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One thing I’ve noticed about Italian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| bobby1413 Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4009 days ago 32 posts - 32 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian | Message 1 of 25 19 July 2013 at 10:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I've been learning Italian for 7 weeks now and I think I've picked up a fair amount
already. I can hardly understand anything listening to tv and radio, in fact, it sounds completely alien to me! However, with writing and reading, it's far easier, and even speaking is easier. I've noticed that it's becoming more instinctive. E.g. I can look at a sentence, and not know 2-3 words, but can really quickly work it out. I've also noticed that there are LOADS AND LOADS of Italian words which seem to just have 100 different meanings and uses. Like Alle, Sono, Ci, Esso, Questo, etc.... I kind of think of those words as not meaning anything. Like just fillers in a sentence, to join it together. As for verbs, I have some undertanding of -ARE verbs. -ERE is quite similar, but -IRE I haven't really looked at to be honest. I'm also starting to think more about sentence structure, and how I can say something. Like I will sometimes make up something I want to say... as an example, I may think "Are you doing much today?" and then try to construct the sentence and think about how I would ask, what are you doing today? as I don't know how to directly translate... "Che è fare oggi" - which I then look up to realise it's not quite right and then I adjust it and learn more. It's good to know I'm learning 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5410 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes  | Message 2 of 25 19 July 2013 at 11:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
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In every language the most used words are always used in the most strikingly different idioms. Once you have the first 1000 under your belt, the new words become much more reliable and restricted, because they are more specialized by its nature.
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| lingoleng Senior Member Germany Joined 5109 days ago 605 posts - 1290 votes | Message 3 of 25 19 July 2013 at 11:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
At first, it is good that you feel like you're making progress, good luck with your further studies. But reading the above I think you make life more difficult than necessary. It is exactly the simple high frequency words you should get a good understanding of as soon as possible, then you have more capacity for concentrating on new words, structures and so on. Not a perfect understanding, but a good overview what they mean and how they are used. Some of them are absolutely trivial, like sono, esso, questo; alle belongs to the preposition a, combined with the article. a is not easy, just as prepositions in English are not easy, but the general idea is simple, whereas the correct usage is not. ci is a little bit tricky, ok, but still accessible at an early stage. So I recommend that you use an ordinary textbook in order to get these rather simple things explained. Maybe using it aside of what you do now will be useful at many points where you feel like you cannot understand what is going on, but a short look at the textbook makes everything clear in some minutes. Edited by lingoleng on 20 July 2013 at 1:27pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6250 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 4 of 25 20 July 2013 at 12:01am | IP Logged | |||||
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I second lingoleng's advice. If you treat too much as filler, there's a tendency to grow to understand a language, but have a really terrible time producing it. I've done that before, and it's not fun.
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| Rykketid Diglot Groupie Italy Joined 4644 days ago 88 posts - 146 votes Speaks: Italian*, English Studies: French | Message 5 of 25 21 July 2013 at 12:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
You shouldn't. Alle = "to/at the" for plural feminine words (made up of a + le) Sono = I am / they are Ci = quite tricky but it's an important particle and is not meaningless Esso = an uncommon way to say "he" Questo = this I really don't get how you could come to the conclusion that those words are filler words which have no meaning. Edited by Rykketid on 21 July 2013 at 12:07pm 9 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4169 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 6 of 25 21 July 2013 at 2:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
I had the same thought when I read the op. Far from fillers, all those little words make a big difference in the meaning, and the general impression your Italian will leave. Details are boring for many of us (myself included), but they are important, and you know what they say about details... 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 4941 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 7 of 25 21 July 2013 at 4:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
My guess is that he just isn't aware of the correct terminology. His example words range from preposition, conjugated verb, pronoun (or adverb, depending on use) to demonstrative. A better question probably would have been just to simply ask why/how/when these words should be used. Ci/ce/ne/ve seem to be particularly difficult for English-speaking learners of Italian. I know it certainly took me a while to grasp them when I was starting out. He says he's only been studying the language for 7 weeks, so I wouldn't expect him to know their usage just yet. Exposure to them, yes, usage, not so much, but it'll come with more exposure. R. == Edited by hrhenry on 21 July 2013 at 4:30pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5020 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 25 22 July 2013 at 3:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
Bobby1413, if Hrhenry's correct and part of the problem may lie with challenges you're facing with English grammar, you may like to try something like this book: English Grammar for Students of Italian http://tinyurl.com/egfsoi. (It's part of of a series, with other titles for students of German, French, etc...) I've also found the "Collins Easy Learning..." series both very accessible and useful as a supplement (for my French). There a number of slightly different titles, but if you type the above phrase and "Italian" into Amazon, you'll have a choice of "Collins Easy Learning Italian Grammar", "...Easy Learning Italian Grammar and Practice", "...Complete Italian Grammar, Verbs and Vocabulary". Which course/series are you using as a primary resource for your Italian? (Is it not explaining the words which you're thinking of as "filler"? ) Edited by songlines on 22 July 2013 at 3:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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