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| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5921 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 193 of 228 28 September 2011 at 10:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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Wow! What a great week I've had with Italian. I haven't been worrying the "gli" sound at all, and it is beginnig to sound natural which is a great thing. I haven't started learning IPA just yet but I now know that the Italian "è" is rendered in IPA as /e/ and is technically considered a close-mid vowel, which hopefully means that I should pronounce it like the e in pen but I can't be certain until I listen more closely for this sound and maybe read a little more on Italian phonology. I think the Italian "e" is similar the Spanish "e" sound, or /ɛ/ but again more listening is required to be sure.
Spoken Italian is beginning to sound more natural as well though I only understand and recognize a few separate words. I also indulged my wanderlust by listening to Romansh last weekend. Don't ask me why I thought this was a good idea, I was just curious about the less commonly studied Romance languages. Romansh sounds like a mix of French, Italian and sometimes German which is not surprising since it is spoken in Graubünden canton in Switzerland where there are also many German speakers. I know I won't learn Romansh as there aren't many resources for doing so unless I visit Graubünden, but it was interesting. Ci vediamo Mick Edited by mick33 on 09 November 2011 at 10:22pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5921 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 194 of 228 10 October 2011 at 11:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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Something was missing in my studies of Italian. Let me think... I have looked briefly at grammatical points (including verb conjugation), I have listened to spoken and sung Italian, practiced pronunciation and even dabbled with IPA to learn more about pronunciation. Oh yeah, I hadn't learned enough vocabulary. No wonder I can't write anything in Italian yet or read it. So I've been mining my TY Complete Italian book and consulting online dictionaries (why didn't I buy an Italian dictionary a few weeks ago?) to make a few wordlists and here are some of the more interesting words:
freddo - cold caldo - warm (Reminds me of the Spanish word caliente, but not really) bruciare - to burn fuoco - fire (Hmm... maybe I should use different words for this I feel very cold now) vecchio - old nebbia - fog sporco - dirty cattivo - bad or naughty I also found a page that claims to list 100 ways to say I love you in Italian. I'm pretty sure that "ti amo" (I love you) is not exactly the same as saying "ti ammiro" (I admire you) and there's probably more phrases that cannot, or should not, be used interchangably. Arrivederci Mick Edited by mick33 on 15 October 2011 at 8:19am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5921 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 195 of 228 14 October 2011 at 10:14am | IP Logged | ||
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I still need to know more Italian vocabulary, and Tuesday I decided that I wanted to learn to recognize some conjunctions, prepositions and prepositional contractions since these words seem to appear frequently in most languages I know or have learned.
First, some conjunctions: e - and o - or oppure - otherwise eppure - and yet, still ora - now perché - because, or though it wouldn't be a conjuction but a question perché can also mean why? affinché - so that, in order that però - but There are more conjunctions, but if I list them all this post will take forever. Next, I will list some conjunctions from my Teach Yourself Complete Italian book: di - of in - in per - for a - at, to con - with tra/fra - between or among da - from, by su - on senza - without NB: The translations are approximate, and the actual meanings and usage of the prepositions will often not correspond exactly with English meanings or usage. I knew I should have went to bed before 1 am. I'm way too tired to concentrate on prepositional contractions right now so I will continue this in the morning. Ci vediamo domani Buonanotte Mick Edited by mick33 on 10 February 2012 at 11:17am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5921 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 196 of 228 14 October 2011 at 10:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's actually afternoon now, but I wanted to review what I'd learned about prepositional contractions; I don't trust myself to accurately remember anything I have studied late at night.
Prepositional contractions in Italian are somewhat similar to Spanish but I think Italian has more contractions, and the reason for the contractions is, at least sometimes, to combine a preposition with a definite article. There is a good list of all the prepositional contractions here that I liked using as a basic overview and which I copied into my study notebook. After doing that I looked at the contractions in a little more detail using Chapter 6 of my TY Complete Italian book, though I am also searching for other sources just to be more certain. First I present the list: il lo l' la i gli le a al -allo -all'-alla--ai-agli-alle da dal-dallo-dall'-dalla-dai-dagli-dalle di del- dello-dell'-della-dei-degli-delle in nel- nello-nell'-nella-nei-negli-negli su sul- sulla-sull'-sulla-sui-sugli-sulle con col- colla-coll'-colla-coi-cogli-colle NB. The only contractions for "con" that are in use now are "col" and "coi" but these are not required. That list is good, but how does this work in written language? Something like this: I think I can write or say "a il cinema" (at the cinema) but I don't believe anyone who speaks Italian actually does so, they use "al cinema" which I could use to make the sentence "La chiesa è vicino al cinema" (The church is near the cinema). Another example using "da" plus the definite article is "Il ristorante è lontano dall' aeroporto" (The restaurant is far from the airport). One more example, this time using with "in", would be "La bicicletta è nell' appartamento" (The bicycle is in the apartment) which is a sentence I could actually use, if I lived in an apartment. I am thirsty and I want to learn about some other commonly used irregular verbs, such as "potere", "volere", "dovere", "fare" etc., for my next post. A presto Mick EDIT: I tried to get rid of the carriage return symbols, but I don't think I was successful and I fixed a bad weblink. Edited by mick33 on 20 October 2011 at 11:01pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5921 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 197 of 228 19 October 2011 at 10:02am | IP Logged | ||
I also attempted to read in Italian on Sunday night and I didn't get far, in fact I couldn't finish the paragraph I started. Sogni d'oro Mick Edited by mick33 on 19 October 2011 at 10:03am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5921 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 198 of 228 20 October 2011 at 11:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yes, I will finally write about the irregular verbs I've already mentioned in the previous two messages.
