Italienisch Italienisch
The emphasis for this lesson is school, either gradeschool, secondary school, or at a university, and what you do or find there. The numbers from 100 to 999999 are covered, regular 1st (-are) verb conjugation is introduced, you'll learn some question-and-answer words, and you'll find out how to tell time in Italian.
NOUNS
VERBS
INTERROGATIVES
CONJUNCTIONS
PREPOSITIONS
ADJECTIVES
All Italian verbs fall into one of three categories (conjugations) - they either end in are, ere, or ire. Within each category, there are regular and irregular verbs. Regular verbs all conjugate with a similar pattern - all the new verbs in this lesson are regular (as you'll see soon). Irregular verbs don't follow a pattern, and each verb's conjugation has to be memorized separately - the two verbs you learned in Lesson 2, essere and stare are irregular.
Here are the new verbs for this lesson: amare, ascoltare, studiare, parlare, ritornare, lavorare. These are all regular -are verbs. Here are the present-tense (present indicative) conjugations of them all:
Regular verbs are made up of a body (parl), and a suffix (are). To conjugate regular verbs, replace the infinitive suffix (are, ere, ire) with the correct conjugation suffix from the example conjugation for parlare above. For example, take amare, and conjugate it:
All verbs can be split into a body/suffix pair, but only regular verbs follow these patterns. There are 3 different regular-verb patterns - one for -are verbs, one for -ere verbs, and one for -ire verbs. (In the next lesson, we'll learn the rules for regular -ere and -ire verbs.) In summary, to conjugate any regular -are verb in the present (present indicative) tense, remove the -are suffix, and add one of the following (depending on who is the subject of the verb):
Here are complete conjugations of 2 more verbs from this lesson:
Now that we have the conjugation for these regular -are verbs, we can make sentences with them, like this:
In a few of the sentences above, the preposition a is used, as in Essi studiano alle otto. The preposition a translates to the English "at" or "to", depending on the sentence. The preceeding sentence ("essi studiano...") is an example of a meaning "at". The sentence io ritorno all'università is an example of a meaning "to". When the a comes before an article, as in io ritorno a la università, the a and the la combine to form alla. This is the so-called articulated preposition. Moreover, if the next noun begins with a wovel, the last vowel of the articulated preposition falls and is replaced by an apostrophe So the correct way to write the preceeding sentence is: io ritorno all'università.
Note that the English "at" may translate to either a or in in Italian, depending on the sentence. In is usually used to refer to something being at something else, such as sono in università - "I'm at the university". A usually refers to a state or condition (sort of) of something, such as "at great speed", or when referring to time, such as alla una ("at one o'clock").
In two more cases, the a isn't either of the above two meanings, but is used for English "to". One case is when a motion to somewhere is involved, like in "Io vado all'università" (I go to the university, the verb used is irregular). Another one is when a person or name of a place is the destination of a verb, an a is placed before the object, as in La professoressa parla agli studenti. ("The teacher talks to the students"). The preposition a is NOT needed for transitive verbs (when the object is direct, as in Io amo Tania ("I love Tania").
If you've looked at the numbers in the New Words section, you may already have seen some patterns developing in Italian numbers. First, the numbers 100, 200, 300, etc., all have a similar form - cento, duecento, trecento... If you look carefully, and remember the numbers 2 through 9, you'll see that each hundred above 100 is just "two hundred" (duecento), "three hundred" (trecento), and so on. To form numbers in between the hundreds, you use the numbers 1-99 you learned in the last 2 lessons, but add the hundreds on to the front. Eleven is undici, 111 is centoundici. Three-hundred and twenty is trecentoventi, and so on. Putting spaces between parts of a compound number is optional.
Mille is Italian for 1.000. No, this isn't "one point zero zero zero zero", this is one-thousand. English uses a comma to separate thousands, millions, etc., in a number. Italian traditionally use the period (".") instead. In English, we would expect to see this number: 12,399,100. In Italian, the same number is written: 12.399.100. In much the same way, where English uses the period to denote numbers between whole numbers (as in "12.99"), Italian uses a comma ("12,99"), but this will be discussed in another lesson. In scientific practice we often use the English convention, particularly for fractionary numbers. Public administration uses the Italian convention, and this is what was taught in schools in my times.
