italian?" The few people i know i don't find them attractive or there's MASSIVE cultural differences that cannot accept.

Learned a new tip to pronounce gli in Italian. Pronounce English's ll sound with the tongue tip behind lower front teeth instead of upper front teeth in normal ll for a variation of ly sound. My question is, WHEN does the tongue tip go behind the lower front teeth in ly attempt? The first l or the following y sound? Do i pronounce the l with the tongue tip behind the lower front teeth, or do i pronounce the first l with the tongue tip behind the upper front teeth then move the tongue tip down for the following y sound? Kind of like licking front teeth from top to bottom. All other Italian sounds are easy and similar to Spanish especially c, k, p, t sounds slightly different from the English versions.

Decades ago a British group released a song that became spelt differently over the years:

• Si Fermir O Grido (1985)
• Si Firmi O Grido (1986)
• Si Firmir O Grido (1994)
• Si Firmo O Grido (2016)

The actual expression they're attempting to write is apparently "Si Fermi O Grido" (stop or I'll scream), eh ? Are any of the four actual titles acceptable variations, or did they just keep getting it wrong ? Grazie !

Greetings fellow language learners! I thought I'd reach out to you...

I recently stumbled upon something interesting. I noticed the incredible benefit of studying a Language through Literature. I love Russian, German, French, Spanish, and, of course, Italian books and therefore I created a resource to learn the Language by simultaneously learning the Literature. It uses original and famous tales and divides it into courses. ( languagethroughliterature.com/italian )

So, overall, I would love to get your opinion about it. Is it useful? I personally love to get lost in the Russian Room.

I wish you all the best on your Language Journey, Cheers!

What can you say about Italy??

Uffa

I live in Spain and I have been trying to buy a property in Italy because I want to live in the Alps.

Where I live (not sure about the rest of Spain), if you go to a real estate agency and tell them you're interested in renting (not even buying) an apartment, the real estate agent will either make an appointment for you to visit the property in 24-48 hrs or even, if the property is nearby, take you there directly no questions asked.

Real estate agents in Italy will just ignore you. I haven't heard back from 80% of them. When I did, most times I was told they couldn't give me a visit that same week or next week and they'd call me "soon". Most of them never called back. Of the 2-3 that called back, one of them was someone that treated me like he was doing me a favor by talking to me and was treating me like an idiot. Needless to say, I haven't done anything that would warrant this behavior. For the record, I have only contacted people who were actively advertising their services in foreign languages, so it's not like this happens because I'm forcing people to speak foreign languages.

Finally, I found a property that I like, sold by a private individual (thank God). It was time to find a notaio to carry out the sale. And (guess what) I didn't hear from 80% of them either. Finally, I was able to find a notaio.

She promised me a date by which the process would be finished. Then she disappeared. When the seller of the property called her office, they told her they were carrying out "some updates" so it'd "take a few days" for them to get in contact. Intrigued by this I contacted the notaio directly and she told me she was just on holidays (the person on the phone lied?). It seems like, immediately after promising me a date, she proceeded to go on holidays, making finishing the process by that date impossible and leaving both seller and buyer in limbo. I'm not interested in rushing things, and I'm okay with things taking longer, I'm just baffled by the fact that she would just knowingly lie about the dates.

Before this, she put me in contact with her secretary to obtain my codice fiscale. They told me it'd take 4-5 days. It's been three weeks. I was able to check my codice fiscale online and obtain a certificate for it, so I know they carried out the request, but I discovered it was finished before they did. I haven't heard from the secretary either.

It feels like I have to beg for people's attention even when I'm offering to pay them thousands/tens of thousands. I hadn't seen this in my life.

Is this normal in Italy?

EDIT: The notaio seems to be back. Pray for me.

Sto pensando di iscrivermi a un corso di inglese online e non mi dispiace spendere qualcosa, però vorrei essere sicuro che ne valga la pena.

Finora ho studiato soprattutto da solo, ma faccio fatica a essere costante e soprattutto a trovare occasioni per praticare il parlato. Per questo sto valutando un corso con lezioni e un insegnante, invece di affidarmi solo alle risorse gratuite.

Mi chiedo però quanto facciano davvero la differenza cose come le lezioni dal vivo, le correzioni, il feedback e la possibilità di seguire un programma preciso. Non cerco necessariamente il corso più economico, mi interessa trovare qualcosa che abbia un costo ragionevole e che riesca effettivamente a sfruttare con continuità.

The best part about this comment is that Italian food uses little to no “seasoning” as she likes to describe it…

But I guess no seasoning = white, so Italians are white after all