Disclaimer This page is being provided to me, Tyler Jones, by Lucio Chiappetti to hopefully be of value to people using the

Web. These pages are provided by Lucio Chiappetti in his spare time, more or less following the template and cadence of the Spanish pages by Tyler Jones. However the author does not guarantee to provide compilation of new pages regularly. This page is only meant to be viewed through Mosaic, for Mac, Windows, or X. Foreign language characters will not show up correctly under a text-based viewer like Lynx. I'm still working this thing out, so the format may change in the future. Any comments, requests, or problems may be mailed to me, Tyler Chambers.

Introduction
My name is Lucio Chiappetti. I saw the Spanish pages by Tyler Jones, and thought I could provide some basic Italian for this Web-course. Italian is my mother language, so I do know enough to be giving these basic lessons. For the first few weeks, I plan on only using nouns and simple phrases, words that you're likely to run into (and should know what they mean). Later, I'll get into verbs and sentence structure.

Lesson 1
This Week's New Words: ciao - hello, goodbye (familiar) salve - hello addio - goodbye bene - well egli - he (literary) lui - he (common speech), him ella - she (literary) lei - she (common speech), her esso - it (masculine) essa - it (feminine) essi - they (persons or things) loro - them (persons or things), they (common speech, persons) grazie - thank you spiacente - I'm sorry noi - us, we (plural) signore - sir, mister, mr. signora - madame, mrs. signorina - miss tu - you (informal) voi - you (plural, formal and informal) io - I

Numbers 1-10

0 zero 1 uno 2 due 3 tre 4 quattro 5 cinque 6 sei 7 sette 8 otto 9 nove 10 dieci

Pronunciation The Italian alphabet is fairly similar to our own (English, or depending on where you're from, American). The letters K,J,W,X,Y occur only in foreign origin words. Each lesson will explain a few more letters. This week, I'll explain the interesting letters (or combinations thereof) from this week's words (above). gli The gli (followed or not by another vowel) in Italian is pronounced more or less as ll in Spanish However there are words like glicine (flower name), negligente, anglicano in which, for etymological reasons, g and l are pronounced as two separate sounds as in English. Thus, the Italian word coniglio (rabbit) is pronounced like conihlyo. and the word conigli (rabbits) is pronounced like conihli. gn The gn is the same sound as Spanish i.e. is the same sound as the ny pair in the word canyon. Thus, signore is pronounced like sin-yore. h The Italian h is always silent and as such an Italian speaker won't pronounce it when it occurs in foreign origin words (e.g. hotel). Moreover the letter h in Italian occurs only in the groups ch and gh (see below) and in the present tense of the verb "to have". Thus, ho ( [I] have ) is pronounced o and hanno ( [they] have) is pronounced anno, the same as the word anno (year). a, e, i, o, u The Italian vowels have only one sound, regardless of what letters they precede or follow, or accent marks on the vowel, with the (minor) exception of e and o. a

The a is always pronounced as in the English word car. e The e has the sound of the e in bed. Actually there are two sounds of e :

an OPEN one, indicated with the grave accent : a CLOSED one, indicated with the acute accent :

Note however that such accents are NOT normally written (unless they are required for tonic reasons), and appear only in dictionaries. Moreover, dictionaries report an "ideal" Tuscan pronunciation which is subject to ample regional variations. For instance the words perch (why) and stlla (star) are usually pronounced in the North as perch and stlla. In general a mispronunciation at this level won't be noticed, or if it is noticed (for instance mla (apple) is pronounced everywhere like that, and if you pronounce mla it will sound funny) you will be understood. There are words in which a difference in accent causes a different meaning, as in psca (peach) and psca (fishing), but in the North we pronounce both words as the first one and are understood everywhere. A note on accents : dictionaries indicate the tonic accent, i.e. put an accent on the vowel in the stressed syllable in the word (this is in the vast majority of cases the last but one, so called "plain" or "flat" words). This accent is not used and not required in normal writing. In normal writing the accent is required ONLY if the word ENDS with an accented vowel (i.e. the last syllable is accented, so called "truncated" words), e.g. perch. In handwriting do not bother to use the acute or the grave accent, just put any little sign over the vowel. On typewriters with Italian keyboards there are accented keys. On computer keyboards we usually prefer to use ASCII keyboards without accented keys, and just use an apostrophe instead of the accent, e.g. perche' : it is simpler and more portable. i The Italian i is the same as the English long e or ee as in see. o The o is always pronounced as the o in the word cold or dog. Here too actually there are two sounds of o :

an OPEN one, indicated with the grave accent : (similar to dog) a CLOSED one, indicated with the acute accent : (similar to cold)

The same comments made above for the letter e hold. u The Italian u has the sound of the English oo as in too or the English ue as in blue. r As opposed to the English r, which is formed in the back of the mouth with the back of the tongue, the Italian r is formed using the tip of the tongue on the upper palate, behind the front teeth, more like the English d.

