My name is Richard Willmer. As you might notice from my name, I am not Italian, but rather, I am half-English and half-American. As I had to learn Italian rather than picking it up in childhood, I think I possibly have a clearer insight into the mechanism of the language than a native speaker would. As I have learnt several languages over the years, I have been able to draw parallels between Italian and, say, German or Russian.

Besides Italian and English, I speak several other languages. Most of these I learnt taking courses and living in the countries where they are spoken, though the scant Russian I know, I have learnt alone.
I learnt Spanish at the Instituto Cervantes, whose headquarters are in Alcalá de Henares, in Spain and I took the D.E.L.E there.

German I learnt in thee different places: at the Goethe Institut, whose headquarters are in Munich, Germany; I spent four months in Stuttgart, where I improved my German at the Anglo-German Institute and finally I took additional lessons, once I came back to Florence, at the Deutsches Institut in Florence, a private school with some agreements with the Goethe Institut.