Apologies in advance to the mods if this is in the wrong forum, but are there any Dopers out there who are fluent in Italian and who’d be interested in a bit of email back-and-forth to help me practice? I totally love the food, the culture and of course the language and have just finished a basic course, but I need to keep practising it otherwise I’ll forget everything!
Aiutatemi mi amici Italiani! 
Too bad my niece isn’t on this board, as she’s been taking Italian lessons for about a year. It’s a great language and a great country.
I actually want to start a different thread just to talk about Italy in general - culture, economy, perceptions, problems, food, etc, but didn’t want to derail this one.
And yes, it’s a spectacular, musical language that can turn words for even the most mundane things into melifluous poems that sounds as though they belove in a love sonnet.
Like “Tovagliolo”. TOH-VAHL-YO-LOH!
Bellissimo!
Well, first off, you would say “Aiutatemi, miei amici Italiani.” “Mi” is an object pronoun, and isn’t used for the possessive case.
I’ve been living, and working, in Italy for 25 years. Shoot me an email if you need some language pointers.
Ciao.
Ciao, francoboli! Yes, I know what it means.
Dunno what stamps have to do with anything, but bear in mind that there’s a double L in the word “francobolli.”
Perfetto! Grazie mille, Nathan - I’ll send you an email!