Italian for Dummies. Italian For Dummies, Enhanced Edition. Authors: Clifford A. Hull, Steven R. Perkins, Tracy L. This practical, easy-to-follow guide will help you to be more fluent and comfortable in your Italian writing.
With the exercises and lessons featured in this book, you will be able master written communication in Italian. Find out how to: Navigate grammar, language nuances, and verb tenses Conjugate verbs and understand the basics of gender Say and spell words correctly Order words correctly Answer questions and form complete sentences Use articles where necessary Understand the various parts of speech Write and speak Italian like a native Complete with lists of ten facts to remember about Italian grammar and ten subtle terminology distinctions, Intermediate Italian For Dummies is your one-stop guide to taking your Italian skills to the next level and improving upon what you already know about this widely spoken language.
Score: 4. This concise, easy-to-use guide helps travelers and students get up to speed fast on conversational Italian, showcasing the most commonly used words and phrases. Francesca Romana Onofri is an Italian translator and teacher. Karen Moller is a writer who has worked on several Italian-language projects for Berlitz. Italian wine. This book shows their love for Italy, the Italian producers, and the great marriage of local foods with local wines.
Messa: Carlo Messa. Rossi: Piacere, Marco Rossi. Pertini: Piacere, sono Paola Pertini. Salvi: Lieta di conoscerla. Anna Salvi. Melis: Mi chiamo Carlo Melis, piacere. Foschi: Molto lieto, Silvio Foschi. Children and young people forego ceremony and introduce themselves more casually, though still politely — something like this: Ciao!
Sono Giulio. E io sono Giulia, piacere. The following example offers a very informal introduction, used only in a very casual situation, such as on the beach or at a club: Come ti chiami? Mario: Grazie. Scusa, ma non sei la sorella di Gianni? Patrizia: Si. Mario: Mi chiamo Mario. Gioco a calcio con Gianni. Mario: Ti disturbo?
Patrizia: No, per niente. Noh pehr nee-ehn-teh. No, not at all. Sto aspettando due amici. Introducing other people Sometimes you not only have to introduce yourself, but also introduce someone to your friends or to other people.
The following vocabulary may be helpful in making introductions. Ti presento mia moglie, Teresa. Le presento mia suocera, Mary. Here, Mrs. Ponti introduces a new colleague to one of her co-workers. Note the abbreviation for signora. Signora Bruni, Le presento il signor Rossi. Here Teresa bumps into her old friend Marinella.
Both are married now and introduce their husbands. Marinella: Ciao, Teresa, come stai? How are you? Teresa: Bene, grazie. Well, thank you. Sono contenta di vederti! Marinella, ti presento mio marito Giancarlo. Marinella: Ciao, Giancarlo. Giancarlo: Piacere. Gianni: Piacere. Getting Acquainted Introducing yourself is the first step in getting to know someone. If you get a good feeling about the person and want to speak more, a conversation usually follows the introduction. This section tells you about the different topics you might talk about to get to know each other.
Finding out whether someone speaks Italian Of course you will want to practice your Italian as soon as you get to Italy. You have an opportunity to try out your newly acquired smattering of Italian. Parla italiano? Because Carmen is not Italian, although she lives in Italy, Ilaria is curious to know how many languages she speaks.
Ilaria: Quante lingue parli? Carmen: Tre: italiano, spagnolo e tedesco. Talking about where you come from You know how interesting meeting people from other countries and nationalities can be. Where are you coming from; in this instance, where are you from?
Now you can play with these phrases. You can insert the names of continents, countries, cities, or places. Il signor Dadina is a curious person: Chapter 3: Buongiorno! Tarroni: Sono di Perugia. If you want to talk about provenance, the adjectives denoting nationalities come in handy. Because they are strangers, their exchange is in the formal form. Walsh: Sono canadese. Bennati: Di dove esattamente? Walsh: Di Montreal. Are you Italian?
In English, you must put the pronoun I, you, he, she, we, and so on in front of the verb. You may have noticed that this is not the case in Italian. Because the verb form is different for each pronoun, you can easily leave out the pronoun — you understand who is meant from the verb ending and from the context. Use adjectives ending in -o singular and -i plural to refer to males, and adjectives ending in -a singular and -e plural to refer to females.
Adjectives that end in -e in the singular refer to both males and females and end in the plural with -i. Some adjectives indicating nationality end with -e: This form is both feminine and masculine. Table gives some examples. England Chapter 3: Buongiorno! Sweden In other cases, nationalities have feminine, masculine, plural feminine, and plural masculine forms, and end in a, o, e, i, as Table shows.
