Italian Past Participle Some Clues

Italian Past Participle Some clues: Che: what/ nuovo: new/ bisogno: I need/ portesti: can you. Parlare: parlato (spoken)

Regular Form: Simply add (~ato, ~uto, ~ito) Irregular Form: to the stem of verbs, depending on the type memorize the verbs that of verbs, if the verb in the infinitive ends take irregular forms in Credere: creduto (believed) with ~are, then add ~ato: parlato (the verb the past participle such parlare), add ~uto to the verbs ending with as: Partire: partito (gone) ~are: creduto (the verb credere), and finally add ~ito to the verbs ending in their infinitiveVerb/Past part/English with ~ire: partito (the verb partire) Fare: fatto (done) -Sono Partito (I’m gone, Note that some verbs take their past masculine) participle with the verb “avere”, while Aprire: aperto (opened) some other verbs take their past participle lei è partita (she is gone) with the verb essere (usually motion verbs) Chiedere: chiesto (asked) Siamo partiti (we’re gone, Also note that the past participle of verbs for men) going with “essere” should agree with Chiudere: chiuso the number and gender, so for example (closed) Sono stata a Roma (I’ve been to Rome, a female talking) partito (gone) can also be partita/ partiti/ partite. Coprire: coperto (covered) Siamo stati...(we have been..,for Verbs going with “avere” don’t men) have to agree with the number and gender, Dare: dato (given) look in the examples in the side. Dire: detto (said) Remember: to form the past participle with -Ho avuto il tempo per farlo verbs conjugated with “essere” the Leggere: letto (read) (I’ve had the time to do it) gender and number matter, but not with verbs conjugated with “avere”. Mettere: messo (put) Ho parlato al telefono…(I’ve talked…) Past participle reflexive verbs go always withOffrire: offerto (offered) Ha parlato (and not ha parlata) “essere”, mi sono lavato (I’ve washed myself), ci siamo lavati (we’ve Perdere: perso (lost) (she have spoken/ she spoke) washed ourselves). Abbiamo parlato (and not Prendere: preso parlati) (taken) Ho detto (I’ve said)

Scrivere: scritto (written)

Ha detto (he/she has said)

Spendere: speso (spent) Vedere: visto (seen) Vivere:vissuto (lived) Rompere: rotto (broken)

In Italian you can only make the past tense by combining (the auxiliary + the past participle), it’s not that complicated, it’s almost like English, almost the same way you make the present perfect to express something that happened in the past, you can say in English: I wrote a book, or I’ve written a book, in Italian you can only say I’ve written the book.

Ho

~ato (with ~are verbs)

Italian Past Tense Sono

Hai Ha

Sei ~uto (with ~are verbs)

Abbiamo Avete

~ato/a/i/e (with ~are verbs)

È

~uto/a/i/e (with ~are verbs)

Siamo ~ito (with ~are verbs)

Hanno

Siete

~ito/a/i/e (with ~are verbs)

Sono

Prepositions in Italian Prepositions are a little bit tricky because they change depending on the gender and number. Note that the prepositions a, con, da, di, in, per and su have contracted forms with the definite articles:

Simple prepositions: (di, a, da, in, su, con, per, tra, fra) Un bicchiere di latte (a glass of milk)

Italian Prepositions Prepositional contractions: for phonetic reasons, pre in, su, con) are contracted to the articles they precede La puerta della casa (di + la= della) (the door of the h

Un tipo di musica (a kind of music)

Regalo un libro al bambino (a + il = al) (I offer a book

Regalo un libro a Carlos (I offered a book to Carlos)

Regalo un libro agli amici (a + gli = agli) (I offer a bo

Regalo un libro ad Antonio (ad is used before vowels)

Dalla città alla campagna (da + la = dalla, a + la = al

Da Parigi a Roma (from Paris to Rome)

(from the city to the village)

Scrivo con mi penna (I write with my pen)

il latte è nella bottiglia (in + la = nella) (milk is in th

il regalo è per Rayan (the present is for Rayan)

il libro sul tavolo (su + il = sul) (the book above the ta

L’aereo vola su Roma (the plane flies over Rome)

l’uomo col berreto (con + il = col) (the man with

Un libro su Da Vinci (a book about Da Vinci)

Easy right!

