{"id":100,"date":"2009-03-05T10:29:58","date_gmt":"2009-03-05T14:29:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/?p=100"},"modified":"2009-03-05T10:29:58","modified_gmt":"2009-03-05T14:29:58","slug":"reflexive-verbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/reflexive-verbs\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflexive Verbs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mi chiamo Serena. Come ti chiami?\u00a0<\/strong>(my name is Serena. What is your name?). This is the first thing I say to my students whenever I start a new\u00a0Italian class, and it\u2019s probably the first thing you\u2019ll find in most phrasebooks. But it\u2019s also\u00a0a sentence that\u00a0illustrates really well one of the many differences between Italian and English: it is built with the verbo riflessivo<\/strong> (reflexive verb), and it literally translates as: \u2018I call myself Serena.\u00a0How do you call yourself?\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>The verbi riflessivi<\/strong> are a particular group of verbs in which the subject, or doer, acts upon him\/herself and\u00a0not on a separate object, so that the action is reflected back<\/span> on to the subject. If\u00a0I say lavo il bicchiere<\/strong>, (\u2018I\u2019m washing the glass\u2019), I\u2019m\u00a0performing the action of washing on another object; but if I say mi lavo le mani<\/strong>, (\u2018I\u2019m washing my hands\u2019 or literally: I wash myself the hands), I\u2019m performing the action on myself, therefore I must use the reflexive form.\u00a0<\/span>The main difference between the use of the reflexive in English and Italian is that whereas in English there is often no reflexive pronoun, in Italian the reflexive pronoun is essential to the meaning and cannot be omitted. <\/span><\/p>\n

The pronomi riflessivi <\/strong>(reflexive pronouns) are: <\/span><\/p>\n

mi<\/strong> (myself) <\/span><\/p>\n

ti<\/strong> (yourself singular informal) <\/span><\/p>\n

si<\/strong> (himself\/herself\/yourself singular formal)<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

ci<\/strong> (ourselves) <\/span><\/p>\n

vi<\/strong> (yourselves) <\/span><\/p>\n

si<\/strong> (themselves)<\/span><\/p>\n

The pronomi riflessivi<\/em> should not be confused with the \u2018dative\u2019 or \u2018indirect pronouns\u2019 which are very similar. Che confusione!<\/strong> (what\u00a0chaos!). Don\u2019t worry, I\u2019ll do a blog on personal pronouns soon which should help to clarify matters. But let\u2019s go back to the verbi riflessivi.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

OK! as I was saying, the pronome riflessivo <\/em>must always be expressed with verbi riflessivi<\/em>; and\u00a0it usually comes before the verb e.g:<\/span><\/p>\n

mi lavo<\/strong> I wash myself<\/span><\/p>\n

ti lavi<\/strong> you wash yourself<\/span><\/p>\n

si lava<\/strong> he washes himself, she washes herself, you wash yourself (formal)<\/span><\/p>\n

ci laviamo<\/strong> we wash ourselves<\/span><\/p>\n

vi lavate<\/strong> you wash yourselves<\/span><\/p>\n

si lavano<\/strong> they wash themselves<\/span><\/p>\n

However, it is attached to the end<\/span> of the verb in\u00a0the imperative form (i.e. when giving a command), e.g. lavati<\/span><\/strong> (wash yourself), laviamoci<\/span><\/strong> (let\u2019s wash ourselves), lavatevi<\/span><\/strong> (wash yourselves). It is also attached to the infinitive, e.g. dovresti lavarti<\/span><\/strong> (you\u00a0should wash yourself). R<\/em><\/span>eflexive verbs<\/em> are always used with the auxiliary verb essere<\/strong> in the combined\u00a0past tenses: mi sono lavata <\/strong>(I washed myself), vi siete lavati le mani? <\/strong>(have you washed your hands?).<\/span><\/p>\n

As you can see from the above examples, the reflexive form is normally used for actions that involve postures and parts of the body: e.g. sedersi<\/span><\/strong> (to sit down), alzarsi<\/span><\/strong> (to stand up), lavarsi<\/span> le mani<\/strong> (to wash one\u2019s hands), pettinarsi<\/span> i capelli<\/strong> (to brush one\u2019s hair). <\/span><\/p>\n

Some verbs can be used in either the regular form\u00a0or\u00a0the reflexive form with very little difference in the meaning: e.g. ricordare<\/strong> and ricordarsi<\/strong> (to remember), dimenticare<\/strong> and\u00a0dimenticarsi <\/strong>(to forget); the reflexive form\u00a0just adds a little more personal involvement. On the other hand, some verbs change meaning when used in the reflexive form: e.g. trovare <\/strong>(to find) and trovarsi<\/strong> (to be somewhere, to find oneself); sdegnare <\/strong>(to disdain) and sdegnarsi<\/strong> (to get angry); vedere<\/strong> (to see) and vedersi<\/strong> (to see each other, to meet), as in the\u00a0well known farewell expression\u00a0Arrivederci! <\/strong>(until we\u00a0see each other\u00a0again!).<\/span><\/p>\n

Arrivederci!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mi chiamo Serena. Come ti chiami?\u00a0(my name is Serena. What is your name?). This is the first thing I say to my students whenever I start a new\u00a0Italian class, and it\u2019s probably the first thing you\u2019ll find in most phrasebooks. But it\u2019s also\u00a0a sentence that\u00a0illustrates really well one of the many differences between Italian and…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[732,747],"class_list":["post-100","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-grammar","tag-italian-grammar","tag-italian-reflexive-verbs"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2205,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions\/2205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}