Being the first lesson, this week you're just learning some of the basics. The main emphasis is on pronouns (io, lei) and numbers (zero through dieci). Also, you're being introduced to some of the most common greeting and short phrases, such as salve ("hello") and spiacente ("I'm sorry"). Without knowing any verbs, there aren't many sentences to be made with the words we have, but here are some (short) examples with what we know: Salve, signorina. - Hello, miss. Spiacente, signore. - I'm sorry, sir. And yes, that's about all we can do right now, but these are still good examples of Italian grammatical structure. Notice how similar the above sentences are to English - salve comes first, and then the subject, signorina. You can form the same kinds of sentences using addio and grazie, and signora, in addition to the example sentences above. However, you can't make a sentence like this: Salve, lei. What the above sentence literally says is "hello, you", and while it may be possible to think of times in English when you might say that, in Italian the sentence is meaningless, and people will look at you funny if you say Salve voi! in the middle of a group of Italian-speaking people. You could however say Salve a voi! (literally "hello to you"), although it sounds slightly unusual. Numbers. Numbers, as you should all know, are important. That's why I've included some in the first lesson. For the moment, you only know the numbers between 0 (zero) and 10 (dieci), but that will change. What can you do with the numbers zero through dieci? Count your toes! Uno, due, tre, quattro, cinque, sei, sette, otto, nove, dieci.. Recite your phone number! cinque, cinque cinque, otto, sei, zero, due (555-8602); note that however in Italian it is usual to pronounce phone numbers by group (i.e. as it were five-hundred-and-fifty-five eighty-six zero-two) but you'll wait for another lesson for that. Tell someone how many sisters you have (due). What you can't do with the numbers zero through dieci is make numbers bigger than dieci by stringing them together. Due zero is not the same as 20, although if you were in a pinch, you might be able to make someone understand that 20 was what you meant. Don't worry, we'll get to the rest of the numbers (1-1000) in the next few lessons. Pronouns. Pronouns (io, tu, Lei, egli, ella, noi, voi, essi, and loro) aren't anything that you can actually use yet, because I haven't given you any verbs. But as we progress, pronouns will be very important, so I'm introducing them now. The Italian pronouns are used almost always exactly the same way they are in English. In English, you would say I went to the store. In Italian, you would just substitute io for I in the sentence above (we'll pretend that the rest of the sentence is really in Italian) and end up with Io went to the store. Trust me, how one uses these pronouns will make much more sense when we learn some verbs. Well, I think that about wraps up Lesson 1. Learning any foreign language requires a lot of memorization, and unfortunately this course is no different. One thing that I find helpful is to mix in Italian words in my everyday English, so long as the situation can handle it (i.e. don't start

calling the businesspeople in your board meeting voi next time you get together). So try and memorize the new words for this lesson, and how to pronounce them. When you're ready, you can go on to Lesson 2!

Lesson 2 - La Casa (the house)

This week's new words:

NOUNS la casa - house la cucina - kitchen la stanza - room il bagno - bathroom la tavola - table, board il tavolo - table, desk la parete - wall il muro - wall la porta - door la sedia - chair il telefono - telephone la televisione - television la finestra - window VERBS stare - to stay (seldom, to be) essere - to be PREPOSITIONS di - of (belonging to, sometimes equiv. to English from) da - from

 in - in (something) ADJECTIVES antipatico(-a) - unpleasant carino(-a) - pretty buono(-a) - good/well comodo(-a) - comfortable contento(-a) - happy/glad malato(-a) - sick, ill brutto(-a) - ugly grande - big pulito(-a) - clean cattivo(-a) - bad nervoso(-a) - nervous simpatico(-a) - sympathetic (person, situation) sporco(-a) - dirty tranquillo(-a) - calm, quiet vecchio(-a) - old

Numbers 11-99
11 undici 12 dodici 13 tredici 14 quattordici 15 quindici 16 sedici 17 diciassette

 18 diciotto 19 diciannove 20 venti 21 ventuno 22 ventidue 23 ventitre 24 ventiquattro 25 venticinque 26 ventisei 27 ventisette 28 ventotto 29 ventinove 30 trenta 40 quaranta 50 cinquanta 60 sessanta 70 settanta 80 ottanta 90 novanta

Colors
bianco(-a) - white giallo(-a) - yellow arancione - orange rosa - pink

rosso(-a) - red azzurro(-a) - blue verde - green marrone - brown grigio(-a) - grey nero(-a) - black

Pronunciation
Most of the Italian alphabet is exactly like the English alphabet. Here are some exceptions from words in this lesson. c, ci, ch The Italian c has 2 possible sounds. It can sound like the ch in chip, or like the k in kite. Unlike English, there are very strict rules about when the Italian c sounds like a ch or a k. If the c precedes (comes before) an e or an i, the c will have a ch sound. For example, undici. If the group ci precedes an a, o or u, it is also pronounced as ch AND the i is mute : ciao sounds as English chao. If the c precedes any other letter (a, o, u, or a consonant, although the latter is very rare), then it will have a k sound, as in comodo. If the group ch precedes an i, or an e, it is pronounced as k : chi sounds as English kee. The word cucina has both types of c in it - the first c makes the k sound, and the second c makes the ch sound. g, gi, gh The Italian g has 2 possible sounds. It can sound like the g in got, or like the j or dg in judge. The rules are similar to the ones described above for c. Thus getto is pronounced as English jet-toh, and gioia as English joy-ah. While gotto and ghetto are pronounced as English got-toh and gettoh. jy In Italian j and y are not used, and when they occur (in foreign or arcaic words), they are pronounced as an Italian i. w In Italian w is not used, and when it occurs (in foreign words), a native Italian would pronounce it as a v.

