Lesson two - Lezione due: Mi Conoscerete un Po' di Piu!

Buongiorno!!! Ciao a tutti! Benvenuti alla seconda lezione. Alright so I was thinking il testo rosso fa un po' male agli occhi. (Red text hurts the eyes a bit.) So I will be writing mostly in black. Ok, so in this lesson, I will be continuing the talk about myself. I'm going to be talking about a phrase that's a little shorter than the last one. Now, get ready....preparatevi....E VIA!


Mi piacciono le fragole.
I like strawberries.
mee PYACH-own-oh leh FRAG-ol-eh 
 
Allora, there's a verb called piacere and that means "to please", but most of the time it means "to like". When you want to say, "I like that girl", for example, you would say mi piace quella ragazza. Now what I just said is "That girl pleases me", but it generally means "I like that girl." In fact, whenever an Italian says that they like something, they literally say that that thing pleases them. So yes, strawberries please me. I like strawberries. See the connection?

Now, when you say you like ONE thing, it's mi piace. When you say you like more than one thing, it's mi piacciono, plural. Mi piace la ragazza, Mi piacciono le ragazze. This brings me to my next point: articles. Articles are basically the word "the". In English, there's only one word for "the". In Italian, there's a whopping SEVEN!: il, lo, i, gli, la, le, l'! Il, lo, la, and l' are singular. I, gli, and le are plural. Luckily, they aren't too hard to apply. Let's take the word fragola. It's a feminine word so the appropriate article is la fragola. When you want to say "the strawberrIES", you say LE fragolE, and it becomes plural. You also need to take the final A of that feminine noun and change it to E. Other examples:

la casa ---> le case (the house, the houses)
la mela ---> le mele (the apple, the apples)
la pera ---> le pere (the pear, the pears)
la strega ---> le streghe (the witch, the witches)

...And so on. Now for the masculine articles.  Like my examples in the last lesson demonstrate (appartamenti, castelli, anni), masculine nouns ending in O change to I in the plural. But what articles do you use?? IL is for masc. singular nouns starting with a consonant: Il castello, il cane (the dog), il gatto (the cat), il ragazzo (the boy). Plural-wise, you use either i or gli. I is for plural masc. nouns that start with a consonant: i cani, i ragazzi, i gatti, i castelli... Gli is for masc. plural nouns that start with a vowel!: gli appartamenti, gli anni, gli uccelli (the birds)...

So now what about lo and l'??  Lo is for masculine singular nouns that start with S + consonant, Z, GN, or PS. In the plural, the article used is gli:

lo sconto ---> gli sconti (the discount, the discounts)
lo stupido ---> gli stupidi (the stupid guy, the stupid guys)
lo zio ---> gli zii (the uncle, the uncles) (zii also means "aunt and uncles" together, loh dsee-oh, lyee dsee)
lo gnomo ---> gli gnomi (the gnome, the gnomes) (loh nyoh-moh, lyee nyom-ee)
lo psicopatico ---> gli psicopatici (the psycho, the psychos) (pronounce the P in psicopatico!! It's not like English psycho!)

And finally, l'. L' is used for BOTH feminine AND masculine singular nouns when it starts with a vowel: il appartamento l'appartamento, la acqua l'acqua (the water, feminine, lah-kWah), il amico l'amico (the male friend), la amica l'amica (the female friend), il uccello l'uccello (the bird), il elefante l'elefante (the elephant), il idiota l'idiota (the idiot). In the plural, however, gli appartamenti, le acque (leh ah-kWeh), gli amici, le amiche, gli uccelli, gli elefanti, gli idioti. Also, some nouns in Italian end in E in the singular and can be masculine OR freminine. In the plural, that final E becomes an I, but the articles are the same as if it ended in A or O:

la canzone (feminine) ---> le canzoni (the song, the songs)
 l'estate (feminine) ---> le estati (the summer, the summers)
l'arte (feminine) ---> le arti (the art, the arts)
l'elefante (masculine) ---> gli elefanti (the elephant, the elephants)

Notes: pronunciation of Z and ZZ: in Italian one Z sounds like the DS in English "lids". Two ZZ sound like in pizza: TTTSS (harder, sharper Z).
Any word with GLI in it: the G is silent. So voglia (want) sounds like vol-yah. Gli (the) is lyee. Make an L sound then say "ye" like in Old English.
Words that have the article l' merge into the word when pronouncing. So l'amico is lam-ee-coh.
QU + i, o, a, or e is pronounced like the QUEE in English "queen". So the Italian qui (here) is kwee, not key (that's where CH is used: chi (who) is kee.) Qua (another word for "here") is kwah, not kah.
Even though idiota ends in A, in the plural it changes to I, because an idiot can be male or female (it's neuter in other words.) Another example of this is l'artista ----> gli artisti (the artist, the artists).

