Archive for 'Grammar'
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…
Grammar Quiz: Ne, The Answers Posted by Geoff on Oct 8, 2012
Here, as promised are the answers to last week’s quiz about ‘ne’, with a few explanatory notes. Ne used as a substitute for ‘of it’ or ‘of them’, in order to avoid repetition when talking about the quantity of something which has already been mentioned in the conversation. 1. Quante banane vuoi? (Give me…
Grammar Quiz: Ne Posted by Geoff on Oct 5, 2012
To follow up on our recent blogs about ‘ne’, here’s a little quiz to help reinforce the concept. Read the questions below and translate the responses, which I’ve given in English, into Italian. I’ve completed the first one for you as an example. Ne used as a substitute for ‘of it’ or ‘of them’, in…
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…
A bit more about ‘ne’ Posted by Geoff on Sep 20, 2012
We recently published a blog about ‘ne’ (of it/them), a very important little word that is quite tricky to use correctly. I’m going to continue the theme in today’s blog by looking at how we use ‘ne’ as a substitute for ‘of it/them’ or ‘about it/them’, after verbs that are normally followed by the preposition…
Ne: un po’ di ripasso Posted by Serena on Sep 10, 2012
A long time ago I wrote an article in which I tried to explain the different meanings of the pronoun ne: Tricky little words: ne (click on the link to view the article). Following an e.mail from a friend, I’ve decided to revisit the topic concentrating on its practical use. The word ne in Italian…
Tu and Lei Revisited Posted by Geoff on Sep 3, 2012
Last year, Serena wrote a couple of blogs about the use of Tu and Lei (click on text to open links): Part 1, Part 2 Those blogs explained that in Italian we have two main forms of addressing people: the informal tu and the formal lei. We normally use tu with family, friends, and children…