Young Hetty Thrale and her master of languages: Learning Italian between fiction and real life in eighteenth-century England

Among the works published by Giuseppe Baretti, the best-known teacher of Italian in eighteenth-century London, Easy phraseology stands out as a very special case, because this collection of dialogues in English and Italian was originally written for one single student, Hetty, the young daughter of Henry Thrale, a rich brewery proprietor. Many dialogues in Easy phraseology drew inspiration from what happened in the family and included comments on the way Hetty was being taught Italian, what she had to study and how. Therefore, as a fictionalised account of real-life teaching and learning of foreign languages in a rich upper-class family, and as the work of an experienced and enthusiastic master of languages, Easy phraseology provides reliable information on the way girls were actually taught foreign languages in late modern England – a topic for which there is little or no evidence.