Vocabolario:

piacere to like/please pyah-CHER-eh
fragola strawberry FRAG-ol-ah
cioccolato chocolate choh-coh-LAWT-oh
vaniglia vanilla van-eel-yah
ciliegia cherry chee-LYED-jah
limone lemon lee-MON-eh
mela apple meh-lah
pera pear per-ah
arancia orange ar-AN-chah
uva grape oo-vah
lima lime lee-mah
melone melon mel-on-eh
pomodoro tomato pom-oh-dor-oh 
pesca peach peh-scah 
ragazzo boy/boyfriend rag-aht-tsoh
ragazza girl/girlfriend rag-aht-tsah
cane dog can-eh
gatto cat gat-toh
uccello bird oo-CHEL-loh
strega witch streg-ah
casa house cah-zah (not cassssssah, but the S is a little more like in English "has")
appartamento appartment ap-part-ah-ment-oh
castello castle cas-TEL-loh
canzone song can-dson-eh
estate summer eh-stawt-eh
acqua water ah-kwah
amico male friend ah-mee-coh
amica female friend ah-mee-cah
stupido stupid stoo-peed-oh
idiota idiot ee-dee-oht-ah
elefante elephant el-eh-fan-teh
artista artist art-ee-stah  
  
Stress the capitalized part. Now, in closing, I want you to ask this question to yourself in Italian and answer it in Italian: Che frutta (what fruit) ti piace?

Ciao! Bacioni da me! Ci vediamo alla prossima lezione! (Bye! Kisses from me! We'll see each other at the next lesson!)

  

  



 

Lesson one - Lezione uno

Ciao! Welcome to my blog for learning Italian! BENVENUTI! This is my first ever blog, so I hope I'm doing everything right! haha I think the best way to start is by writing some sample sentences about my life in Italian and English, and I'll explain things along the way for each one! I'll get into basics (hello, how are you?) later, ma prima parlero' un po' di me (but first I will talk a bit about me).

1. Ciao, mi chiamo Mike (Michele in italiano) e ho 19 anni.
Hi, my name is Mike (Michele in Italian) and I am 19 years old.
This is simple enough, right? First off, "ciao" is a very common informal way to say "hi". People from all over the world use it, and it appears in many languages, but it actually comes from Italian! It's pronounced: chaow. Now, whenever you see the letter C before i or e, you pronounce it like English "ch". For example, certo (sure/of course!) is cher-toh.  Cinema (movie theater) is cheen-em-ah, not like sinima in English! Also, when you see "cie", you pronounce it as one syllable. So, cielo (sky) is chel-oh, not chyel-oh. ATTENZIONE! (BE CAREFUL!) Now when you see an S before "ci" or "ce", you simply soften the "ch", so it makes "sh". A famous example is the musical term crescendo (growing). It is cresh-end-oh. Adesso vi lasciero' masticare un po' queste regole della pronuncia!  (Now I'll let you chew a bit on these pronunciation rules!) 

Other ways to say "hello" depend on the day. Buon giorno (good morning, bwon djor-noh) is used in the morning and early after noon till about 4. Buona sera (good evening, bwon-ah ser-ah) is for the early evening when you go to someone's house around 5:00 noon till the time you go to bed. When you leave someone's house for the night, you say buona notte (good night, bwon-ah not-teh). So remember it like this: Questa sera andro' a vedere il mio amico Luigi a casa sua. (This evening I will go see my friend Luigi at his house.) Questa notte dormiro'. (Tonight I'll sleep.)

Verb: chiamare. This is "to call" and sounds like kyam-ar-eh. In Italian CH + i or e is pronounced "KK", unlike in English. When you see SCH, you just take the regular "kk" sound and add an S sound before it: sk. So, remember: chiamare is Kyam-ar-eh. Scheletro (skeleton) is SKel-eh-troh. Now, to say "my name is" you say: MI chiamo. You can't just say "chiamo..." as that means "I call." MI means "myself", so "mi chiamo" is "I call myself/my name is..." IO MI chiamo Michele, TU TI chiami Laura, LUI SI chiama Marco, LEI SI chiama Paola, NOI CI chiamiamo Michele e Laura, VOI VI chiamate Tiziano e Paola, LORO SI chiamano Lucia, Guido, e Damiano.

