Thanks Daniel for your swift response, and on a Sunday too!

Aurally, I guess I understand around 75% of what comes my way and I have to thank EIN for that. Moreover, it’s true that the service does provide a fascinating insight into the various aspects of Italian life (talking of which, I must get out to Matera this year, but it seems flights to Bari airport are not easy to come by).

Anyway, thanks to you and your team once again.

Buona giornata, Phil

Ciao Phil,

In Italian, as in English, there are often various ways of saying the same basic thing, so ‘ha avuto inizio’ is, as you say, another way of saying ‘ha iniziato/è iniziato’. In this particular case, the article had to be rewritten due to the fact that the talks, expected to last for a longer period, concluded abruptly. Perhaps our editor had to rush to make the modifications and the result confused you, in which case we apologise.

As regards ‘Reddito di cittadinanza’, you really would have to have been following Italian politics very carefully to make any sense of it. I probably got 80% and I have a college degree in political science and 20 years residence here. BUT, to be fair, this is characteristic of Italian political reporting which is done very much for insiders. Italians have the lowest rate of daily newspaper readership in Europe, and there’s a reason…. Perhaps that’s why our editor didn’t notice how hard it would be for outsiders – she knew that most Italians wouldn’t understand it either and assumed that was normal in other countries as well.

Quota 100, for example, is massively meaningful for about ten thousand people who might finally get to retire at the age of 60, having made contributions for 40 years (60 + 40 =?) For the rest of us, it’s gibberish too. The retirement age in Italy is now 67, so I have another 15 years to go (and still won’t have 40…)

Leaving aside how the editor and writers might have done this better, as the ‘founder’ (hate that word) I’d point out that EIN is supposed to help people build the reading skills, listening skills and cultural knowledge to transition to ‘real’ Italian media. There’s no guarantee that it’ll make any sense to our most able readers once that transition is achieved…

Buona domenica,

Daniel