Hclaw Italian - Lesson 2

Beginner Week 2 Previous Lesson: Italian Alphabet 101, Italian Pronunciation 101, Greetings, Word Gender, Counting 1-10, Prepositions and Question words, Question Words and Prepositions (Part I)

Vocabolario | Vocabulary I: Enough questions, I plead the fifth Last lesson we learned some question words including the following: Come? | How? Che? | What? Cosa? | What? cosa | thing Che cosa? | What? (think What thing?) Perché? | Why, Because Quale? | Which?

Chiunque? | Anyone? (Anyone at All?) Chi? | Who? A chi? | To whom? Con chi? | With whom? Di chi? | Whose? (Literally: Of who?) Quanto?/Quanta? | How much? Quanti?/Quante? | How many?

Ah, but dove did we leave off...what’s dove, you say? Dove? | Where? Dovè? | Where is? From this you might guess that either the accent or è means is, and if guessed the latter, you’d be right. è | is Is. A state of being. But without context, a question one might ask, as former President Clinton did, is what the meaning of is is. Does it tell you if something is a permanent quality or a passing condition? To answer that question, Italian has two different verbs. è | is (permanent) sta | is (transitionary)

Beginner Week 2 Remember last lesson we learned: Come sta? | How are you? (formal) Come stai? | How are you? (informal) Now you know what come means and what sta means, but what’s the difference with stai? Come sta? also means How is he/she/it? In Italian when we speak formally to someone, we talk with indirect discourse in the third person. Come sta? | How are you? (formal), How is he/she/it? What about me? What about everyone else? We’ve been taking baby steps, here’s the bigger picture: Essere: to be (permanent) sono | I am sei | You are (singular) è| He/She/You(formal) are siamo | We are siete | You are (plural) sono | They are

Stare: to be (transitionary) sto | I am stai | You are (singular) sta | He/She/You(formal) are stiamo | We are state | You are (plural) stanno | They are

You’ll notice that the verbs contain the pronoun information. Most commonly you will not need the pronouns. Should you wish to place stress on the subject, however, they do come in handy: io | I tu | you (singular) lui/lei/Lei | he/she/you (formal) noi | we voi | you (plural) loro | them (also superformal you plural, now antiquated) When using pronouns, they use the same syntax as English, before the verb. Therefore, io sono means I am, tu sei means you are, and so on.

Beginner Week 2 «Essere o non essere?» That is the ultimate question. At least it was for

Shakespeare’s Hamlet. o | or non | not Essere o non essere | To be or not to be Note that since Hamlet is contemplating suicide, he uses essere which exudes a sense of permanence. Once it’s done. It’s done. But though that might be the ultimate question there are a few more that you might come across that also incorporate essere into them: Che cosè? | What is? Com’è? | How is? C’è? | Is there? Ci sono? | Are there? Note that in English, when speaking we tend to use contractions because they seem more fluid (Would you say How’s it going? or How is it going?). Italians also strive for this fluidity, which helps give the language a melodic quality. So Che cosè, like What’s, combines a verb with the question word. Che cosa é is not used. [You can find more on contractions here.] Chiunque? Still with me? Remember: Chiunque? | Anybody? Anyone? Anyone at all? Qualcuno?| Someone? Anyone? Seem ambiguous? The real difference here is when these are not used as questions: qualcuno | somebody, someone chiunque | whoever, anyone who, anybody who, whichever Think of chiunque like a more desperate version of qualcuno. It’s been lost in the woods longer, but the fact remains it’s lost.

Beginner Week 2 Now take a look at this video, at least until 1:33 or so in. Why would you make us watch a slow music videos from the 80s in Italy? Well, if you intend to complain about it, at least do it in Italian: Come mai?| How come? Why?Why ever?

II: What time is it? Ok. Another question. And you want to go. But I feel the need to make the point that most Italians don’t tell time like this. Che ora è? | What time is it? Che ore sono? | What time is it? You can now ask me, but since I don’t know when you’re reading this in order to answer, I’ll give you some possibilities: È mezzogiorno | It’s noon È mezzanotte | It’s midnight È l'una | It’s one o’clock Sono le... | It’s...(a number other than one) We learned numbers one to ten last week. So you know: sette | seven. If you listened closely to the video, around :43, he says sette e un quarto. e | and un quarto | a quarter (often used instead of 15) mezzo | half (often used instead of 30) What? You’re telling me you couldn’t use 15 or 30 anyway because you don’t know them yet? We’ll get there, but before that, these phrases are useful: un quarto d’ora| a quarter of an hour un mezz’ora | a half hour di mattina | in the morning del pomeriggio | in the afternoon (12 p.m. to 5 p.m.)

Beginner Week 2 di sera | in the evening (5 p.m. to midnight) di notte | at night (midnight to early morning) Well, I don’t know about you, but all this talk of time and night is making me sleepy. But if you should decide to get some sleep, use your Italian as you count sheep. Here’s some numbers beyond 12: 11 undici 12 dodici 13 tredici 14 quattordici 15 quindici 16 sedici 17 diciasette 18 diciotto 19 diciannove 20 venti

21 ventuno 22 ventidue 23 ventitré 24 ventiquattro 25 venticinque 26 ventisei 27 ventisette 28 ventotto 29 ventinove 30 trenta

31 trentuno 32 trentadue 33 trentatré 40 quaranta 50 cinquanta 60 sessanta 70 sentanta 80 ottanta 90 novanta 100 cento

When -tre is the last digit of a larger number, it takes an accent: ventitré, trentatré, quarantatré, and so on. The numbers venti, trenta, and so on drop the final vowel before adding -uno or otto: ventuno, ventotto. There you have it. Your second lesson in Italian è finito, is finished, is complete. Grazie per fare attenzione (for paying attention). Please direct positive/negative feedback to [email protected]. Fino a la prossima settimana (Until next week), Cris Cristoforo Magliozzi [email protected] Director of Italian Program Harvard College Languages at Work