La penna fra le due libri è nera (the pen between the two books is black) La penna tra le due libri è grigia (the pen between the two books is grey) Italian Adjectives Adjectives in Italian must agree in gender and number with the noun, if the noun is singular feminine then the adjective should be singular feminine. Adjectives usually come after the noun.

Italian adjectives are different than the English ones, The Italian adjective take 4 forms, usually adjectives take “o” at the end of the singular masculine, and “a” for singular feminine, for plural masculine “i”, plural feminine take “e”

Small

Italian Adjectives Singular masculine Singular feminine Plural masculine Piccolo Piccola Piccoli

Plural feminine Piccole

Opened

Aperto

Aperte

Aperta

Aperti

However, it’s not always the case, some adjectives ending with “e” for example only change to their plural, the feminine or masculine doesn’t matter to them.

Big

Italian Adjectives Singular masculine Singular feminine Plural masculine Grande Grande Grandi

Plural feminine Grandi

Interesting

Interessante

Interessante

Interessanti

Interessanti

Green

Verde

Verde

Verdi

Verdi

Other exceptions are: Adjectives ending in ~co/~ca and ~go/~ga are spelt ~chi/~che and ~ghi/~ghe in the plural; these modifications are made simply to maintain the same sound in the plural as well as the singular.

White

Italian Adjectives Singular masculine Singular feminine Plural masculine Bianco Bianca Bianchi

Plural feminine Bianche

Long

Lungo

Lunghe

Lunga

Lunghi

Gerund in Italian The gerund is easy to form, for (~are) verbs just add ~ando to their stem, for (~ere, ~ire) verbs add ~endo to their stem. Parlare: parlando (talking), credere: credendo (believing), partire: partendo (going). Present continuous/ Past continuous/ Future continuous can be formed easily with the verb “stare” + verb + gerund. To form a continuous action you need to add the verb “stare” and not “essere”

Present continuous (I’m …ing) sto pensando/ credendo stai pensando/ credendo

Italian Gerund Past continuous (I was ...ing)

Past continuous (I will be ...ing)

stavo pensando/ credendo

starò pensando/ credendo

stavi pensando/ credendo

starai pensando/ credendo

sta pensando/ credendo

stava pensando/ credendo

starà pensando/ credendo

stiamo pensando/ credendo

stavamo pensando/ credendo

staremo pensando/ credendo

state pensando/ credendo

stavate pensando/ credendo

starete pensando/ credendo

stanno pensando/ credendo

stavano pensando/ credendo

staranno pensando/ credendo

Che cosa stavi pensando? non stavo pensando.(what were you thinking? I wasn’t thinking) There are however some rare cases where the gerund is irregular like: dire (dicendo), fare (facendo), porre (ponendo), tradurre (traducendo). Che cosa stai facendo? Sto credendo (what are you doing? I’m talking). Italian Imperative It’s easy to form the imperative especially with “tu” and “Lei”, you just need to switch them in the case of (~are) verbs, for example in the present tense we say: “tu parli” informal of (you speak) and (Lei parla) formal of (you speak), in the imperative you just need to switch them. “parla!” means “speak!” informal, “parli!” means “speak!” formal. For (~ere, ~ire) the affirmative second person singular is identical to the second person singular form of the present tense. For all conjugations (are/ere/ire), the second person plural (voi) is identical to the second person plural form of the present tense. Check out the table below, it will explain it all:

tu

parlare parla

Italian Imperative vendere aprire vendi apri

finire finisci

Lei

parli

venda

apra

finisca

noi

parliamo

vendiamo

apriamo

finiamo

voi

parlate

vendete

aprite

finite

Negative commands are usually expressed in Italian with non followed by the infinitive verb. For example: Don't eat! (non mangiare!) No smoking! (non fumare!) Adverbs in Italian (avverbi)

An adjective can be made into an adverb by simply adding -mente to the adjective example: veloce "quick" becomes velocemente "quickly”. There are exceptions that are easy to understand: Adding “mente” to adjectives that their feminine singular is ending with “a”, example: lenta "slow" becomes lentamente "slowly". If an adjective ends in -ale, -ile, or -are, the adverb is formed with the root of the adjective plus the ending -mente.