rr and all other double consonants. All times a double consonant is written, it is actually pronounced twice. It takes practice to do it well. v Sounds exactly like in English. s The Italian s may have two pronounciations. One of them is like English z or s : rosa is pronounced similarly to English rose with a terminal ah. The other one is like English s e.g. in set : sette is pronounced like set-teh. There are no definite rules on two pronounciations (although some dictionaries report the "correct" one), and there are regional variations in the pronounciation of the same word. In general you will be understood, even if your pronounciation may sound strange. As a rule of thumb, s followed by vowel in the second or further syllable of a word, has the z sound (e.g. rosa, casa), while s followed by vowel or consonant (usually t or p) at the beginning of a word is an s sound : sette, stare. z The Italian z is pronounced much harder than an English, like sound ts, or tz, like in word tzar. There are actually two variant of the z sound in Italian, which are marked in dictionaries, but are subject to regional variations and make little difference for the everyday speaker.

Two (not so) confusing verbs - essere and stare

If you have already read the New Words section, you probably noticed that the two verbs introduced this week sometimes may mean both "to be". In fact however essere is the proper verb corresponding to "to be". Stare means "to stay", and is used where an English speaker would expect to use "to be" only in two cases. Confusing the two verbs is proper of popular speech in Southern Italy but feels somewhat uncouth.

Verb Conjugation
As in English, verbs are conjugated, or take various forms, in Italian. In the present tense, there are 6 verb forms ("persons"), depending on who the subject of the verb is. Here are the conjugations for essere and stare:

essere - to be
io sono ("I am") tu sei ("you are")

 Lei /egli (lui) /ella (lei) /esso(-a) ("you (formal)/he/she/it is") noi siamo ("we are") voi siete ("you (plural) are") Loro/essi(-e)/loro sono ("you (old formal plural)/they (things and persons)/they (persons) are")

stare - to stay
io sto ("I stay") tu stai ("you stay") Lei /egli (lui) /ella (lei) /esso(-a) sta ("you (formal)/he/she/it stays") noi stiamo ("we stay") voi state ("you (plural) stay") Loro/essi(-e)/loro stanno ("you (old formal plural)/they (things and persons)/they (persons) stay") Note that the conjugations for Lei (you), egli (he), ella/lei (she) and esso(-a) (it) use the same form of the verb. The same goes for their plurals (though the singular and the plural use different forms).

* - You will note there are formal and familiar forms for the second person, unlike English where forms like "thou" are in disuse. It is important to use the proper one otherwise you'll look uneducated. In the singular form you use tu when addressing to a relative, a friend, a colleague or a child. It is felt uneducated and unkind to use tu when addressing a person you do not know. In such cases the form now preferred in modern Italian is Lei (literally, she, and verbs are conjugated like in the third person singular). I'll write this Lei with a capital L to make it clear. This is not necessary, although it is used e.g. in commercial letters. Note that the feminine form is used also when addressing to men : this is because "she" is "your Lordship" and the word Lordship in Italian is of feminine gender. In the popular speech in Northern Italy this is felt strange, and sometimes you'll hear Lui (literally, he) as a courtesy form for "you" when addressing a man. This usage is not recommended. Another courtesy form used to address a person instead of tu is Voi (literally, "you", i.e. the plural form, like in English, and using the same conjugation of the plural form). This form is felt somewhat archaic (it might be used in the South or in the countryside, and was favoured by the Fascist regime).

In the plural, nowadays use goes for voi both as a familiar and as a formal form. You would sound unusually formal, if you'd use Loro (literally, they) when addressing more than one persons. However sometimes it is used. I will include with all verb conjugations all the 6 main forms. A further note regarding the third person. Egli and ella, for he and she, are literary forms, which in spoken Italian are usually replaced by lui and lei (literally him and her). These are the masculine and feminine forms for persons. Esso and essa are the forms for "it", and have a masculine and feminine form according to grammatical gender of the noun of the thing to which they refer. In the plural, essi and esse are respectively the masculine and feminine form for "they" for persons and things. However nowadays spoken Italian prefers loro (literally, them) for persons. Now that you have this pretty little conjugation, what does one do with it? Make sentences, of course. The conjugation of a verb tells you which form of the verb to use depending on who is the subject of the verb. In English we conjugate without thinking about it - I am, you are, he is, etc. You don't (normally) say "I are" or "you is", because it's gramatically incorrect. Likewise in Italian, you don't say "io sei", because it's just plain wrong. Here are some examples of using essere and stare:
Io sono vecchio. ("I am old.") Tu sei carina. ("You are pretty.") Noi siamo nervosi. ("We are nervous.") Lei sta sulla sedia. ("She is on the chair.") Note that Lei e' seduta. (literally "She is seated") is the form for "She is in the chair." Essi sono sporchi. ("They (the males) are dirty.") Now it's time to explain the differences between essere and stare, before we go any further. Essere means "to be" or "to exist", while stare usually means "to stay" but can be used where English idiomatics use "to be". The rules are summarized here:

essere is used to indicate more permanent aspects of people or things, such as 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Identity - Io sono Carla. ("I am Carla") Profession - Egli un professore. ("He is a professor.") Origin - Noi siamo di Milano. ("We are from Milan.") Religious or political affiliation - Tu sei cattolico? ("You are Catholic?") Time of day or date - Sono le otto. ("It is 8 o'clock.") Possession - La casa di Giovanna. ("It is Giovanna's house.") Nationality - Sono Italiano. ("I am from Italy.") Physical aspects or characteristics of something - Le sedie sono verdi. ("The chairs are green.")