First I will list the present tense conjugations then show that these verbs (potere, volere, dovere, fare) are important to pay attention to because in some other verb tenses the meanings change. Potere - to be able to, can or may (io) posso (tu) puoi (lui, lei, Lei) può (noi) possiamo (voi) potete (loro, Loro) possono Volere - to want (io) voglio (tu) vuoi lui, lei, Lei) vuole (noi) vogliamo (voi) volete (loro, Loro) vogliono Dovere - to owe in the present tense (io) devo (tu) devi (lui, lei, Lei) deve (noi) dobbiamo (voi) dovete (loro, Loro)devono So far nothing at all difficult, just three commonly used verbs with irregular conjugation patterns; but there are few changes in meaning in some other tenses and/or moods. If I switch to using passato prossimo tense, which I briefly wrote about here, then the definition of potere changes to mean to be able to in the sense of having succeeded in doing an action. Seems like a very subtle change, but it is still an important one. I'm now pressed for time so my example sentence is from this page: "Ho potuto spedire il pacco." (I was able to mail the package.). For the next example of how potere's meaning changes, I had to learn a little about conditional tenses. Out of time! I will have to finish this tonight. ciao Mick Edited by mick33 on 10 May 2012 at 7:51am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5921 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 199 of 228 21 October 2011 at 11:03am | IP Logged | ||
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This is a continuation of my last post. I was about to discuss conditional tenses. In Italian, the conditional mood expresses a similar thought as the English word "would" does when placed before a verb.
Potere in the conditional present means could, would be able to, could have,or could have been able to and the conjugations are: (io) potrei (tu) potresti (lui, lei, Lei) potrebbe (noi) potremmo (voi) potreste (loro, Loro) potrebbero And my example sentence is: Potrei uscire alla cinque or "I could have left by 5. Before I go to bed tonight I will quickly explain a little more about volere. Not surprisingly, volere also has a slightly different meaning in other verb tenses, such as passato prosimo where volere means decided to or refused to. Example sentence: Non hanno voluto finirlo "They refused to do it." Time has made a fool of me again, it's 2 am and if I'm going to continue this in the morning or afternoon I have to get some sleep. Arrivederci Mick Edited by mick33 on 04 November 2011 at 8:41pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5921 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 200 of 228 21 October 2011 at 11:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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The final installment on modal verbs... at least I hope so! This post is a long one, so you might want to take a break from your computer after reading it.
Anyone reading this can probably guess that "volere" subtly changes meaning in the conitional mood to mean would like, but I doubt you could predict the conjugations unless you already know Italian: Volere (Condizionale Presente) (io) vorrei (tu) vorresti (lui, lei, Lei) vorrebbe (noi) vorremmo (voi) vorreste (loro, Loro) vorrebbero Example sentence: Vorrei andare a bicicletta, or "I would like to go by bicycle" (the English sentence is an attempt at a literal translation to highlight the way Italian expresses things.) Dovere is more complicated, it does indeed correspond with "to owe" in the present tense, however, if this page and this one are correct then dovere can be quite versatile. For one example, when a present tense sentence containing "dovere" also has another verb (which will be in the infinitive form) then "dovere" means "to have to" or "must". I listed the present tense conjugations for "dovere" in #198 so I will give my one example sentence: Dobbiamo mangiare il pranzo or "We have to eat lunch". There are obviously many more uses for "dovere", according to the links already listed, but if I type out all that then this message would be ridiculously long. Besides that, when I'm done typing this I will have plenty of grammatical points and vocabulary to learn and review. Moving on to "fare". "Fare" does not seem to be a modal verb, but it is used in many expressions and I think I have already seen it a few times in written Italian. Some of the conjugations in various tenses: Fare - to do, or to make Presente (io) faccio (tu) fai (lui, lei, Lei) fa (noi) facciamo (voi) fate (loro, Loro) fanno Imperfetto (io) facevo (tu) facevi (lui, lei, Lei) faceva (noi) facevamo (voi) facevate (loro, Loro) facevano Passato Prossimo (io) ho fatto (tu) hai fatto (lui, lei, Lei) ha fatto (noi) abbiamo fatto (voi) avete fatto (loro, Loro) hanno fatto Condizionale Presente (io) farei (tu) faresti (lui, lei, Lei) farebbe (noi) faremmo (voi) fareste (loro, Loro) farebbero Condizionale Passato (io) avrei fatto (tu) avresti fatto (lui, lei, Lei) avrebbe fatto (noi) avremmo fatto (voi) avreste fatto (loro, Loro) avrebbero fatto Well, so much for keeping this post brief but now for two examples: "Che cosa fa?" or "What do you do?" (as in a job or profession) and the answer would also use "fare" "Faccio il banchiere" or "I am a banker" Next example: "Che tempo fa?" How's the weather? the answer could something like "Fa bel tempo" (The weather is nice) or "Ha fatto freddo" (It has been cold). There are more examples of how and when "fare" may be used here and here, but this post is quite long already and it's about time I listened to more Italian today, and perhaps I will get started on the future tenses as well. A dopo Mick Edited by mick33 on 23 November 2011 at 2:08am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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