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e finì tutto a tarallucci e vino Posted by Serena on Oct 16, 2012
In our previous blog we wrote about il Trapassato Prossimo and il Passato . Here’s a little story recounting an event that happened a few days ago. I have highlighted il Trapassato Prossimo in blue, and il Passato Prossimo in red. Sabato mattina dovevamo andare giù a Pontremoli a fare un po’ di spesa, e…
Trapassato Prossimo e Passato Prossimo Posted by Serena on Oct 12, 2012
Il trapassato prossimo (the pluperfect or past perfect tense) describes something that had happened or we had done in the past, for example: era partito (he had left), non ti avevo sentito (I hadn’t heard you). Technically speaking, as you can see from the examples, it’s constructed using the auxiliary verbs essere (to be) or…
La Rosa dei Venti Posted by Serena on Oct 3, 2012
If you read or listen to the weather forecast here in Italy you’re quite likely to come across expressions such as: vento di libeccio (wind from libeccio) meaning vento provenienete da sud ovest (wind coming from South West) or vento di tramontana (wind from tramontane) meaning vento proveniente dal nord (wind coming from the North)…
Quanto Vento! Posted by Serena on Sep 29, 2012
Oggi è molto ventoso, perciò parleremo del vento! It’s very windy today, so let’s talk about the wind! We’ll begin by looking at different ways of describing the wind: alito di vento (breath of wind), e.g. che caldo, non c’è neanche un alito di vento (it’s so hot, there isn’t a breath of wind) venticello (light…
Mulattiera di Mare Posted by Serena on Sep 27, 2012
Occasionally it’s fun to find examples of one of the many dialects which make Italy so linguistically rich, and to show the difference between dialect and ‘official’ Italian. Today I’ve chosen Fabrizio de Andrè’s beautiful song Creuza de mä, written in the Genoese dialect (from Genova). Fabrizio de Andrè (Genova 1940-1999) was a very important…
Pronomi Personali Formali ed Informali Posted by Serena on Sep 26, 2012
The use of formal and informal personal pronouns is a subject that needs revisiting often, especially if your mother tongue is English and you are not used to using these two forms of addressing people. In this post I’m going to concentrate on the ways in which we use the formal and informal pronouns when…
Le Mille Ciotole di Catullo Posted by Serena on Sep 25, 2012
Last week, while researching for my quiz about Italian airport names, I came across the poems of the Latin poet Gaius Valerius Catullus, who was born in 84 BC in Verona. When I was at secondary school I studied Latin, and Catullus was on our reading list. We all used to like his poems, because…