Italian in Bristol

“I did a year of Italian at Stoke Lodge once and I have forgotten every word of it. Is there any point?” Some version of that question comes up a lot, and the answer is yes. The forgetting is rarely as total as it feels. I have taught Italian in Bristol since 2007, on the adult learning programme at Stoke Lodge and at Redmaids’ High School on the International Baccalaureate. What people call having forgotten everything is usually a handful of verbs sitting underneath a lot of embarrassment. The verbs come back faster than the embarrassment does. Starting from nothing at all is equally fine.

Lessons are one to one, £30 an hour, held over Microsoft Teams. Bristol is a short run down from where I live, so meeting in person can sometimes be arranged; it is worth asking rather than assuming either way. There is also a beginners’ course, online and in a small group; register your interest for the next one. Adults, all of it. People with a trip booked, people whose Italian family talks over them at Christmas, people with an exam in front of them. My number is 07786 107293.

Who learns Italian in Bristol

Bristol is the city I know best after my own. It is a straight enough run down from Dursley, which is how I came to teach there rather than somewhere else, and why an in-person lesson is occasionally possible when it genuinely helps. The learners have been a mixed lot: adults at Stoke Lodge starting from nothing, and sixth-formers at Redmaids’ High working through the International Baccalaureate. Teaching both in the same week keeps me honest. An examined teenager will not accept a vague explanation, and I see no reason an adult should be given one either.

“Laura is a great teacher — warm, friendly, knowledgeable and encouraging. I really like the style of the lessons with a combination of conversation and worked exercises.”
— Jess  Read all my Google reviews →

The Genoese sailor, the merchant from Lucca, and two brothers with a steakhouse

Bristol’s most famous Italian left and never really came back. Giovanni Caboto — Gaeta and Castiglione Chiavarese both claim him as a birthplace, and Venice made him a citizen in 1476 — reached England around 1495 and sailed from this harbour on 2 May 1497 in the Matthew. He sighted land on 24 June and was home by 6 August. The city has been naming things after him ever since. Cabot Tower went up on Brandon Hill between June 1897 and July 1898 for the four-hundredth anniversary; Stephen Joyce’s bronze of him has sat on Narrow Quay since 1985, cast in part from timber the sculptor pulled out of the Avon; and a full-size Matthew was built on Redcliffe Quay from 1994, reaching Bonavista in Newfoundland on 24 June 1997, five hundred years to the day.

A few steps from that statue, the Arnolfini carries an Italian name too. Jeremy Rees founded the gallery in 1961 and took the name from Van Eyck’s 1434 portrait, whose sitter is usually identified as Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini, a merchant from Lucca who spent his working life in Bruges.

And then something much closer to living memory. On 27 July 1956, Aldo and Frank Berni opened the first Berni Inn at The Rummer in St Nicholas Market. By 1970 there were around 147 of them and it was the largest chain of its kind outside America. Two Italian brothers, starting in Bristol.

Common questions

How long before I could actually hold a conversation with someone in Italy?

Saying things comes sooner than people expect. Within a couple of months of weekly lessons you can order, ask, apologise, explain what you want and be understood, which is most of what a holiday requires. Understanding the reply is the slow half, because real Italians speak at speed and do not simplify for you. For a proper back-and-forth conversation, where you follow what comes back and answer it, think in terms of a year at an hour a week, less if you listen to Italian between lessons. I would rather tell you that now than at Christmas.

What is homework like? I have not done any since school and I do not miss it.

It is small and it is not marked in red. Twenty minutes, three or four times a week, is more use than two hours the night before a lesson, because a language settles in through repetition rather than through effort. Often it is not written work at all: a podcast on the way to work, a recipe read in Italian, ten minutes of something you would have watched anyway. You will not be told off if life gets in the way. But the people who do a little most days are noticeably further on by week ten, and I would be lying if I said otherwise.

Would I get more out of a group course or out of one-to-one lessons?

If you are a genuine beginner and can keep a regular slot free, take a group course. It is cheaper, the fixed hour makes you turn up, and hearing other adults make the same mistakes is oddly steadying. If you already know some Italian, or you have a deadline like a move or an exam, or your week refuses to sit still, one-to-one is better because the whole hour is spent on you and nothing has to be paced for anyone else. Some people do the course first and switch afterwards. That is a sensible order.

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