Italian by Lara

She lost her husband. She started over. And she chose Italy. 🇮🇹
Suvi is Finnish, has lived in the US for over 20 years, and decided her next chapter would be written in Italian — literally.
In this interview she shares how learning Italian is helping her build a new future, and why she believes speaking the local language is the ultimate act of respect for the country that welcomes you.
If you've ever said "I'd love to learn Italian, but…" — this one's for you. 👇
🎧 English subtitles included

💬 DM me to find out how my personalized lessons work

"Italy was the place I went to feel at home."
Robert traveled across Europe as a kid, dragged from gallery to gallery by his mother. But there was one country he always came back to.
In this clip he describes the moment Italy stopped being a tourist destination and became something else entirely:
Not a place to simply be educated, but a place to feel at home. Beauty not just inside the galleries — but in the cities, the landscapes, the people.
This is exactly why I teach Italian starting from culture, not grammar. Because a language only becomes "home" when you bring your real life into it.
🎙️ Full interview is on the channel — link in the comments.

As a kid, he was "dragged" from gallery to gallery across Italy. At 18, he took a train to Italy alone. Today he speaks Italian fluently and dreams of spending half the year in Tuscany. 🇮🇹
Robert is Norwegian-American, a strategy consultant and a sommelier. But above all he's my student — and here he shares how Italian turned him from a tourist into "one of us."
👇 When did a language stop being just "study" and start becoming personal for you?

"I was immediately convinced this was a good fit."

That's what Suvi told me about our very first conversation.

When you're a busy adult investing real time and money into learning a language, you don't want guesswork. You want a teacher who has clearly thought about you — your trips, your interests, the conversations you actually want to have in Italian.

That's the difference between language lessons and language coaching.

"There is no one same lesson after another."
This is Suvi, describing what learning Italian actually looks like when it's built around you — your interests, your travels, your life. Not a textbook. Not the same lesson Mrs. Smith gets.
This is the whole reason adults stay motivated and actually keep going. 💛
Her full story — leaving the US, starting over in Italy, learning the language she wants to live in — is on YouTube now.
🎥 Full interview: link in bio / comments

"It's much more fun to talk about shoes and Caravaggio
than the pluperfect subjunctive."

That's what my student Fiona said when I asked her what
surprised her most about our work together.

This is the Italian most adults never learn from apps or
textbooks: the language of real life. The way Italians
actually talk about their day, their loves, their small
obsessions.

Grammar matters. But grammar without context is just
homework. Italian as it's lived — through clothes and art
and family lunches and the unspoken rules — is what makes
it stick.

And it's a lot more fun.

If you've been "doing Italian" with Duolingo for months
and still feel like an outsider, you're probably missing
this part.

Private coaching for adults — link in the first comment.

She had the Italian.
She had the children at the local preschool.

And she was still sending messages she didn't mean to send.

This is the part nobody talks about: the unspoken codes
underneath the language, the difference between speaking
and being understood.

The full conversation with Marcella Carpenter is on YouTube — link in
the comments.

italianbylara.com

"I'm missing the social cues — not just the language."

The moment Marcella realized that fluency wasn't what was holding
her back from belonging in Sicily.

Full interview → https://youtu.be/AxgiZAqY5TA?si=ozlRQ33bDNbdKGEb

italianbylara.com