Archive for 'Grammar'
La Pronuncia, part two. Posted by Serena on Dec 8, 2008
In part one of this blog we looked at the vowels, a e i o u and the consonants c, g and h. Now I want to continue with some combined letter sounds, and double consonants but firstly I’d just like to clarify that all examples of English words given as a guide to correct…
La Pronuncia, part 1. Posted by Serena on Dec 1, 2008
Italian, as I’m sure you will have discovered by now, is a ‘challenging’ and often confusing language, and for every rule there seem to be twenty-five exceptions. The good news however is that one set of rules is consistent, and those are the rules governing la pronuncia (pronunciation). Once you have mastered these fixed rules…
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Posted by Serena on Nov 27, 2008
A few days ago we came across a DVD of Sergio Leone’s famous spaghetti western movie ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’, starring Clint Eastwood and featuring Ennio Morricone’s unforgettable haunting soundtrack. Its Italian title is Il Buono, il Brutto e il Cattivo, and this prompted the question from Geoff: “which is the Bad…
È arrivata la neve, the snow has arrived! Posted by Serena on Nov 24, 2008
Opening the shutters this morning I was greeted by a world magically transformed overnight by la neve (the snow). The late autumn mauves, blues, golds and ambers of yesterday now seem a thing of the distant past, having been replaced by an almost monochromatic landscape. As usual, when the snow arrives, the world seems strangely…
Mamma Mia! Posted by Serena on Nov 22, 2008
Today I’ll try to shed a bit of light on the use of the aggettivi possessivi (possessive adjectives). Lets first have a quick look at them: My = mio, mia, miei, mie Your (sing.) = tuo, tua, tuoi, tue His/her/its/Your (polite) = suo, sua, suoi, sue Our = nostro, nostra, nostri, nostre Your (plur.)…
L’alfabeto telefonico Posted by Serena on Nov 15, 2008
It’s always tricky trying to spell a word over the telephone because several letters are difficult to distinguish from each other, e.g. p and b, m and n, etc. Of course you can use the international alphabet system: alpha, bravo, charlie … but I personally can never remember it. In Italy we use a system…
Buono o Bello? Posted by Serena on Nov 6, 2008
Good or nice? These two adjectives, together with a couple more, have a very strange habit when they precede a noun. Lets look at them! But before doing so you may want to have a look at the articolo indeterminativo (indefinite article) and articolo determinativo (definite article) that I summarized in my previous post “Articles…