9. Essential qualities of something or someone - Sono vecchio. Sei antipatico. ("I am old. You are unpleasant.") 10. Location - La sedia in cucina. ("The chair is in the kitchen.") 11. but also, more rarely - La sedia sta in cucina. ("The chair is in the kitchen.") 12. Condition or emotion that is subject to change - Sono malato. ("I am sick.") 13. Personal observations or reactions, how something "seems" or "feels" - La cucina pulita. ("The kitchen is (seems) clean.")

stare is used to indicate precise locations, in idioms and as auxiliary, such as 1. 2. 3. 4. Idiomatic sentences - Sto bene.("I am well.") Idiomatic sentences - Sto male.("I feel bad.") Location - La sedia sta in cucina. ("The chair is in the kitchen.") Continuous tense - Sto correndo.("I am running.")

Notes: Notice that the verb form used for things like la sedia is the egli/ella/esso(-a) form. A chair is an "it" (below, you'll see that it's actually a "she"), which uses the egli/ella/esso(-a) form of the verb. Also notice that you can make sentences like Sono Italiano, without including the pronoun. To English speakers this may seem like saying "Am from Italy", which we would never do, but in Italian, because the subject can be figured out by the form of the verb used (since the sentence used sono, the subject must be io, or I), there is no confusion about who the subject of the sentence is and the pronoun can be left out. If it would be unclear what the subject of the sentence is, then the pronoun has to be included.

The above lists of when to use essere and stare have to be memorized - using them incorrectly means you will be less likely to be understood, and people will definitely know you are not a native speaker. The same goes for the conjugations of essere and stare. Every Italian verb has a conjugation, and memorizing them just goes along with learning the language.

Il, lo, la, un, uno and una (definite and indefinite articles)
In Italian, as well as all the other Romance languages (French, Spanish, etc), all nouns have a gender associated with them. "Chair" is feminine, "telephone" is masculine. The way to tell whether a noun is masculine or feminine is to look at the il/lo or la that precedes the noun in the New Words section of these lessons. Il is the definite article that corresponds to masculine nouns - il professore, il telefono. La is the definite article that corresponds to feminine nouns - la casa, la tavola, la finestra. Whether a noun is considered feminine or masculine is generally based on the last letter of the noun. If the noun ends with an "a", as in sedia or cucina, then it is most probably a feminine noun. If it ends with an "o", such as muro or orologio (wristwatch), then it is always a masculine noun. Exceptions do exist to this rule - poeta (poet) is masculine - but the majority of Italian nouns behave normally. Nouns ending with an "e", can be masculine or feminine, usually according to the meaning (like padre (father) and madre (mother) but e.g. parete is feminine). The exceptions just have to be memorized as you come across them.

When using nouns, you must make sure that you use the correct gender and number when using an identifier. The identifiers are il, lo, la, i, gli, le, un, uno and una. Il, lo and la are singular

definite articles, which means you are talking about a specific thing. La sedia means "the chair" you are talking about a specific chair. Un, uno and una are singular indefinite articles, which means you are taking about any member of a group of things. Una sedia means "a chair" - you are talking about any chair in general. The use of these identifiers is identical to the way you would say it in English - if you want to say "a table", use una, and if you want to say "the table", use la. i and gli are the plural of il and lo, and le is the plural of la. You use these plural definite articles when you are talking about several specific members of a group - i tavoli means "the tables". There are no plural forms of uno and una, and to translate "some" when used in sentences, one must use indeterminate pronouns - dei tavoli means "some tables". Note however that for uncountables nouns, where English uses no article ("Wine is red"), Italian will use an article (Il vino e' rosso). You may wonder why there are two forms for the masculine articles (il and lo, and their plurals i and gli, as well as un and uno). The first form is used when a noun begins with a consonant (il telefono), the second form is used when a noun begins with a vowel (un Italiano), or with s followed by a consonant, or with z, gn, ps or x. As a further complication, if a (masculine or feminine) noun begins with a vowel, the articles lo and la) are not written in full form (Lo Italiano, "the Italian man", or "Italian language") unless a new line starts across the two words, but in abbreviated form (L'Italiano) separated by an apostrophe. The apostrophe means something has been elided (left out). Even trickier (but this is how one recognizes who knows Italian !), with indefinite articles, the apostrophe is needed only for the feminine form (since for the masculine one REPLACES uno with un which is a valid existing form, thus : un Italiano ("an Italian man") but un'Italiana ("an Italian woman"). Here are some examples using these articles:
Le stanze sono grandi. ("The rooms are big.") Delle sedie sono in cucina. ("Some chairs are in the kitchen.") Il telefono verde. ("The telephone is green.") La parete brutta. ("The wall is ugly.")

