Archive for June, 2017
Italian Transitive And Intransitive Verbs Posted by Geoff on Jun 30, 2017
Why is it so important to understand the difference between verbi transitivi (transitive verbs) and verbi intransitivi (intransitive verbs)? Read on to find out … What are Transitive and Intransitive verbs? Transitive: The word transitive comes from the Latin transire meaning ‘to pass’, ‘to cross’, ‘to go beyond’, therefore it describes actions that move from…
Non Uccidete Il Mare Posted by Serena on Jun 28, 2017
Last week marked the start of gli Esami di Maturità (the A levels/final exams) for thousands of young Italians. The first exam consisted of writing an essay based on one of seven possible materie (subjects): literature, art, technology-science, history, history-politics, sociology-economics, and general. The students had six hours to complete their task, a break being…
The Sounds Of Italy Posted by Geoff on Jun 26, 2017
What noise annoys an oyster? A noisy noise annoys an oyster! This, I remember, was a popular tongue twister when I was a kid. Of course, it makes even less sense when translated into Italian: Che rumore da fastidio ad un’ostrica? Un rumore rumoroso da fastidio ad un’ostrica! Sounds can be divided into three main…
Italian Subjunctive Quiz – The Solutions Posted by Serena on Jun 23, 2017
Allora … com’è andata? Here are the answers to our Italian Subjunctive Quiz. Let’s find out how you got on … 1. Present Tense, Regular Verbs Verb = telefonare: Lucia vuole che le telefoni dopo le cinque = Lucia wants you to phone her after five o’clock Verb = finire: Speriamo che la festa finisca…
Italian Subjunctive Quiz Posted by Serena on Jun 21, 2017
To round off our series on the congiuntivo here’s a quiz. Don’t get disheartened, the Italian subjunctive is very difficult. In fact, many Italians don’t even know how to use it! Each section below corresponds to one of our 5 blogs on the subjunctive. Clicking on the section title will take you to the appropriate…
The Italian Subjunctive – 5. Pluperfect Tense Posted by Geoff on Jun 19, 2017
This is the final article in our series about the subjunctive. Today we’ll be studying il congiuntivo trapassato (the pluperfect subjunctive). Constructing the congiuntivo trapassato The congiuntivo trapassato is used when talking about the past to refer to things that had happened, e.g. ‘I had gone’, ‘you had finished’ etc. In order to construct the…
Caldo Africano Posted by Geoff on Jun 16, 2017
Admit it, dear readers, we do spoil you a bit with our instant translations. And I’d hate for you to fall into bad habits. Sooner or later you’re going to have to fly solo. Here’s a simple account of how we spent yesterday afternoon … in Italian … WITHOUT a translation! Of course, we’re not…