The same is true for all countries. The following examples give you more practice with this construction. Tokiko: Ti piace Venezia? Io sono giapponese. I am Japanese. This usually means that the person asking is going to be treating. Francesca: Ci vediamo per cena questa sera? Fill in the blanks in the Italian, using the following phrases.
Good afternoon, Ms. Very well, thank you, and you? Gayle: Bene, grazie. Fine, thanks. The pleasure is mine. You can see how numbers are used throughout this book, for example in Chapters 7 and Counting Numbers Every language follows a certain scheme to formulate higher numbers. The same is true for higher numbers — like trecentoventidue treh-chehn-toh-vehn-tee-dooh-eh three hundred and twenty-two and duemilatrecentoventidue dooh-eh-mee-lah-treh-chehn-toh-vehn-tee-dooh-eh two thousand three hundred and twenty-two.
One thing merits some further explanation: When two vowels meet this happens frequently with uno [ooh-noh] [one] and otto [oht-toh] [eight] you eliminate the first vowel as in vent i uno vehn-tooh-noh twenty-one and quarant a otto kwah-rahn-toht-toh forty-eight.
So far so good. The numbers from 11 to 19 follow their own rules: undici oohn-dee-chee eleven , dodici doh-dee-chee twelve , tredici trehdee-chee thirteen , quattordici kwaht-tohr-dee-chee fourteen , quindici kween-dee-chee fifteen , sedici seh-dee-chee sixteen , diciassette deechahs-seht-teh seventeen , diciotto dee-choht-toh eighteen , and diciannove dee-chahn-noh-veh nineteen.
In Italian you cannot express a decade in just one word — you use a phrase. One other thing to keep in mind is that the plural of mille meel-leh one thousand is mila mee-lah , as in duemila dooh-eh-mee-lah two thousand. Table gives you enough numbers so that you can form the ones on your own not included here. Manzoni wrote in the s. The Renaissance was in the 15th and 16th centuries — literally, s and s. Times of Day and Days of the Week Arranging your social life — whether you want to go to a performance or invite someone to a party — requires knowing the days of the week and times of the day.
Table gives you the days of the week and the abbreviations for them. You can do an online search for the title of the song, and sing along with it. This is a fun way to practice your pronunciation!! Teacher: Bravo. Today is Thursday: what day is tomorrow? Now the teacher is talking to her colleagues. Colleague: Quando parti per le vacanze? Teacher: Sabato, dopodomani. You missed it! Table Months Italian Pronunciation Translation gennaio gehn-nahy-oh January febbraio fehb-brahy-oh February marzo mahr-tsoh March aprile ah-pree-leh April maggio mahj-joh May giugno jooh-nyoh June luglio looh-lyoh July agosto ah-gohs-toh August settembre seht-tehm-breh September ottobre oht-toh-breh October novembre noh-vehm-breh November dicembre dee-chehm-breh December Here is a useful rhyme that most Italians learn some version of.
This might help you to remember and pronounce some of the months and numbers. You can listen and repeat as much as you want!
Trenta giorni ha novembre con aprile, giugno e settembre. Tutti gli altri ne han trentuno. Chapter 4: Getting Your Numbers and Time Straight trehn-tah johr-nee ah noh-vehm-breh kohn ah-pree-leh jooh-nyoh eh sehttehm-breh. Dee vehn-toht-toh cheh neh ooh-noh. Tooht-tee lyee ahl-tree neh ahn trehn-tooh-noh. Thirty days have November, April, June, and September. With 28 there is but one.
All the rest have thirty-one. This is also the same way to ask for the day. Or Quanti ne abbiamo oggi? Here is an important difference between saying the date in English and in Italian.
The word order is reversed in Italian. To ask when something is occurring, just use the word quando qwahn-doh when. Quando parti per la Sicilia? Or to ask when someone was born: Quando sei nata? Note: I gave the past participle a feminine ending nata.
Asking for the time You can ask for the time in two interchangeable ways: 1. Che ore sono? If the time is plural i. Sono le due. Sono le diciotto. Did you notice the use of military time in the previous example?
In Italy, the hour clock is used all the time, from movie times to plane and train schedules. Frequently we ask what time something begins. Look here: A che ora inizia la partita? And to answer. Alle dieci. A mezzogiorno. Using the hour clock All schedules and posted time in Italy use a hour clock, from trains and planes, to movies to concerts.