Di, da and in
Di is Italian for of (or from, in the way sometimes used in English). La casa di Teresa means "Teresa's house" (literally, "the house of Teresa"). Sono di Milano means "I am from Milan". Di is used most often to show posession or origin, as per the preceding examples. When di is followed by an il, as in la casa di il professore, the di and il are combined into del. So the only and correct way to say "The (male) professor's house" would be la casa del professore.

Da is Italian for from, in all cases this indicates a motion. Since we haven't seen any verbs of motion, we can't make examples yet.

In is Italian for ... in, as in inside something (not necessarily inside a physical object). It can be used to mean that something is inside something else, as in la sedia sta in cucina ("the chair is in the kitchen"), or that someone is somewhere, Marco in Italia ("Mark is in Italy").

Adjectives
Agreement
Adjectives are words that describe things, words like "red", "fast", and "pretty". In English, there isn't much to using adjectives because they never change - "the fast car" or "the cars are fast". In Italian, the adjective has to agree, in both gender and number, with whatever it is describing. If the adjective modifies a feminine noun, then the adjective uses a feminine ending. If the adjective modifies a masculine plural noun, then the adjective uses a masculine plural ending. Here are some adjectives with their various endings: carino - pretty singular masculine - carino singular feminine - carina plural masculine - carini plural feminine - carine comodo - comfortable

singular masculine - comodo singular feminine - comoda plural masculine - comodi plural feminine - comode

brutto - ugly

singular masculine - brutto singular feminine - brutta plural masculine - brutti plural feminine - brutte

sporco - dirty

singular masculine - sporco singular feminine - sporca plural masculine - sporchi plural feminine - sporche

bianco - white

singular masculine - bianco singular feminine - bianca plural masculine - bianchi plural feminine - bianche

nero - black

singular masculine - nero singular feminine - nera plural masculine - neri plural feminine - nere

The above rules are good for any adjective that ends in an -o or -a. Adjectives like grande and verde, that end in -e, do not have separate masculine and feminine forms and make plural in -i. So, you would say la stanza e' grande ("the room is big"), and il muro e' grande ("the wall is big"), as well as le sedie sono grandi ("the chairs are big"). There are exceptions to this rule, but that will be addressed in another lesson.

Placement of adjectives
In Italian, adjectives generally (poetry is different !) go after the noun they are describing. For example, il telefono rosso ("the red telephone"), and le professoresse vecchie ("the old (female) professors"). If you want to say that "something is something", then the sentence structure is the same as in English, using the correct forms of essere: il telefono rosso ("the telephone is red"); le professoresse sono vecchie ("the (female) professors are old").

Numbers 11-99
The numbers 11-16, like the numbers 1-10 in Lesson 1, have slightly irregular forms - however they follow some patterns, much like they do in English. 17-19 follow another pattern. Eleven is undici, which is actually a contraction (shortening) of uno e dieci, or "1 and 10". Seventeen is Diciassette, or "10 and 7", and so on. Much like the "teens" in English - fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, etc.

Twenty in Italian is venti. Twenty-one is ventuno (a contraction of venti e uno or "twenty and one"), 22 is ventidue ("twenty and two"), and so on. Thirty is trenta, 31 is trentuno, 38 is trentotto ("thirty and 8"). This pattern holds for all of the numbers 11 through 99 - first learn the base (such as venti ("twenty"), quaranta ("forty"), or ottanta ("eighty")), then to make numbers in-between the bases, add the word for the second number onto the end (ventidue ("twenty-two"), quarantacinque ("forty-five"), ottantanove ("eighty-nine")). If two vowels meet, the first one is dropped like in vent(i)uno ("twenty-one"). Isn't that easy?

Examples

Here are some examples of sentences you can now make, using the words and grammar from these 2 lessons:

Sono di Milano Tino in cucina. La signorina carina. Tu sei antipatico. La sedia comoda. Milano in Italia. Il professore vecchio malato. Il telefono verde sporco. Il bagno in casa. La casa di Maria arancione. (what a funny colour ?)

Here are the translations for these sentences.

Italian Lesson 3 - a scuola (at school)

This week's new words:

NOUNS la biblioteca (bib-lee-o-tek-a) - library la biologia (bee-o-lo-gee-a) - biology l'amico/la amica (ah-mee-ko, ah-mee-ka) - friend il cancellino (can-chel-lee-no) - chalkboard eraser il quaderno (kwa-der-no) - notebook la classe (klas-say) - class (people), classroom la lezione (let-zee-oh-ne) - class (lesson) il dizionario (dik-zee-o-nar-eeo) - dictionary il danaro (dah-nar-oh) - money i soldi (sol-dee) - money l'economia (eeko-nom-eea)- economics l'italiano (ee-tah-lya-no) - Italian lo studente (stoo-dehn-tay) - student (male)