We have the verb: chiamare. We have to conjugate it depending on who does the action. We have the personal pronouns io (I), tu (you), lui/lei (he/she), noi (we), voi (you all), loro (they). We also need to tack on different endings to the root of the verb: chiam-. This is called conjugation. Study the following:
IO chiamO mia sorella. (I call my sister.)
TU chiamI Laura.  (You call Laura.)
LUI/LEI chiamA me. (He/She calls me.)
NOI chiamIAMO Lucia. (We call Lucia.)
VOI chiamATE Marco.  (You guys call Marco.)
LORO chiamANO il fratello di Damiano.  (They call Damiano's brother.)
Those endings are for every verb that ends in -ARE. Mangiare, cantare, andare, ballare, parlare ect. all have those endings at the end of the verb root. Now look at this:
To say "I call myself", I need "mi" before "chiamo" in order to say, "I call myself." Now the others are:
IO MI (I...myself)
TU TI (you...yourself)
LUI/LEI SI (he/she...him/herself)
NOI CI (we...ourselves)
VOI VI (you all...yourselves)
LORO SI (they...themselves) 

Next, we have e (and). This becomes ed before words starting with vowels.

Ho is "I have" and comes from the verb avere.

io ho
tu hai
lui/lei ha
noi abbiamo
voi avete
loro hanno

Do not pronounce the H in those words! They should sound like oh, ai, ah, annoh. This next thing might sound strange, but to say "I am....years old" you are actually saying "I HAVE....years." That is why we use avere (to have) and not essere (to be). Io sono 19 anni does not make any sense! Attenzione!

19 is diciannove in Italian and sounds like dee-CHan-nov-eh.

Anni is "years". One year is anno. The final O of Italian masculine nouns changes to I in the plural. For example: appartamento (appartment) ---> appartamenti. Castello (castle) ---> castelli. Also, look at the double NN. Many words in Italian have double letters and most every letter can be doubled in Italian, except maybe H and Q. It is very important that you double letters when you need to! It could mean the difference between one word and another. For example, anno has double NN and means "year". But if you write or say ano, well then you're talking about assholes! I'm serious! Ano means "anus". ANNo means "year". Attenzione!!! You also need pronounce double letters slightly different. Anno is annnnnnnnnnnnnnn-oh. Ok, you don't need to put that much influence, but you definitely need to make it clear when you are talking about years and when you are talking about your anus. hahaha I told you I was going to make this funny! When saying the word anno, you can try pronouncing it like English "Alan knows": al-ANNOws. Since two N sounds follow each other, the N in "Alan" and in "knows" merge together and become one solid NNNNN sound. That is how you want to pronounce any double letter in Italian.  Keep your tongue pressed to the top of your mouth a little longer than for single letters. And then ano, of course, is just ah-noh. ;)

VOCABOLARIO:

mattina (sometimes mattino) morning
giorno  day
pomeriggio afternoon pom-eh-REED-joh
sera evening
notte night
anno year
chiamare to call
avere to have
ciao hi

'E tutto per oggi! That's all for today! CIAO!        

Introduction - Introduzione

So this is my first ever post!  Why did I make this blog?  Well, because I want to spread the knowledge of Italian, a language that I have spoken pretty much all my life that I love.

Che cos'ha l'italiano che mi affascina? (What fascinates me about Italian?)
 Italian is just a really expressive, romantic language. I love expressing myself in it.  I love picking the words to say something. I know that might not make sense, but I don't know how else to put it.  I just like speaking it in general. It's very clear-cut and simple. And when I hear it in movies or in music, I just want to speak it more and more! This blog is dedicated to anyone who has ever wanted to learn to speak Italian. I will explain each word, each piece of grammar the best way I know how. I'll also talk about culture of Italy, which is a very rich, unique, and interesting country! Italy has always reminded me of a lush, beautiful land from a fairytale. It has many castles, stadiums, and forts from millions of years ago - from when the Ancient Romans were around! It's incredible that what they saw through their eyes is what is still there now, granted they're not as new-looking as back then, but that's what makes them so special. Anyways, all these preserved structures can be found all over Italy, in towns as well as on cliffs overlooking the sea! And there are so many places in Italy where you can drive your car on a road overlooking ocean! These are things I don't think you can see anywhere else in the world. Not like in Italy. Even the way Italians speak! The accent and cadence makes you think of romance and Romeo and Juliette-type fairytales. It just has a medieval, legendary, classical vibe to it. I hope anyone who wants to learn will find this blog useful. Buoni studi della lingua italiana! (Happy studing of the Italian language!)