The word for clock and watch is orologio oh-roh-loh-joh. So from midnight to noon the hours are the same, but at p. Here are some options: le sei e trentasette leh sey eh trehntah-seht-teh a.
And the same system goes for shop and museum hours, buses, and movie and theater times. Daniele: Certo! Inizia alle 10 di sera. Of course!
It starts at p. Giancarlo: A proposito, che ore sono adesso? Daniele: Sono le due e mezzo in punto. Giancarlo: O dio! Because the weather is such an important topic, you must be armed with the necessary vocabulary. In this section, we talk about the quattro stagioni kwaht-troh stah-joh-nee four seasons. During at least three of the four seasons, it has a mild climate and gets a lot of sun.
The summers are for the most part warm — sometimes too hot. The winters can be very cold, but snow is rare, except for primarily in the mountains of north and central Italy, but as far south as Calabria. Summer in the cities is generally terribly hot, so most Italians take their vacation in August and flee to cooler places: the sea or the lakes or the mountains. As a matter of fact, in August, it is hard to find actual residents in the big cities.
The only people you find there are likely to be tourists and those Italians who have to work. The fact that both the famous concertos by Antonio Vivaldi ahn-toh-nee-oh vee-vahl-dee and an oh-so-good pizza are named Quattro stagioni is no accident. Both are subdivided into four parts, and each part refers to one season.
Brancato and Ms. Roe, seatmates on a plane, are talking about the weather. Roe: Le piace Milano? Roe: Fa molto freddo? Roe: E piove molto, no? Brancato: Temperato, mediterraneo. Roe: Non fa mai freddo? Brancato: Quasi mai. An expression that shows a difference between cultures is: Una rondine non fa primavera ooh-nah-rohn-dee-neh nohn fah pree-mah-veh-rah One swallow does not a summer make.
Note the difference; in English, the expression refers to summer; in Italian it refers to spring. This difference may be due to the fact that the birds come earlier in Italy and later to other countries.
Roe, airplane seatmates, are still talking about the weather. Brancato: Molto calda e lunga. Roe: E la primavera? Brancato: La mia stagione preferita. Roe: Davvero? Da morire dah moh-ree-reh deadly is a typical expression used for emphasis in Italian. Voice over the loudspeaker: Signore e Signori! Brancato: Che succede? Voice: Stiamo atterrando a Milano Malpensa.
Brancato: Meno male! Roe: Come al solito! You probably know that in Europe the Celsius scale is used to measure temperature. For example, if a millionaire wins the lottery, you may say piove sul bagnato to indicate your feeling that you should have won instead. Find the song online, listen to it, and sing along to practice your Italian!! This usually costs cinquanta centesimi cheen-qwahn-tah chehn-teh-zee-mee 50 cents. You will get your weight in chili kee-lee kilos , which you then have to multiply by 2.
Similarly, if you decide you need to buy some very expensive dried funghi porcini foohn-gee pohr-chee-nee porcini mushrooms or tartufi tahr-tooh-fee truffles , you will ask for those by weight, in this case, grammi grahm-mee grams. So, incrementally, measures of weight go as follows: milligrammo meel-lee-grahm-moh milligram ; grammo grahm-moh gram ; ettogrammo eht-toh-grahm-moh hectogram ; chilogrammo kee-loh-grahm-moh kilogram ; quintale kwin-tah-leh quintal ; tonnellata tohn-nehl-lah-tah ton.
Then there are the millilitro meel-lee-lee-troh milliliter and litro lee-troh liter with mezzo litro medz-zoh lee-troh half liter also thrown in here for those individual-serving water bottles.
Here is a piece of her first dinner conversation with her new host family: They are getting to know each other. Is she glad she learned her numbers! Sarah: Ho un fratello e due sorelle. Host Mom: Quanti anni hanno? Sarah: Mio fratello David ha dodici anni.
Mia sorella Rebecca ne ha diciannove, e mia sorella Naomi ne ha My sister Rebecca is 19 and my sister Naomi is Sarah: Il ventidue maggio. Host Mom: Quanto dista casa tua da New York? How far is your house from New York? O che bel cane! What kind of dog is he? Sarah: Quanto pesa? Rate this product: 2. One-line summary. Francesca Romana Onofri is an Italian translator and teacher. Karen Moller is a writer who has worked on several Italian-language projects for Berlitz.
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