Italian Lessons in Glasgow

Italian has been spoken in Glasgow for well over a century — in kitchens, behind counters, at family tables on a Sunday, long before it appeared on any syllabus. What passed down was mostly sound: surnames, endearments, the shape of a sentence, a handful of dialect words used with total confidence and no spelling. A beginner in this city is rarely starting in silence. The ear usually knows more than the notebook does, and that is a real advantage rather than a sentimental one. Much of the early work is simply naming things you already half-recognise, and the naming goes faster than you would think.

For beginners I run online groups, kept small so nobody sits quiet for the whole lesson, and you can register your interest for the next one. If you would rather set your own pace, or you have something specific in view, one-to-one lessons are £30 an hour. Both run on Microsoft Teams. I am Laura Geraci, born in Catania and living in Gloucestershire, with twenty years and more of teaching behind me: QTS, a PGCE, a Cambridge CELTA, and a stretch of International Baccalaureate work. The phone is 07786 107293.

What brings Glasgow people to Italian

The Glaswegians who write to me tend to fall into three groups. There are the ones with a grandparent whose Italian they can imitate but not use. There are the ones flying out to relatives, who would like to get past the greetings and into the actual conversation. And there are students working towards a Higher or a university module who want an honest ear on their accent once a week. Scotland’s connection to Italy is old and domestic rather than academic, which makes learners here refreshingly practical. They want the language for something particular, not in general.

“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 →

Barga, Duke Street and an olive tree at St Andrew’s

Most of Glasgow’s Italian families came from two places: the province of Lucca in Tuscany, above all the hill town of Barga, and the province of Frosinone further south. It worked by chain migration — one man got a footing, then sent word home for cousins — and it carried on for decades. Barga still calls itself the most Scottish town in Italy, and something close to 40 per cent of its population has Scottish relatives.

What those families mostly did here was sell ice cream. Glasgow police counted 89 ice cream shops in the city in 1903; within two years the estimate for the wider area had climbed towards 336. Some became cafes that never stopped trading. Coia’s opened on the corner of Duke Street in Dennistoun in 1928, started by Carmine and Amalia Coia, who came from Filignano in the province of Isernia, and it is still in the family’s hands.

The war broke that community badly. Glasgow saw rioting in June 1940 when Italy declared war, and on 2 July the Arandora Star went down with 446 Italians among the 712 dead, many of them men lifted from behind their own counters as enemy aliens. A proper memorial took until 2011: the Italian Cloister Garden at St Andrew’s Cathedral, designed by Giulia Chiarini, with a two-hundred-year-old Tuscan olive tree at its centre.

Common questions

I did French at school and a couple of years of Latin. Is any of that useful?

Both are, more than people assume. Latin leaves you comfortable with endings that carry meaning, and a great deal of vocabulary comes back once you see it written. French gives you the architecture almost intact: the same past tense built with two verbs, the same subjunctive, thousands of cousin words. The thing to unpick is pronunciation. French teaches you to swallow the ends of words, and Italian asks you to sound every letter, which takes a few weeks to undo.

Can I try it before committing to a course?

Yes. Book a single one-to-one hour at £30 and treat it as a real lesson rather than an assessment — you will do some speaking in the first ten minutes, and you will know by the end whether it suits you. Some people prefer to ring first on 07786 107293; a short conversation usually settles more than a page of description. If a group has already started, one-to-one lessons carry on regardless.

Do you teach teenagers as well, or is this adults only?

Both. The group classes are for adults, but one to one I take GCSE, A-level and IB students as well — I taught Italian on the International Baccalaureate Diploma at an independent school in Bristol, and I still work with exam candidates alongside adult learners. Twenty years in schools taught me the difference, and it is a genuine one: teenagers pick up accent quickly but hate being heard getting it wrong in front of each other, while adults want the rule explained, argue with it, and bring their own reasons for being there. So a teenager’s lessons drill more and explain less, and an adult’s are the other way round. If you are asking on behalf of a teenager, tell me the exam board and how long is left, and I will say honestly what is achievable.

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