Introduction : Italian in Malta

Hi Paolo. I'm arriving in Malta in March. My family is Italian. I used to speak a little Italian long time ago but my Italian is a bit rusty. Are there any Italian communities or neighborhoods in Malta like Little Italy in NY?

I was told that Italians are everywhere, but I wonder if there are any spaces to more actively engage with the community.

Hi Paolo,
I fully agree, you cannot have only sunshine without shadow 

As non-Maltese one will never understand the mentality here, even Maltese sometimes struggle with that 

Malta offers quite a lot for a decent living, language, jobs, safety, cost of living and much more. It's up to everyone's individual discretion, whether or not you manage to compensate the disadvantages.
It's not a place for everyone. And that's good as it is. To be honest, I would rather recommend Malta as a place for living than for spending the holiday (in this case I would recommend Sicily, Sardinia ...)

During winter months you can go with the catamaran to Pozzallo for only 40 Euros, you can fly to Catania for only around 50 Euros and in lots of places in Europe for up from 20 Euros with budget airlines. In summer you have even more choice of destinations abroad.

When it comes to driving, you can take your car or motorcycle to Sicily or rent a car there for only 10 Euros a day. Sicily/Calabria is a perfect motorcycle destination even for short trips. For a longer tour you can take the ferry from Trapani or Palermo to Cagliari.
Or you buy a car/motorcycle somewhere abroad and make a nice trip down to Malta.
Once you figured out the many opportunities, you only have to find a solution for your limited days of annual leave    ... my tip: take unpaid leave once you've finished your 24 days. Money is not everything ... 

Hi matm911.
Thank you for your message which contains many useful information and tips for any interested reader.
Bye for now.
Paolo

Hi Aldo,
There are approx. six thousands Italians residing in Malta. There is not really a specific area on which you can find Italians living there...there is no "little Italy at all...fortunately! Italians living in Malta are spread all over the two main islands, Malta and Gozo and, of course, the majority live in Malta.
If you are interested in meeting other Italians and practice the language, a good start might be to become a member of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura, located in Valletta (subscription fee is less than 15 Euro per year).
They send to all members a monthly program of the activities organised by them and if interested, you can borrow books or other material to improve your Italian.
When you arrive in Malta, get in touch and if I am not overseas for my job, we can have a coffee and a good chat, in English, French or Italian.
Take care
Paolo

Maltese is descended from Siculo-Arabic, a dialect which developed in Malta, Sicily and Southern Italy following the Arab conquest of the area in the ninth century. References to Maltese appear as early as the fourteenth century, when a group of Benedictine Monks had to renounce building a monastery on the island because they could not understand the local language. The first written document we know of in Maltese date's from the 15th century and is a poem called 'Il Cantilena' by Pietro Caxara. In 1640 a French knight called Francois de Vion Thezan Court wrote up the first Maltese dictionary, which contains notes on the Maltese grammar and a section on how to give orders to soldiers.

Maltese uses the Roman alphabet with some additional letters such as the ż (also used in Polish), ċ, ġ, ħ, and għ. It is the only Semitic language in the world that is written with the Latin alphabet. About half of the Maltese vocabulary is derived from Italian and Sicilian and approximately 20% from English. There are an estimated 371,000 Maltese speakers in the World (2007) of whom 300,000 live in Malta. Many variations and dialects of the language exist, despite the small size of the island. However, these distinctions have tended to decrease under the influence of modern and centralised media.

371,000 were 1975, not 2007 ... in 2012 there were estimated 520,000 native Maltese speakers:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maltese_l … sification

Hello everyone,

I'm non EU citizen married to an Italian citizen in Italy and I have already applied for my Italian resident card as a spouse of an Italian citizen but the police in charge told us to come back in 3 months later.

We are planning of moving to Malta this month and start looking for jobs but don't know anything about it.
1. She has her EU passport
2. our marriage certificate in Italian
3. I have my non EU passport.
She have already lived in UK for over 2 years before coming house for us to marry and has experienced as Assistant nursing care while I'm into IT support.

We live in Napoli
Flight or Ferry to Malta?
Please help