|
 |
Italian simple past and future | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Stephen7878 Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4781 days ago 34 posts - 48 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Greek, Italian | Message 1 of 13 08 November 2011 at 6:31am | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
I've been studying Italian for the last couple of months and inevitably I keep comparing it back to my semi-native Spanish. In Spanish we tend to use ir + a + infinitive (ex. voy a correr) to express the simple future. For the simple past the preterit is used (ex. corrí).
What I've noticed so far in Italian is that they tend to use different ways of forming these tenses. For example, to form the simple future would be "correrò", and the simple past would be "ho corso". We do have both of these forms in Spanish (slightly different of course), but I suppose my question is, am I on the right track assuming that what I have stated for Italian is the most common way of using those tenses, and if so, are there other constructs similar to Spanish? Every answer is appreciated. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5308 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes  Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 2 of 13 08 November 2011 at 10:45am | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
> In Spanish we tend to use ir + a + infinitive (ex. voy a correr) to express the simple future.
> Italian ... the simple past would be "ho corso". When they talk about "simple past" and "simple future", the word "simple" means "one-word" (eg. corrí, correrò, run, ran) as opposed to "compound" and "two-word or more" (eg. ho corso, have run, will run). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Kartof Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5066 days ago 391 posts - 550 votes Speaks: English*, Bulgarian*, Spanish Studies: Danish | Message 3 of 13 08 November 2011 at 12:14pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Also, from my knowledge of Spanish, I'm guessing that this tense in Italian is the present perfect and not a past tense at all (i.e. have run). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| xander.XVII Diglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5054 days ago 189 posts - 215 votes Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC1 Studies: French | Message 4 of 13 08 November 2011 at 12:27pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
In Italian you can use "vado a + infinite" like Spanish voy a correr, it means you are going to do that thing. It's like saying "I am about to" referred to the future. It expresses an idea of closeness of future because if you say: "Vado a correre" it means you are NOW going to run, within a short amount of time. If you say "Correrò" it means "I'll run/I'm going to run/I am running", as a matter of fact, it can mean you are going to run within 5 minutes or ten days. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5599 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes | Message 5 of 13 08 November 2011 at 3:37pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
The etymological analogy to Spanish corrí would be the passato remoto corsi, but this is only used literary. Both are daughters of Latin cucurri.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Emme Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5347 days ago 980 posts - 1594 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, German Studies: Russian, Swedish, French | Message 6 of 13 08 November 2011 at 8:46pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
That’s only partially right, I’m afraid, as the tense ‘ho corso’ is built symmetrically with the present perfect ‘have run’ in English, but for Italians it is a past tense. In fact, its name is passato prossimo which literally means ‘near past’, and it’s generally used where an English speaker would use a past tense.
Sorry, xander.XVII, but I don’t agree with you there. To me ‘vado a + INF’ doesn’t convey the same future meaning as the ‘I am about to’ phrase in English does. I really understand the phrase ‘vado a + INF’ rather literally, i.e. I understand that I’m going somewhere to do something. The point to remember, though, is that that somewhere is often omitted, i.e. you don’t usually specify where you’re going because it’s rather obvious or easily understood. EX.: Vado a correre. = I’m going out / to the park / … for a run. Vado a mangiare = I’m going to the cafeteria / to the restaurant … to have lunch. Do you find that this explanation makes sense or are we really understanding our own native language so differently? By the way, there’s a way to translate the English ‘I am about to’ phrase keeping its emphasis to the nearest future, and that is by using the phrase: ‘Sto per + INF’ EX.: Sto per guardare un film = I’m about to watch a movie Sto per uscire = I’m about to go out 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Stephen7878 Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4781 days ago 34 posts - 48 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Greek, Italian | Message 7 of 13 10 November 2011 at 1:06am | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
Thanks for your responses, they really helped to clear things up a bit. And I understood simple past and future to imply a one-off action as compared to the imperfect or conditional tenses.
As far as the "andare + a + infinitive", that's exactly what I was talking about but it seems like there are differing opinions about that on here. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 8 of 13 10 November 2011 at 8:55am | IP Logged | ||||||||
That's an understandable assumption, but incorrect. The "simple" here denotes the simple aspect, otherwise known as the indefinite aspect. The simple/indefinite aspect gives an action, but doesn't say whether it's complete, or ongoing. The other aspects in English are the continuous/progressive (he is doing) and the perfect (he has done). 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
