{"id":9554,"date":"2015-07-01T17:41:39","date_gmt":"2015-07-01T15:41:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/?p=9554"},"modified":"2015-07-01T17:41:39","modified_gmt":"2015-07-01T15:41:39","slug":"a-bit-more-italian-back-to-frontness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/a-bit-more-italian-back-to-frontness\/","title":{"rendered":"A Bit More Italian Back-to-frontness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now why on earth won’t my spell checker recognise the word back-to-frontness? It seems perfectly valid to me!<\/span><\/p>\n

In my last blog, Learning Italian: The Back To Front Language!<\/a> <\/span>I touched upon the seemingly superfluous articles il<\/strong>, la<\/strong>, i<\/strong>, and le<\/strong>, in phrases such as la mia bici<\/strong> (the<\/del> my bike): Hai visto la mia bella bici?<\/strong> (Have you seen the<\/del> my lovely bicycle?) Hai mai conosciuto il mio amico Fabio?<\/strong> (Have you ever met the<\/del> my friend Fabio?) Yes, translated like that it sounds silly … but then, just as you’ve accepted the outrageousness of the superfluous article, your Italian friend tells you: oddio, mi fa male la testa! <\/strong>(oh god, the<\/em> head hurts!)
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now wait a minute, did they just tell me that ‘the <\/em>head hurts’ … ‘the <\/em>head’ … really? Whatever happened to the possessive adjective ‘my’?<\/p>\n

\"sesso-aereo_big\"<\/a>

Passengers are requested to fasten their<\/span> seat belt … the captain has advised us that we’ll be entering strong turbulence … ah yes, yes, yes, again, yes.<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Well … I suppose you want some rules now, so that you know when not<\/span> to use the possessive adjective, don’t you? Well let’s see … in general you need to be aware of the following:<\/p>\n

When we use the reflexive pronouns mi<\/strong><\/span>, ti<\/strong><\/span>, si<\/strong><\/span>, ci<\/strong> <\/span>and vi<\/strong>,<\/span> or the indirect object pronouns mi<\/strong><\/span>, ti<\/strong><\/span>, gli<\/span>\/le<\/span><\/strong>, ci<\/strong> <\/span>and vi<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span> (to me, to him\/her, to us, to them) we can omit the possessive adjective, e.g. non gli<\/span> funziona pi\u00f9 la machina<\/strong> = his car doesn’t work any more (literally: to him<\/span> the car doesn’t work any more), mi<\/span> lavo le mani<\/strong> = I wash my hands (literally: I wash myself<\/span> the hands), ti<\/span> fa male la testa?<\/strong> = does your head hurt? (literally: to you<\/span> it hurts the head?)<\/p>\n

N.B. in the above examples I have included the literal translations purely to illustrate the grammatical structure. Please don’t learn them as they’ll only confuse you. It’s best to concentrate on the practical translations: ‘his car doesn’t work’, ‘I wash my hands’ etc<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Some more examples of sentences that omit the possessive adjective (underlined in the English translation):<\/p>\n

ti sei fatto male al piede?<\/strong> = have you hurt your<\/span> foot?
\nnon mi va pi\u00f9 l’orologio<\/strong> = my<\/span> watch doesn’t work any more
\nattento, mi hai fatto proprio male alla testa!<\/strong> = careful, you really hurt my<\/span> head!
\nti sei lavato le mani?<\/strong> = have you washed your<\/span> hands?<\/p>\n

There are also cases in which the possessive adjective becomes redundant because it’s obvious who the possessor is, e.g.:<\/p>\n

hai una mosca sulla testa … ciac … l’ho presa!<\/strong> = you’ve got a fly on your<\/span> head … whack … I got it!
\nha i pantaloni sporchi<\/strong> = his\/her<\/span> trousers are dirty<\/p>\n

… or it’s a pretty fair assumption who the possessor is:<\/p>\n

posso prendere in prestito la penna?<\/strong> = can I borrow your<\/span> pen?<\/p>\n

Okay, this is the bit where I go off to have a nice break whilst leaving you, dear readers, to wrack you poor brains over this article \ud83d\ude09<\/span>
\n As usual, questions and comments are very welcome … a presto.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Now why on earth won’t my spell checker recognise the word back-to-frontness? It seems perfectly valid to me! In my last blog, Learning Italian: The Back To Front Language! I touched upon the seemingly superfluous articles il, la, i, and le, in phrases such as la mia bici (the my bike): Hai visto la mia…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":9561,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[743],"class_list":["post-9554","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grammar","tag-italian-possessive-adjectives"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t