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Italian questions

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sillygoose1
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 Message 1 of 9
17 May 2014 at 4:35am | IP Logged 
In regards to the passato remoto, is this really needed these days? In French it's literary, I know it's used in Spanish, but what about Italian? Because of the massive irregularity of many Italian verbs, I'm finding it to be a pain to actively learn so I was thinking about doing it along the way.

A sort of follow up, which conjugation should I be using? For example with "dare", there's diedi/detti, etc. Same thing with verbs like ricevere. Ricevei, ricevetti, etc.

Also, if I want to say that "I gave it to him", "I gave one to him" are these setups correct? Gliel'ho dato? Gliene ho dato uno?

And for her/formal, it would be pretty much the same? Le l'ho dato, Ne le ho data uno? I feel like I'm off with this one.

Edited by sillygoose1 on 17 May 2014 at 4:36am

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Cabaire
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 Message 2 of 9
17 May 2014 at 8:46am | IP Logged 
I think this tense is used in the spoken language ony in the South of Italy, i.e. south of Rome. In higher literature is is of course ubiquitous like in French, but it depends of course on the author.
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drygramul
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 Message 3 of 9
17 May 2014 at 11:57am | IP Logged 
1) As Cabaire said, it is mostly used in Southern Italy instead of passato prossimo, although it should be used for situations detached in the past. And in Northern Italy they use mostly passato prossimo, although it should be mostly used for situations linked to the present or near in the past.
In addition you will find passato remoto in literature and in some conversational contextes in Northern Italy too, so I think it's necessary to at least have a passive knowledge.

2) For dare I use diedi, for ricevere, ricevetti. I don't know about others or other regions, it just sounds better and it's easier for me to pronounce (io detti, it's kinda hard sounding).

3)They are correct in passato prossimo. In passato remoto they would be:
glielo diedi, gliene diedi uno

4)No it's not, it's the same as the third person (LEI): gliel'ho dato, gliene ho dato uno.
What you have written it's hard to pronounce and it's grammatically wrong. You could twist it a bit and make it:
- l'ho dato a lei, ne ho dato uno a lei (direct object before the verb)
or
- le ho dato quella cosa, le ho dato una di quelle cose (indirect object before the verb)
The only way to put both direct and indirect object before the verb is with glielo.



Edit: there's also
a lei l'ho dato / a lei ne ho dato
which is grammatically correct, but has another meaning, implying a contrast.
>> You/her, specifically/on the other hand, received it from me the other day
>> You/her, specifically/on the other hand, receveid from me 3 chocolates (as opposed to someone else)
>> You/her, specifically/on the other hand, got from me only one of them

Edited by drygramul on 17 May 2014 at 2:46pm

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1e4e6
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 Message 4 of 9
18 May 2014 at 5:19am | IP Logged 
I would learn it both actively and passively because it is, as said above, used from
south of Rome down into Sicily on an everyday basis. It would be annoying to skip it and
upon hearing it in conversation, not know what that word is due to not learning the
tense. It would be like those who completely skip the «vosotros» in Spanish because they
do not want to learn Peninsular Spanish, but if they speak with or hear a Spaniard who
uses it (which is basically everyone in Spain), then they get confused or do not know
what exactly they said.

It is not difficult to learn; Spanish and Portuguese use it actively and everyday, and it
is not exactly considered tensor calculus for Hispanophones or Lusophones.
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Serpent
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 Message 5 of 9
18 May 2014 at 4:06pm | IP Logged 
For me learning it passively includes being able to understand it in a conversation :-)
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sillygoose1
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 Message 6 of 9
18 May 2014 at 11:49pm | IP Logged 
Thanks guys. So basically the Italian "gli" is equivalent to the French "lui" and Spanish "le" in the sense that gender isn't really a factor.

I have more questions however regarding contractions.

Sometimes I see things like "Una bottiglia d'acqua" where "di" is contracted in order to flow better. But I also see cases where the sentence is like "Una cosa di importanza". Does it sort of work in English where we don't use "an" in front of every word beginning with a vowel, only those that flow better? I mean, no one says "an European". I'm not sure how it works in these cases.

Are sentences like "Quell'e' un problema" acceptable? Does the o or a ever get removed with quello/quella in normal speech?

And one more general question.

How prevalent are constructions such as "c'ho" or "c'hai"? Is that only a Roman thing?

"C'ho una sorella", "C'hai un gatto?"

Edited by sillygoose1 on 18 May 2014 at 11:52pm

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Gustavo Russi
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 Message 7 of 9
19 May 2014 at 3:03am | IP Logged 
This is an interesting matter. My native language is Portuguese and no, we don't use "passado remoto" in our daily conversations. We use something called "pretérito perfeito" and "pretérito perfeito composto". Both of these verb tenses are used to express past. In fact, we use "passado remoto" in books too ("ele foi" becomes "ele fora", as french "il a été" becomes "il fut" and so on).
That being said, lusophones usually have a little trouble when learning the past tenses in other european languages, because they usually come with an auxiliar.
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Serpent
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 Message 8 of 9
19 May 2014 at 7:50am | IP Logged 
sillygoose1 wrote:
Does it sort of work in English where we don't use "an" in front of every word beginning with a vowel, only those that flow better? I mean, no one says "an European". I'm not sure how it works in these cases.

Kinda offtopic, but that's more about the usual rule being a bit off. It's about vowel SOUNDS, not letters, and for learners who know the pronunciation of words it's easy to understand why it's "a university" and "an hour". English might be a mess, but this part is quite neat, really.


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