Hi, my name is Erin and I've been wanting to learn Italian for a while now. My husband got me Rosetta Stone's Italian courses for Christmas, and I'm excited to be learning but there's some things I just don't get because there is no translating in the course. It's all by pictures and words spoken only in Italian. Is there anyone willing to help me with my grammar issues? I can't seem to get when to use certain pronouns and such and I'm getting confused. Like when to use sono versus when to use è and why. Or abbraccia vs. bacia. I tried finding the literal translations of the words on sites, but they didn't help. Are there any odd grammatical rules I should know about? I don't want to try speaking Italian and end up saying something to the affect of "Thems person are my son" Thanx
hi, i'm italian, i am not an italian grammar teacher but i can speak italian since i was a child so i would be glad to help you...i hope u can help me with english either
Thanx for your help. Same with me, I'm not a grammar teacher, but I'll help with anything I can. Ok, so I do these lessons and in one, it showed a man in a coat and said "L'uomo ha freddo" below it. So I figured that meant "The man is cold" ... then it showed a boy lying down and said "Il bambino è stanco". So I figured it was "the boy is resting" or "the boy is tired". Anyhow, the grammar issue I'm having, is ... when do I know when to use ha and when to use è. In english, both sentences use "is". Is there a rule or something I should know about? Thanx
"The boy is tired" was the correct one. In English you have "to be" and "to have". "To be" is "è", "to have" is "ha". There are some differences like the one of the man with the coat but, example, if you want to say that "the air is cold" (like in winter) you say "l'aria è fredda". I think that it's only a different way to think some phrases, so keep on studying.
Thanks!! That really helps. I didn't know if I was thinking of them wrong, or if Italian is like English in the way that we have all these rules and it seems with each rule there's always an exception. I forgot to write earlier; Danilo ... just a side note on English ... you wrote: i hope u can help me with english either. It's actually: i hope u can help me with english too. Too is used when you agree with someone on something positive such as: I think it's funny too or I like cats too. Either is when you agree on something negative such as: I don't think it's funny either or I don't like cats either. What does "Mi illumino di immenso, il polonio sul sushi era troppo denso." mean? (just interested)
It's called "fincipit". It's a game where you take a verse from a poetry or a book (often the incipit) and change it in a humorous way. You make a fake incipit ->fincipit. In this case the first verse (mi illumino di immenso) is a poetry of Giuseppe Ungaretti. It's not so easy to translate, literally it means that I light myself of infinity. "il polonio sul sushi era troppo denso" is the "funny" verse. It means "the polonium on sushi was too much". Don't take "troppo denso" as the italian for "too much", it's only a word placed there for the rhyme (immenso/denso) and it means "too much" in a traversed way (I don't know if traversed is the English for "traslato"). It's black humor because it concern the death of Livitnenko, the KGB spy killed with polonium in november-december 2006.
Ah, I see. Cynical humor. No wonder it made no sense whatsoever when I tried one of those translating sites. I do have another question .... sometimes the program uses in and sometimes it uses nel ... at first with the pics they had, I thought in was used for people and nel/nella was used for objects but now sometimes they're using nel for people too such as "Io gioco nel parco" so when do I know when to use in and when to use nel?
"Nel" is in+il (in English that would be in+the). We have, like you, definite and indefinite articles (definite articles are il, lo, la, i, gli, le; indefinite ones are un, uno, una). Sometimes we merge those articles with simple prepositions (di, a, da, in, con, su, per, tra, fra) and the results are prepositions like "nel". We have almost always the articles before a noun. la casa, la porta, il computer, una mela, etc... Anyway, I found this page on Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_grammar It's not the best way to learn italian (so, you're welcome to ask here ) but it's a good starting point for grammar rules.
Ok, here's me bugging you again ... I got "Lui lava i pantaloni" and "La donna si lava la faccia" but then I got "Lei lava i capelli" wrong and it said it should be "Lei si lava i capelli" I'm confused as to why "Lei si lava i capelli" needs the si. Is it because the pants are an object as opposed to her face and hair or something?
"si lava" means that she washes HER hair (SI is a reflexive pronoun)... if you say "lei lava i capelli" is supposed that she washes somebody else's hair... i've never been that good in italian grammar (although i'm italian XD), so i hope i have explained well.... anyway what i wanted to say is right...
