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!