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!)