 la studentessa (stoo-dehn-tays-sah) - student (female) lo scolaro/la scolara (sko-lah-roh, sko-lah-rah) - schoolboy, schoolgirl il banco (ban-koh) - desk la scuola (skwoh-la) - school la geografia (geeo-gra-fee-a) - geography l'ora (or-a) - hour l'inglese (eeng-lay-seh) - English la matita (mah-tee-tah)- pencil il libro (lee-bro) - book la matematica (mat-ay-mat-ee-kah) - math la pagina (pa-gee-na) - page la carta (kar-tah) - paper la lavagna (lah-vah-nya) - chalkboard la penna (pen-nah) - pen l'orologio (oh-roh-lo-joe) - clock/watch il compito (kom-pee-toh) - homework il tempo (tehm-poh)- time il gesso (jehs-soh)- chalk l'universit (oo-nee-ver-see-tah)- university VERBS amare - to love ascoltare (as-kohl-tah-reh) - to listen studiare (stoo-dee-ah-reh) - to study parlare (par-lah-reh) - to speak/talk chiamare (kee-ah-mah-reh) - to call

 ritornare (ree-tor-nah-reh) - to return lavorare (lah-voh-rah-reh) - to work INTERROGATIVES quale (kwahleh)- which quando (kwahndo) - when quanto(-a) (kwahnto) - how much quanti(-as) (kwahntee)- how many dove (doh-vay) - where perch (payr-kway)1 - why che cosa (kay kohsah) - what chi (kee) - who CONJUNCTIONS perch (payr-kway)1 - because e (ay) - and PREPOSITIONS a (ah) - at, to, the dative a ADJECTIVES corto(-a, -i, -e) (korto) - short quarto(-a, -i, -e) (kwar-toh) - quarter (one-fourth) difficile (-i) (deef-fee-chee-lay) - difficult facile (-i) (fa-chee-lay) - easy lungo(-a, -hi, -he) - long largo(-a, -hi, -he) - wide, broad mezzo(-a, -i, -e) (metz-zoh) - half

Numbers 100-999.999

 100 cento (chen-toh) 101 centouno (chen-toh oo-no) 102 centodue 103 centotre 110 centodieci 120 centoventi 199 centonovantanove 200 duecento (doo-ay-chen-toh) 201 duecentouno 255 duecentocinquantacinque 282 duecentoottantadue 300 trecento (tray-chen-toh) 400 quattrocento (kwat-troh-chen-toh) 500 cinquecento (cheen-kwe-chen-toh) 600 seicento (say-ee-chen-toh) 700 settecento (set-tay-chen-toh) 800 ottocento (ot-toh-chen-toh) 900 novecento (no-vay-chen-toh) 1.000 mille (mil-lay) 1.001 milleuno 1.010 milledieci 1.100 millecento 1.538 millecinquecentotrentotto 1.999 millenovecentonovantanove 2.000 duemila

 3.000 tremila 9.000 novemila 10.000 diecimila 15.000 quindicimila 27.000 ventisettemila 76.000 settantaseimila 99.999 novantanovemilanovecentonovantanove 100.000 centomila 210.005 duecentodiecimila e cinque 305.111 trecentocinquemila centoundici 500.000 cinquecentomila 860.789 ottocentosessantamila settecentoottantanove 911.222 novecentododicimila duecentoventidue

Notes
1. There is a single word in Italian for "why" and "because", that is perch. The accent on perch, as well as on any other word in Italian, tells you that the stress is on that syllable. Accents in Italian are written only to indicate that the stress is on the last syllable (contrary to the majority of words which is stressed on the penultimate syllable). On dictionaries accents are always written on the stressed syllables, but this is not done in common writing. 2. The letter "q" (as in quando) is always followed by an "u" and another wovel, and is pronounced "kw" (as in English "quill"). The same identical pronunciation is used for the group "cu" followed by a vowel (as in scuola). There is no rule on when to use either forms in writing, but it is a serious mistake to use the wrong one (in fact, writing "squola" with "q" is the prototype of mistakes in jokes). There are a few words with a double-sound (k-kw), which are always written as "cqu + vowel" (like acqua "water", pron. "ak-kwah"), with a single exception of double "q" in the word soqquadro ("sok-kwa-droh", "a mess").

Regular -are (1st conjugation) verbs

All Italian verbs fall into one of three categories (conjugations) - they either end in are, ere, or ire. Within each category, there are regular and irregular verbs. Regular verbs all conjugate with a similar pattern all the new verbs in this lesson are regular (as you'll see soon). Irregular verbs don't follow a pattern, and

each verb's conjugation has to be memorized separately - the two verbs you learned in Lesson 2, essere and stare are irregular.

Here are the new verbs for this lesson: amare, ascoltare, studiare, parlare, ritornare, lavorare. These are all regular -are verbs. Here are the present-tense (present indicative) conjugations of them all:
io parlo ("I speak") tu parli ("you speak") lei,[lui]parla ("you (formal), [he,] she speaks") noi parliamo ("we speak") voi parlate ("you (plural) speak") essi,esse,loro parlano ("they (male), they (female). you (formal plural),speak") Regular verbs are made up of a body (parl), and a suffix (are). To conjugate regular verbs, replace the infinitive suffix (are, ere, ire) with the correct conjugation suffix from the example conjugation for parlare above. For example, take amare, and conjugate it: io amo ("I love") tu ami ("you love") lei,[lui] ama ("you (formal), [he,] she loves") noi amiamos ("we love") voi amate ("you (plural) love") essi,esse,loro amano ("they (male), they (female) you (formal plural), love")