Multiples of 1000 are treated as such - 2000 is duemila, literally "two thousands". Three thousand is tremila, and so on. This pattern is the same for thousands up to 999.000 (that's nine-hundred ninety-nine thousand), so that 50.000 is cinquantamila, and 231.000 is duecentotrentunomila. Combining these two rules for numbers, we can read numbers like 123.456 (centoventitremila quattrocentocinquantasei) and 784.675 ( settecentoottantaquattromila seicentosettantacinque). So now, practice saying things like:
Io ritorno in università alle tre. Telling time in Italian uses only 2 forms of the verb essere: é and sono. Italian for "it is one o'clock" is é la una. Times are always given in the feminine form because la ora ("hour", or "the time") is feminine. É la is only used if you are talking about one o'clock, since "one" is singular. For all other hours, you use sono le, as in sono le sei ("It's 6 o'clock"). Minutes are expressed as numbers after the hour, using either e or mens to represent after or before the hour, respectively. At 15 minutes before or after the hour, quarto ("a fourth") is commonly used instead of quindici ("fifteen"). Likewise, at 30 minutes after an hour, mezza ("half") is commonly used instead of trenta ("thirty"). Mezza is never used with meno. Here are some examples:
To say that something is "at" a certain time, use alla or alle:
To ask for the time in Italian, use Che ora é ("What time is it?"). To ask what time something happens at, use A che ora ? ("At what time...?") as in A che ora é la lezione ?, or A che ora ritorni in università ? ("What time do you return to the university?").
To differentiate between AM and PM when telling time, Italian may add del mattino ("in the morning"), del pomeriggio ("in the afternoon"), della (di) sera ("in the evening") and della notte ("in the night") to describe what time of day being referred to. Usually this is clear from the context and is not specified explicitly. Another possibility is to use a 24-hour clock (this is always done officially, e.g. when calling for meetings, in train and plane timetables, etc.). So 9 o'clock PM becomes sono le nove di sera, while 9AM is sono le nove della mattina, and 5PM is sono le cinque del pomeriggio.
There are many ways to ask questions in Italian, althoug there is no do-form as in English. The simplest form of a question is to use a regular sentence but either add a question mark (when written) or change the inflection (when spoken). Look at these 2 sentences:
When writing a question a question mark occurs at the end of the question. When speaking, you must change the inflection of the sentence. A normal sentence ends on a low inflection, as in "maRIsa sTUdia", with capital letters denoting syllable emphasis. When asking a question, the sentence ends with a high inflection, as in "maRIsa studIA", much the same as English questions.
It is also possible to change the word order when asking a question. Look at these sentences:
Both these sentences say the same thing, "Is Marisa studying Italian?" The subject of the sentence, namely Marisa, can be placed or at the end of the sentence, for questions only. The second sentence may mean "is she studying Italian or another language ?"
One other common way of asking a question is to add no ? or vero ? ("right?") to the end of a sentence. So the question above could also be written: Marisa studia italiano, vero ? ("Marisa is studying Italian, isn't she?" or "Marisa is studying Italian, right?").
All of these questions have implied either a yes or no answer - "Is Marisa studying?", "Is she studying Italian?" To ask questions that require more than a yes or no answer, you generally have to use a question word. Here is a list of some English question words and their Italian equivalents:
Each question word, or interrogative, works similarly to its English counterpart. Perhaps the easiest way to explain how to use them is through example sentences. Take a look at these:
Notice the similarity between English and Italian? Try making your own questions by translating the following English sentences (note that not all of them need a question word). Type in your answer in the text box after each sentence, then press the Translations button to compare what you typed to what the right answers are. (Answers for users without forms support.)
Here's your chance to see how much you know. All of these sentences you should be able to translate either from or to Italian, if you've gone through all three lessons. Type in your answer in the text box after each sentence, then press the Translations button to compare what you typed to what the right answers are. (Answers for users without forms support.)
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