{"id":9461,"date":"2015-06-18T14:15:33","date_gmt":"2015-06-18T12:15:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/?p=9461"},"modified":"2015-06-18T14:15:33","modified_gmt":"2015-06-18T12:15:33","slug":"to-be-or-to-be-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/to-be-or-to-be-2\/","title":{"rendered":"To Be Or To Be?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stare or essere?<\/strong> \u2026. that is the question \u2026 so often asked by students of Italian. If English is your mother tongue, the concept of two different verbs both meaning \u2018to be\u2019 can be pretty confusing. We\u2019ve already covered this topic in depth here<\/a><\/strong>. But today I\u2019m going to focus on an important, but easily confused usage of the two verbs: come + stare?<\/strong> vs come + essere?<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. come + stare?<\/strong> is used when we ask how someone is:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/colgroup>\n\n\n\n
\n

Question<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Answer<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

come stai?<\/strong> = how are you? (singular informal)<\/p>\n

come sta?<\/strong> = how are you? (singular formal)<\/p>\n

come state?<\/strong> = how are you? (plural)<\/p>\n

come stanno?<\/strong> = how are they?<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

sto bene\/male<\/strong> = I\u2019m well\/unwell
\n–<\/span><\/p>\n

sto bene\/male<\/strong> = I\u2019m well\/unwell
\n–<\/span><\/p>\n

stiamo bene\/male<\/strong> = we\u2019re well\/unwell<\/p>\n

stanno bene\/male<\/strong> = they\u2019re well\/unwell<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

N.B. Some typical colloquial replies to the question come sta\/stai?<\/strong> are: si tira avanti<\/strong> = one carries on (lit. one pulls along), non ci si pu\u00f2 lamentare<\/strong> = one can\u2019t complain and non c’\u00e8 male<\/strong> = not bad. Sometimes, when the answer is complicated and we don\u2019t want to go into details we simply say: insomma!<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"DSCN2495\"<\/a>

Com’\u00e8 il giardino in questo periodo? Bellissimo, \u00e8 pieno di gigli profumati! Photo by Geoff
<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

2. come + essere?<\/strong> is used when we ask what someone\/something is like:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/colgroup>\n\n\n\n
\n

Question<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Answer<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

com\u2019\u00e8 il Signor Bartolini?<\/strong> = what\u2019s Mr. Bartolini like?–<\/span>
\n–<\/span><\/p>\n

come sono i fratelli di Lino? =<\/strong> what are Lino\u2019s brothers like?
\n–<\/span>
\n –<\/span><\/p>\n

come sono gli spaghetti?<\/strong> = how\u2019s the spaghetti?<\/p>\n

com\u2019\u00e8 Pontremoli?<\/strong> = what\u2019s Pontremoli like?
\n–<\/span>
\n –<\/span><\/p>\n

com\u2019\u00e8?<\/strong> = how\u2019s it going? (colloquial)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

\u00e8 un tipo molto simpatico \u2026 alto, con i capelli rossi \u2026 ecc.<\/strong> = he\u2019s really likeable \u2026 tall, with red hair \u2026 etc.<\/p>\n

Vincenzo \u00e8 molto in gamba, ma gli altri due \u2026 lasciamo perdere!<\/strong> = Vincenzo is very capable, but the other two \u2026 forget it!<\/p>\n

perfetti, grazie!<\/strong> = perfect thanks!
\n–<\/span><\/p>\n

Pontremoli \u00e8 una citt\u00e0 abbastanza tranquilla \u2026 a volte anche troppo!<\/strong> = Pontremoli\u2019s quite a quiet town \u2026 too quiet sometimes!<\/p>\n

va tutto bene grazie<\/strong> = everything’s going fine thanks<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

E voi, cari lettori, come state oggi?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Stare or essere? \u2026. that is the question \u2026 so often asked by students of Italian. If English is your mother tongue, the concept of two different verbs both meaning \u2018to be\u2019 can be pretty confusing. We\u2019ve already covered this topic in depth here. But today I\u2019m going to focus on an important, but easily…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":9474,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[6,619],"tags":[686],"class_list":["post-9461","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grammar","category-italian-language","tag-essere-and-stare"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9461","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\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9461"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9486,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9461\/revisions\/9486"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}