Archive for 'Grammar'
Using The Subjunctive In Italian Posted by Serena on Apr 23, 2013
Several years ago I wrote a series of posts about the use of the subjunctive, and I divided the subject in four parts, each dealing with one tense: congiuntivo presente (present subjunctive), congiuntivo passato (past or perfect subjunctive), congiuntivo imperfetto (imperfect subjunctive) e congiuntivo trapassato (pluperfect subjunctive). Today we’re going to look at the some…
Memorie Napoletane Posted by Serena on Mar 5, 2013
Tanti anni fa, quando studiavo archeologia all’Università di Pisa, la mia prof. di Egittologia fu invitata a dare una serie di lezioni al prestigioso Istituto di Studi Orientali di Napoli. L’Istituto metteva a disposizione un limitato numero di borse di studio per gli studenti di Orientalistica che volessero partecipare a questi seminari della durata di…
Pronomi Combinati – Part 2 Posted by Serena on Feb 8, 2013
In Part 1 of this blog we looked at the ways in which personal pronouns are combined together when they precede a verb. Today I’m going to look at how and when to use the combined pronouns after a verb. All the following cases have two main changes in common: 1. the fact that the…
Pronomi Combinati–Part 1 Posted by Serena on Feb 4, 2013
Personal pronouns are always a confusing subject to master for students of Italian, so today I’m going to look at the combined personal pronouns using practical examples. The combined pronouns normally precede the verb in the following order: first comes the unstressed form of the indirect personal pronouns (mi, ti, gli, ci, vi), or the…
Che Ore Sono? Posted by Geoff on Jan 14, 2013
What time is it? A simple question with many possible replies. Let’s start from the beginning. We divide the clock into: ore (fem. hours, singular un’ora, an/one hour) minuti (masc. minutes, singular un minuto a/one minute) secondi (masc. seconds, singular un secondo a/one second) un quarto (masc. a quarter) mezza (fem. half) tre quarti (masc…
Using Molto and Tanto Posted by Serena on Dec 4, 2012
In Italian we have a variety of ways to say ‘a lot’ and ‘many’. The two most common of these are molto and tanto, so let’s begin by looking at how we use them. 1. molto and tanto used as adjectives Molto/a/i/e is an adjective meaning ‘much, many, a lot of, lots of’ and as…
Non c’è nessuno Posted by Serena on Nov 23, 2012
Non, meaning ‘not’, or its abbreviation n’t, e.g. didn’t, won’t, can’t, etc. is a negative adverb used to negate or change the meaning of the verb, adverb, adjective or pronoun which it precedes. For example: non vengo alla festa = I won’t come to the party, or, I’m not coming to the party come stai?…