All verbs can be split into a body/suffix pair, but only regular verbs follow these patterns. There are 3 different regular-verb patterns - one for -are verbs, one for -ere verbs, and one for -ire verbs. (In the next lesson, we'll learn the rules for regular -ere and -ire verbs.) In summary, to conjugate any regular -are verb in the present (present indicative) tense, remove the -are suffix, and add one of the following (depending on who is the subject of the verb):
io -o tu -i lei,lui,esso -a

 noi -iamo voi -ate essi,esse,loro -ano Here are complete conjugations of 2 more verbs from this lesson: lavorare io lavoro, tu lavori, lei lavora, noi lavoriamo, voi lavorate, essi lavorano ritornare io ritorno, tu ritorni, lei ritorna, noi ritorniamo, voi ritornate, essi ritornano Now that we have the conjugation for these regular -are verbs, we can make sentences with them, like this:

Amo Tania. ("I love Tania") Lavora all'universit. ("He works at (in) the university") Noi ascoltiamo la professoressa. ("We listen to the teacher") Essi studiano alle otto. ("The men study at 8") Esse parlano italiano. ("The women speak Italian") Io ritorno all'universit alle tre. ("I return to the university at 3 o'clock") Studiate matematica ? ("Do you study math?")

A - At or To, and the dative A

In a few of the sentences above, the preposition a is used, as in Essi studiano alle otto. The preposition a translates to the English "at" or "to", depending on the sentence. The preceeding sentence ("essi studiano...") is an example of a meaning "at". The sentence io ritorno all'universit is an example of a meaning "to". When the a comes before an article, as in io ritorno a la universit, the a and the la combine to form alla. This is the so-called articulated preposition. Moreover, if the next noun begins with a wovel, the last vowel of the articulated preposition falls and is replaced by an apostrophe So the correct way to write the preceeding sentence is: io ritorno all'universit.

Note that the English "at" may translate to either a or in in Italian, depending on the sentence. In is usually used to refer to something being at something else, such as sono in universit - "I'm at the university". A usually refers to a state or condition (sort of) of something, such as "at great speed", or when referring to time, such as alla una ("at one o'clock"). In two more cases, the a isn't either of the above two meanings, but is used for English "to". One case is when a motion to somewhere is involved, like in "Io vado all'universit" (I go to the university, the verb used is irregular). Another one is when a person or name of a place is the destination of a verb, an a is placed before the object, as in La professoressa parla agli studenti.

("The teacher talks to the students"). The preposition a is NOT needed for transitive verbs (when the object is direct, as in Io amo Tania ("I love Tania").

Numbers 100 to 999.999

If you've looked at the numbers in the New Words section, you may already have seen some patterns developing in Italian numbers. First, the numbers 100, 200, 300, etc., all have a similar form - cento, duecento, trecento... If you look carefully, and remember the numbers 2 through 9, you'll see that each hundred above 100 is just "two hundred" (duecento), "three hundred" (trecento), and so on. To form numbers in between the hundreds, you use the numbers 1-99 you learned in the last 2 lessons, but add the hundreds on to the front. Eleven is undici, 111 is centoundici. Three-hundred and twenty is trecentoventi, and so on. Putting spaces between parts of a compound number is optional.

Mille is Italian for 1.000. No, this isn't "one point zero zero zero zero", this is one-thousand. English uses a comma to separate thousands, millions, etc., in a number. Italian traditionally use the period (".") instead. In English, we would expect to see this number: 12,399,100. In Italian, the same number is written: 12.399.100. In much the same way, where English uses the period to denote numbers between whole numbers (as in "12.99"), Italian uses a comma ("12,99"), but this will be discussed in another lesson. In scientific practice we often use the English convention, particularly for fractionary numbers. Public administration uses the Italian convention, and this is what was taught in schools in my times. Multiples of 1000 are treated as such - 2000 is duemila, literally "two thousands". Three thousand is tremila, and so on. This pattern is the same for thousands up to 999.000 (that's ninehundred ninety-nine thousand), so that 50.000 is cinquantamila, and 231.000 is duecentotrentunomila. Combining these two rules for numbers, we can read numbers like 123.456 (centoventitremila quattrocentocinquantasei) and 784.675 ( settecentoottantaquattromila seicentosettantacinque). So now, practice saying things like:
The current year. (millenovecentonovantacinque) How many miles are on your car. (centomiaquattrocentotrentadue) The number of pages in the book you're reading. (trecentoottanta) The number of CDs and tapes you own. (duecentocinque) Your yearly salary. (uh, in Lira that will be in millions ... :-) )

Telling Time
Io ritorno in universit alle tre. Telling time in Italian uses only 2 forms of the verb essere: and sono. Italian for "it is one o'clock" is la una. Times are always given in the feminine form because la ora ("hour", or "the time") is feminine. la is only used if you are talking about one o'clock, since "one" is singular. For all other hours, you use sono le, as in sono le sei ("It's 6 o'clock"). Minutes are expressed as

numbers after the hour, using either e or mens to represent after or before the hour, respectively. At 15 minutes before or after the hour, quarto ("a fourth") is commonly used instead of quindici ("fifteen"). Likewise, at 30 minutes after an hour, mezza ("half") is commonly used instead of trenta ("thirty"). Mezza is never used with meno. Here are some examples:

la una e venti. ("It's twenty after one", literally "it's one and twenty") Sono le due meno dieci. ("It's ten before two", literally "it's two minus ten") but also la una e cinquanta Sono le quattro e un quarto. ("It's a quarter after four.") Sono le quattro meno un quarto. ("It's a quarter before four.") but also Sono le tre e tre quarti (literally, "it is three and three quarters") and Sono le tre e quarantacinque (literally, "it is three and forty-five") Sono le dieci e mezza. ("It's half past ten.") la una meno cinque. ("It's five (minutes) to one.")

