Archive for 'Grammar'
Idiomatic Expressions With The Italian Verb Fare – Part 1 Posted by Geoff on Mar 14, 2016
Last week I published a post showing that the verb avere has many idiomatic meanings apart from the standard translation of ‘to have’. If you haven’t already read it, you can find it here. Today we’ll take a look at the verb fare … which, as we all know, means ‘to make’ or ‘to do’…
Idiomatic Expressions With The Italian Verb Avere Posted by Geoff on Mar 11, 2016
Avere means ‘to have’ … simple, right? Well, unfortunately not! You’ll frequently find the Italian verb for ‘to have’ (avere) used where we would use ‘to be’ (essere) in English, e.g. ‘I am thirsty’ translates as ‘ho sete’ (literally: I have thirst), and ‘they are right’ translates as ‘hanno ragione’ (literally: they have reason) Here’s a list of the…
How to say Any in Italian Posted by Serena on Mar 4, 2016
We recently received this request from one of our readers: “Trovo il vostro blog molto utile. Ho tanta difficoltà con la parola inglese ‘any’. Potete scrivere un blog su come si dice ‘any’ in italiano? Grazie mille!” In fact, the use of the indefinite adjective ‘any’ is a very complicated subject both in Italian and…
Intendere and Intendersi: The Solutions Posted by Geoff on Feb 26, 2016
Here are the solutions to the exercises in our two previous blogs: Using The Italian Verb Intendere and Ci Siamo Intesi? 1. Using The Italian Verb Intendere: You were asked to complete the following sentences referring to the examples given (n.b. some had two possible solutions). Here are the answers: 1. Lucia ha frainteso/inteso male quello…
Ci Siamo Intesi? Posted by Serena on Feb 24, 2016
In our previous post we explored the verb intendere. Today we’re going to take a look at its reflexive partner intendersi. The verb intendersi has two main meanings: intendersi = ‘to come to an agreement about’, or ‘to clarify something’, and intendersi di = ‘to be knowledgeable about something’. Below are some everyday examples illustrating…
Using The Italian Verb Intendere Posted by Geoff on Feb 22, 2016
The verb intendere has two main meanings. The first is fairly obvious as it closely resembles its English counterpart, ‘to intend/mean’. Let’s have a look at a few simple examples of this first meaning: Intendere = to intend/mean scusi, non intendevo offenderla = sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you (formal) intendo andare a Lucca giovedì =…
Italian Direct Object Pronouns Posted by Serena on Feb 16, 2016
Le chiavi le hai? (Have you got the keys?) How many times have you come across an Italian construction similar to this example and asked yourself “why are there two le‘s in that sentence?” … “The keys the you have?” … WHAT THE ####!?!? Well, you’ll be relieved to hear that there is a totally…