An Italian Learner's Blog

Ciao! Thanks for visiting this Italian blog. Here you'll find posts that will hopefully help you to learn some Italian. Check out my about page to find out more about me. If you have any suggestions for the blog I would love to hear them, so please send me an ask!

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Ciao! I am so very very sorry for the unexpectedly long hiatus this blog has been on but my life has been surprisingly hectic, most importantly including that I got a place at uni! (University of East Anglia to be specific) 

So fingers crossed the blog will be back to a normal schedule sometime soon, I’ve just got to start reproducing the resources and everything which will take a little while, and hopefully I’ll start addressing the asks I’ve guiltily hidden away in my email as well. 

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who follows me! Even when there was a shameful lack of content. I’m almost at 800 followers which completely blows my mind so I just want to say thank you thank you thank you!

Anyway, that’s about it. If anyone has any requests for specific vocab they want to see then just send me an ask!

[italianlearningblog]

Animals - Gli Animali

Here is some additional animal vocabulary to add to previous posts (pets and farm animals)

I’ll admit there isn’t any particular reasoning behind choice of animals or order of them, so sorry about that

[italianlearningblog]

Rooms in the House  - Stanze Della Casa

Above are some of the basic rooms of the house you might want to talk about. Of course these aren’t everything, and you may also want to know other things such as;

stairs - la scala

loft - la soffitta

basement - la cantina

garage - il garage

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Some Basic Helpful Vocab

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italianlearningblog:

(Preggo has been changed to prego, sorry for the typo!)

[studyblob]

(Source) I found this online and thought it might be helpful with the SAT coming up! These are also good tips for any other test!

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Colours - Colori

In Italian adjectives have to agree with the noun they are describing, e.g. if the noun is feminine the adjective must also be feminine.

If the colour originally ends in ‘o’, usually its going to have four forms; masculine ('o’), feminine ('a’), masculine plural ('i’), and feminine plural ('e’).

Here’s an example;

La sedia (the chair) is a feminine word, and therefore the adjective used to describe it must also be feminine. Therefore if we want to say 'the white chair’ then the masculine bianco needs to change to feminine, making it bianca. Then you get; la sedia bianca (the white chair) or la sedia è bianca (the chair is white).

Other colours only have two forms, a singular form and a plural form, e.g ’marrone’ (singular) and ’marroni’ (plural)

Other colours don’t change at all, e.g ’blu’.

This may seem quite complicated but it’s relatively easy to grasp after a while of using colours.

Here’s a table with all the colours and their agreements;

[italianlearningblog]

Numbers - Numeri

So here’s a quick guide to the numbers 1-100 in Italian. Below I’ve also added a video by the brilliant ‘Rocket277’ on Youtube for if you’re unsure about the pronunciation of any of these.

As you’ll have noticed, there’s a pattern with the Italian numbers, hence why not every single digit has been listed up to 100. 

For the twenties, thirties, forties and so on you just have to add the number (e.g due) to the tens (e.g trenta) so that you get trentadue.

Top Tip: Make sure you don’t get confused between 60 (sessanta) and 70 (settanta) because the two are very easily confused. 

[italianlearningblog]

A Brief Haitus

Ciao!

You may have noticed that there hasn’t been a post today, and I wanted to let you know that I have exams for the next month starting next week so, as much as I would like to spend time on this, unfortunately I have to prioritise and therefore there won’t be any new posts until after June 17th. Mi dispiace. 

I might reblog some of my old posts just to keep the blog active, and I’ll queue all that up for up until exams are over. Feel free to still send me requests as well, but I might take a little while to reply.

I know this is exam season for a lot of people, so good luck to all of you.

In bocca al lupo!

[italianlearningblog]

Translation Exercise Nine

Resource taken from here 

"Signora Humphries - la metta via immediamente" urlò Daisy. "Cosa? Oh Lorna - Ti ho trovata finalmente" disse la signora Humphries. "Ti nascondevi nella mia borsa - birichina."

"Signora Humphries, questa è Lorna?"

"Sì, il nostro serpente del Bengala. Grazie mia cara. No, non penso di aver più bisogno dei suoi servizi.”

"Mrs. Humphries - move that away immediately!" screamed Daisy. "What? Oh Lorna - I've found you at last!" said Mrs. Humphries."You hid in my bag - you naughty girl!"

"Mrs. Humphries. This is Lorna?" "Yes, our Bengali swamp snake. Oh thank you my dear. No, I don't think I need your services any longer!"

[italianlearningblog]

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The definite article - Articolo Determinativo

(Also known as ‘the’)

In Italian the definite article has a variety of different forms (7) depending on the noun it’s paired with.

Those forms are:

Il - this goes before any masculine nouns, e.g. il cane (the dog)

I - this is the plural for the above definite article, so goes with any plural, masculine nouns, e.g. i cani (the dogs)

Lo - this is used when you have a masculine noun that begins with the letter z (e.g. lo zucccero- the sugar) or s followed by a consonant (e.g. lo sport - the sport) 

Gli - this goes with masculine plural words beginning with a vowel or masculine nouns that begin with z or s followed by a consonant, e.g. gli uffici (the office) or gli sbagli (the mistakes) 

La - this goes before any feminine nouns, e.g. la donna (the woman)

Le - this is the plural for the above definite article, so goes with any plural, feminine nouns, e.g. le donne (the women)

L’ - this goes with masculine and feminine nouns that begin with a vowel, e.g. l’acqua (the water)

It’s a little bit more complicated than that, but that’s my basic understanding of it. If I’ve explained anything unclearly or you have any further questions, just let me know!

[italianlearningblog]

Translation Exercise Eight

Resource taken from here

La signora Humphries aprì la sua enorme borsa di pelle per tirar fuori un fazzoletto. Con orrore Daisy vide una creatura sinuosa uscir fuori dalla borsa.

Mrs. Humphries opened her huge leather bag to pull out a handkerchief. With horror Daisy saw a wiggling creature come out of that bag.

[italianlearningblog]

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Questions - Domande

chi - who?                              cosa - what? (or che cosa)

dove - where?                       quando - when?

perché - why?                      quanto - how much?

quale - which?

Per esempio (for example):

Chi é? -- Who is it?

Dov’é la scuola? -- Where is the school?

Dove abiti? -- Where do you live?

Quanto costa? -- How much does it cost?

Other helpful questions...

Parli inglese? -- Do you speak English?

Può parlare più lentamente? -- Can you speak more slowly?

Puo ripetere? -- Can you repeat that?

Che ore sono? -- What time is it?

[italianlearningblog]

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Translation Exercise Seven

Resource taken from here

"Scusi, ma non capisco. Abbiamo comprato Lorna assieme" rispose la signora Humphries.

"Avete comprato...signora Humphries, questo è illegale, lo sapete..."

"No, non lo è, non in India."

"Avete comprato Lorna in India?"

"Ma certo!  E mi tiene sempre una gran compagnia, sa ."

"I don't know what you mean. We bought Lorna together," replied Mrs. Humphries.

"You bought ...Mrs. Humphries, that's illegal, you know."

"No it isn't, not in India!"

"You bought Lorna in India?" "Yes indeed! And she always keeps me great company, you know."

Well then, that’s a bit of a plot twist.

[italianlearningblog]

Grazie per questo blog! Sto imparando italiano e questo è bene e facile per studiare

Grazie! Sono contenta di essere stata d'aiuto :)