Do you want to gain more confidence in your Italian speaking skills? As my nonno used to say, “How does an ant eat an elephant? One bite at a time!”
I’m Claudia and I help language lovers feel more confident taking tiny steps to discover the joys of communicating in Italian and Spanish.

I firmly believe in the power of taking tiny steps to achieve big dreams. Giving yourself even five minutes a day to connect with your “Italian you” is a big win! This means that even the busiest of bees can start their journey to fluency, con piccoli passi (with tiny steps). I also believe it’s essential to have fun in the process and not take yourself too seriously. I consider it an honour to be part of someone’s learning journey.

As a language lover myself, I understand the process of learning a new language and the importance of taking these tiny steps. I started out as an opera singer and I’m fluent in four languages (Spanish, English, Italian, and French), conversational in two more (German and Quechua), and have sung in over twelve languages in total!

I have a Laurea (BA) in “Letteratura, Musica e Spettacolo” from the University of Rome “La Sapienza” and a teaching qualification (CELTA) from Cambridge University. I’ve been teaching English, Spanish, and Italian for over 15 years and have taught students between the ages of 5 and 85. It’s never too late to start, and living proof is one of my favourite students: my beautiful suocera (mother-in-law), who started from ciao when she was 80 years old. Now, she can order her coffee and apricot croissants, her pizza, and buy SO MUCH WOOL at the market, all in Italian.

A few random facts about me:

- I actually have Italian relatives on both sides of my family, and they come from all over Italy. I’ve met many of them through the years.

- I taught myself to crochet, and I enjoy making little weird animals and hats. I tried, but I couldn’t get into knitting. My beautiful suocera, an expert knitter, believes there’s still hope. I made 20 little cat keychains to donate to a local cat shelter.

- My husband and I volunteer at that cat shelter. We met them when they helped us rehome stray cats from our village.

- We kept three of those cats. One has one eye, and his name is Pirate.

- I have two language-teaching YouTube channels, and Pirate and many of the kittens we’ve fostered feature in them.

- Amsterdam has a special place in my heart. I met my husband there when I was singing at a mutual friend’s wedding. It’s been 13 years that the poor man has endured my phone calls in Spanglitalian with my mother (the only other person I know fluent in Spanish, English, and Italian).

- I’m a part-time professional singer, and the weirdest language I’ve sung in is a Peruvian jungle language called Kampa. At the moment, I’m part of a show in Piedmontese, one of the local dialects, so there’s that too.

A bit more about me and why Spanglitalian?

I was born in Peru and grew up surrounded by Italian and English language and culture as my nonna was Italian and I attended the British school in Lima. My life has always kind of been in Spanglitalian!

I traveled to Italy to meet the family during my childhood and teenage years and finally, when I was 21 years old, I followed the calling of il bel paese and moved to Italy. I studied to become an opera singer and completed a BA in Letteratura, Musica e Spettacolo at La Sapienza University in Rome. I later got a CELTA language teaching qualification from the University of Cambridge and started combining my two passions: singing and teaching languages. I got married to a very tall Englishman and lived in beautiful Devon for 10 years but then il bel paese called me back. So we now live in an Alpine village in Piedmont with our two moggies.

If you feel I would be a good fit to help you in your journey to find “your Italian you”, feel free to reach out at info@spanglitalianlanguages.com . Non vedo l’ora di conoscerti! (I can’t wait to meet you!)