Adjectives (general) veloce

Italian Adverbs Adjective (feminine) veloce

Adverb velocemente (quickly)

lento

lenta

lentamente (slowly)

gentile

gentile

gentilmente (kindly)

facile

facile

facilmente (easily)

speciale

speciale

specialmente (specially)

The table below contains adverbs that don’t come from adjectives; they’re used very often so try to memorize them.

Above: sopra

List of Italian Adverbs Behind: dietro

Soon: presto

Against: contro

Beyond: oltre

Still: ancora

Already: giÃ

in, inside: dentro

Then: dopo

Always: sempre

Moreover: inoltre

Together: insieme

Around: attorno

Nearby: vicino

Below: sotto

Badly: male

Outside: fuori

Well: bene

This is a list of some very important verbs in Italian:

to abandon oneself to accept to admit to affirm to agree to agree to announce to apply oneself to to appreciate

Italian Expressions abbandonarsi accettare ammettere affermare convenire accondiscéndere annunciare méttersi gradire

to ask to ask to aspire to assure to attempt to avoid to avoid to be able to to be able to, can to be about to be ashamed to be ashamed of to be concerned with to be eager for to be exhausted to be happy to be happy to be happy to be in a hurry to be in the position of to be interested in to be late to be on the point of to be proud to be saddened to be sorry to begin to believe to believe to carry on to come to communicate to compel to complain to condemn to confess to confirm to consent to continue to convince to dare to dare to decide to decide to declare to defend to delude oneself to demonstrate to devote oneself

chiedere domandare aspirare assicurare tentare evitare tralasciare essere in grado potere accèngersi averevergogna vergognarsi occuparsi anelare non poterne più essere lieto essere contento essere felice avere fretta essere nella posizione interessarsi tardare avviarsi essere fiero dispiacersi dolersi iniziare credere ritenere proseguire venire comunicare obbligare lamentarsi condannare confessare confermare acconsentire continuare persuadere osare arrischiarsi decidere decèdersi dichiarare sostenere illudersi dimostrare darsi

to do one's best to doubt to dream to encourage to encourage to end by to establish to exclude to expect to fantasize to fantasize to fear to feel to feel like to force to force to forget to forget about something to get ready to get ready to get tired of something to get tired of to get used to to go to go back to go on to guess to have a good time to have difficulty to have in mind to have the right to have to to hazard to hazard to help to hint to hope to hope to hurry up to hurry up to ignore to inform to insist to intend to intend to invite to invite to know to know

ingegnarsi dubitare sognare incoraggiare incoraggiare finire stabilire escludere aspettarsi fantasticare fantasticare avere paura avere l'impressione sentirsela costrèngere obbligare dimenticare lasciar perdere apprestarsi dispórsi stancarsi stancarsi abituarsi andare tornare seguitare indovinare divertirsi stentare ripromettersi avere il diritto dovere azzardare azzardarsi aiutare accennare augurarsi sperare affrettarsi sbrigarsi ignorare informare insèstere avere intenzione intendere invitare invitare sapere sapere

to learn to learn to limit oneself to long for to love to narrate to need to need, to feel like to negate to neglect to oblige to offer to pass to persist to persist to plan to prefer to prepare oneself to prepare oneself to pretend to promise to propose to realize to realize to recognize to refuse to regret to regret to remember to remember to renounce to repeat to report to resign oneself to risk to run to say to scream to send to start to start to start to start to start over to stay to stop to stop to stop to stop

apprèndere imparare limitarsi ambire amare narrare avere bisogno avere voglia negare trascurare costrèngere offrire passare ostinarsi persèstere proporsi preferire acconciarsi prepararsi fingere promettere proporre accòrgersi rendersi conto riconoscere rifiutarsi pentirsi rimpiangere ricordare ricordarsi rinunciare ripetere riferire rassegnarsi rischiare córrere dire spolmonarsi mandare attaccare cominciare incominciare prèndere riprèndere stare smettere cessare smettere fermarsi

to stop, to end to succeed to suffer to suppose to suspect to swear to tell to tend to thank to think to think to think of to threaten to to be a question of to try to try to try to understand to undertake to value, to care to wait to wait to want to wish to wonder to wonder to worry to yearn for

finire riuscire soffrire supporre sospettare giurare raccontare tèndere ringraziare pensare avere idea pensare minacciare trattarsi cercare provare provarsi capire intraprèndere tenérci attendere aspettare volere desiderare meravigliarsi stupirsi preoccuparsi agognare