To say that something is "at" a certain time, use alla or alle:

A che ora la lezione ? ("At what time is the lesson ?") La lezione alle nove. ("The lesson is at 9 o'clock.") La lezione alla una. ("The lesson is at one o'clock.")

To ask for the time in Italian, use Che ora ("What time is it?"). To ask what time something happens at, use A che ora ? ("At what time...?") as in A che ora la lezione ?, or A che ora ritorni in universit ? ("What time do you return to the university?").

To differentiate between AM and PM when telling time, Italian may add del mattino ("in the morning"), del pomeriggio ("in the afternoon"), della (di) sera ("in the evening") and della notte ("in the night") to describe what time of day being referred to. Usually this is clear from the context and is not specified explicitly. Another possibility is to use a 24-hour clock (this is always done officially, e.g. when calling for meetings, in train and plane timetables, etc.). So 9 o'clock PM becomes sono le nove di sera, while 9AM is sono le nove della mattina, and 5PM is sono le cinque del pomeriggio.

Questions and Question Words

Asking a yes or no question
There are many ways to ask questions in Italian, althoug there is no do-form as in English. The simplest form of a question is to use a regular sentence but either add a question mark (when written) or change the inflection (when spoken). Look at these 2 sentences:

Marisa studia. ("Marisa studies.") Marisa studia ? ("Does Marisa study?")

When writing a question a question mark occurs at the end of the question. When speaking, you must change the inflection of the sentence. A normal sentence ends on a low inflection, as in "maRIsa sTUdia", with capital letters denoting syllable emphasis. When asking a question, the sentence ends with a high inflection, as in "maRIsa studIA", much the same as English questions.

It is also possible to change the word order when asking a question. Look at these sentences:

Marisa studia italiano ? Studia italiano, Marisa ?

Both these sentences say the same thing, "Is Marisa studying Italian?" The subject of the sentence, namely Marisa, can be placed or at the end of the sentence, for questions only. The second sentence may mean "is she studying Italian or another language ?"

One other common way of asking a question is to add no ? or vero ? ("right?") to the end of a sentence. So the question above could also be written: Marisa studia italiano, vero ? ("Marisa is studying Italian, isn't she?" or "Marisa is studying Italian, right?"). Question words
All of these questions have implied either a yes or no answer - "Is Marisa studying?", "Is she studying Italian?" To ask questions that require more than a yes or no answer, you generally have to use a question word. Here is a list of some English question words and their Italian equivalents: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. What - che cosa Who - chi When - quando Why - perch, Which - quale How much - quanto(-a) How many - quanti(-e) Where - dove

Each question word, or interrogative, works similarly to its English counterpart. Perhaps the easiest way to explain how to use them is through example sentences. Take a look at these: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Chi Roberto ? ("Who is Roberto?") Quando ritorna ? ("When is s/he returning?") Dove studia ? ("Where does s/he study?") Che ora ? ("What time is it?") A che ora la lezione ? ("At what time is the lesson?") Qual il compito ? ("What is the homework (assignment)?") Chi in casa? ("Who is in the house?") Dov' la matita ? ("Where is the pencil?") Perch torni a scuola ? ("Why do you return to school?")

10. In quale universit studi ? ("At which university do you study?") 11. Quanti studenti ci sono in classe ? ("How many students are there in the classroom?") Notice the similarity between English and Italian? Try making your own questions by translating the following English sentences (note that not all of them need a question word). Type in your answer in the text box after each sentence, then press the Translations button to compare what you typed to what the right answers are. (Answers for users without forms support.) 1. What is in the book? 2. Where does s/he work? 3. Who is it? 4. Is it 2 o'clock? 5. What do you(informal) need? 6. Why do you love him?

Test yourself
Here's your chance to see how much you know. All of these sentences you should be able to translate either from or to Italian, if you've gone through all three lessons. Type in your answer in the text box after each sentence, then press the Translations button to compare what you typed to what the right answers are. (Answers for users without forms support.) English to Italian 1. Hello, miss, are you in school? 2. You're the teacher, aren't you? 3. The class is long and difficult. 4. Is the television in the kitchen? 5. The green chair is big. 6. I listen to the teacher in (the) class. 7. Are the students unpleasant? 8. The chalkboard is dirty. 9. I'm sorry, I don't speak English. 10. They're Tim's papers. Italian to English

1. Il compito difficile ? 2. Quando la lezione ? 3. Parlo bene inglese e italiano. 4. carina ? 5. La classe grande e pulita 6. Dove studiano geografia ? 7. Chi chiamano in cucina ? 8. Quando lavora a scuola ? 9. un libro di matematica. 10. Mi serve una penna blu.