| Silvia: | Buongiorno, Connor! Come stai? |
| Connor: | Meglio, Silvia, grazie. |
| Silvia: | Meglio than... when...? |
| Connor: | Better than yesterday. |
| Silvia: | Cosa è successo ieri, yesterday? |
| Connor: | My nonno Giovanni... |
| Silvia: | Lui non sta bene? |
| Connor: | Lui sta benissimo! But he had a fight with nonna Carmela... |
| Silvia: | E come sta adesso nonna Carmela? |
| Connor: | After the fight, molto male... now, sta meglio. |
| Silvia: | Tell me about the fight, the litigio. |
| Connor: | Well, it was a cosa strana, Silvia! Nonno Giovanni always says that nonna Carmela’s pasta è the best in the world! And ieri she decided to experiment with a new recipe. She called it “maccheroni con salsa fumè”. |
| Silvia: | Maccheroni with smoked sauce? Was it buona? |
| Connor: | Nonna always makes buone paste! |
| Silvia: | I bet she does! I bet she is a brava cuoca! |
| Connor: | Sì, but ieri... I don’t know what happened... |
| Silvia: | What do you mean? |
| Connor: | The pasta was completely burnt! Come you say that in italiano? |
| Silvia: | Pasta bruciata. |
| Connor: | And nonno Giovanni made such a scene! He was saying “Mamma mia, Carmela!”, che disastro! E nonna Carmela was saying “Non capisco, Giovanni”. |
| Silvia: | Do they speak italiano to each other? |
| Connor: | They do when they fight! And their voices get really loud! |
| Silvia: | Voce alta! |
| Connor: | I never raise my voce, Silvia... |
| Silvia: | Sei un ragazzo tranquillo. |
| Connor: | Io sono molto tranquillo e calmo... Tu sei calma, Silvia? |
| Silvia: | Sì, most of the time, but I cannot eat pasta bruciata either...! |
| Connor: | I think that italiani sono everything but calmi! |
| Silvia: | È la passione of the lingua italiana! |
| Connor: | Maybe... but nonno Giovanni got really carried away by molta passione, ieri. Poor nonna Carmela... |
| Silvia: | How far away? |
| Connor: | He said “time to see a therapist, Carmela!” |
| Silvia: | The psicologo? Veramente? Because of the pasta? |
| Connor: | Veramente, Silvia! Io sto male when I think about it... |
| Silvia: | Sono sicura that they will calm down soon! È just a piccolo screzio. |
| Connor: | I hope so! All of a sudden they switched to this weird dialect italiano which I don’t understand and thought to myself… Non capisco un’acca! |
| Silvia: | Bravo, Connor... I can tell that you’ve been studying a lot! |
| Connor: | Grazie, Silvia, I actually did! |
| Silvia: | Bene, sono molto contenta. Anything else about nonno Giovanni? |
| Connor: | Sì, when I asked him whether this pasta incident had happened before, he said to me “Ehhh, Connor, è una lunga storia!” |
| Silvia: | Do you know what that means? |
| Connor: | Sì, it's a long story. |
| Silvia: | Esatto! Nonno Giovanni used an expression that fits in perfectly with today’s lezione di grammatica italiana! |
| Connor: | Veramente? |
| Silvia: | Sì! Un bellissimo esempio. Let's start our lezione and you’ll see! |