Archive for the ‘Basic’ Category

A Te by Jovanotti. A beautiful song to learn Italian

This song is, in my opinion, the most beautiful love song of Jovanotti.  His lyrics are very easy; listen to the song and read his lyrics,  then take a look at the glossary to check your Italian: “A te”: A te che sei l’unica al mondo L’unica ragione per arrivare fino in fondo Ad ogni [...]

Posted by Agnese on November 25th, 2008

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Halloween, una festa nella tradizione regionale italiana?!?

Is Halloween only a north  European Holiday? I am not sure of it. Look here this Italian tradition and tell me, what do you think of it.   La parola Halloween deriva dall’inglese All Hallows’ day (giorno di tutti i Santi) ed infatti la festa di Halloween si celebra la notte tra il 31 ottobre [...]

Posted by Agnese on October 27th, 2008

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Special comparatives and superlatives in Italian

The Italian adjectives buono, cattivo, alto, basso, grande and piccolo, have two forms of comparative and suparlative; example: Il bar all’angolo è più buono di quello sotto l’ufficio = Il bar all’angolo è migliore di quello sotto l’ufficio I dolci preparati da Luisa sono i più cattivi della festa = dolci preparati da Luisa sono [...]

Posted by Agnese on July 8th, 2008

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All cases of Italian “si”

We can use the Italian “si” in many cases: as adverb of italin assertions, example: “hai comprato il giornale di oggi?” – “Sì!” as reflexive pronuon third person singular and plural, example: il Sig. Rossi si alza presto la mattina; i Signori Bianchi si addormentano sempre molto tardi la sera.

Posted by Agnese on May 16th, 2008

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Simple or Compound italian preposition?

Italian prepositions are: di, a, da, in, con, su, per, tra, fra. It is very difficult to understand when a preposition is simple or compound (it means with a definite article) The prepositions di, a, da, in and su are joined to the article to form a new word. Instead the prepositions con, per, tra [...]

Posted by Agnese on March 27th, 2008

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The plural form of italian nouns ending in –ista

This suffix -ista derives from  the greek language  and forms nouns from nouns and adjectives which have the meaning of professions (tassista, dentista), person who normally realizes an activity (collezionista), person who  has or shows an attitude  (egoista, ottimista) and person who follows a doctrine or a movement (assolutista, socialista, anarchista) . These nouns can [...]

Posted by Agnese on November 30th, 2007

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The Italian recipe of the week: “Ossa di morto”

The name may sound strange, but in November, the month dedicates to death people, the regional cuisine also dedicates his cakes to them. This recipe comes from Sicily, but we have similar recipes in every italian region.

Posted by Agnese on November 16th, 2007

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Two ways to express in Italian the comparison of majority and minority

How do you say in Italian: “Paolo è più bello di or che Luca?”. Which word (di or che) do we use to express the comparison of majority or minority? The answer is simple: it depends on what we compare!

Posted by Agnese on November 5th, 2007

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5 cases in which we use the letter “h” in Italian language

It is always difficult to understand the use of “h” in Italian, also because its pronunciation is always mute. It is for this reason that students of Italian language find often difficulties to understand when they have to use it, and when not.

Posted by Agnese on October 25th, 2007

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How to express the present continuous in Italian

When in English the present continuous expresses an action happens at the moment of speaking, we use in Italian the present tense of the verb stare + the gerund of the verb. The gerund is formed in Italian from the infinitive of the verb.

Posted by Agnese on October 23rd, 2007

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