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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| bobby1413 Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4199 days ago 32 posts - 32 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian | Message 1 of 7 19 July 2013 at 10:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm really struggling to remember the words for starting a question, e.g. "how, who,
what, where, when, how, etc..." I can remember: Quando = when Quanto = how much Che = what Dove = where But I just can never remember "Who, how" that clearly, and a few others. Is there any tricks or references for this? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5131 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes  Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 2 of 7 19 July 2013 at 11:00pm | IP Logged | |||||
No real tricks, just continued exposure. A question: Are you coming at Italian with some Spanish under your belt? I ask because, even though I'd had a couple decades worth of Spanish when I started to learn Italian, I really had to put Spanish out of my mind and not try and map words between the two languages for me to push ahead. For all the talk of similarity between the two languages - and, don't get me wrong, there are similarities, there really are some (fairly substantial) differences between the two, and trying to equate the two for everything just hindered my progress. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| bobby1413 Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4199 days ago 32 posts - 32 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian | Message 3 of 7 19 July 2013 at 11:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Nope, not Spanish.
I'm an English speaker by birth. I learned some French in school but I've pretty much forgotten everything. I want to become fluent(ish) in Italian, enough to speak to any person there and understand them with some patience from them. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 7 22 July 2013 at 10:38am | IP Logged | |||||
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Maybe you could try making a collection of say 10 sentences with each question word, one word at a time. By concentrating on one of them and doing something tangible you will get a more individualized impression of each one, instead of just relying on text and speech where they are mixed.
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| vogue Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4255 days ago 109 posts - 181 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish Studies: Ukrainian | Message 5 of 7 22 July 2013 at 1:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
I know this doesn't apply to your case, but for those of us with Spanish experience. I agree not everything can be equated but Spanish gives a massive discount. Or at least it gave me one, and when I don't know a word I sometimes try to Italianize the Spanish word. Of course you eventually develop an instinct as to whether it might make sense. " Even if I didn't know mangiare meant 'to eat' I would know "comere" (comer) doesn't sound like an Italian word; on the other hand I could reasonably figure that light is "luce" from luz or even easier know that saltare (saltar) is jump. Not to mention similarities in some conjugations. But there are of course false friends/equivalencies. Salir and salire are two very different words, and Italian grammar has a lot of differences overall. Some points of which are very tricky, even seemingly simple things. "Ne" and "mica" come to mind.. The latter of which I still haven't figured out all the uses for. Fortunately I don't think I've ever heard it in speech just read it. Of course, that in itself is tricky with Italian because the written and spoken language deviate in several ways. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6440 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 6 of 7 22 July 2013 at 1:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
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"Mica" is a bit of an intensifier. It's used in speech, in phrases like "Non e' mica vero!". "Non e' vero" simply means "it isn't true", while with mica the meaning is more similar to "That's absolutely not true!" It's often partially translatable in negative sentences as "absolutely not/not at all".
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| vogue Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4255 days ago 109 posts - 181 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish Studies: Ukrainian | Message 7 of 7 22 July 2013 at 1:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thanks that's very helpful!I've been told by Italians that it makes things "more negative" but I've seen it in so many contexts. I should begin writing these sentences down when I see them. I like to check out this page every once in a while for this word: http://robinonawire.wordpress.com/2012/01/01/mica-how-to-use -it/. Though it says it's more common in spoken language, I wonder if it's regional or if I just don't register it when I hear it. Edited by vogue on 22 July 2013 at 1:41pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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