All cases of Italian “si”

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We can use the Italian “si” in many cases:

  • as adverb of italin assertions, example:
    “hai comprato il giornale di oggi?” - “!”
  • 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.When this pronoun is combined with the other pronouns, it becames se, example:
    ho comprato la carne ma se l’è (la è) mangiata il gatto.
  • as passive si in the third person singular and plural, example: si + 3th person singular or plural
    mia sorella si chiama Giulia
    in televisione si vedono sempre le solite cose.
    The passive form si + verb can be used with all verb tenses and the agent (the person or the thingwhich perform the action) is not expressed, example:
    Marta si bacia da Paolo (is incorrect!)
  • as impersonal si in the form si + verb 3th person singular expresses general actions which are common to many people, example:
    Alle feste si balla
    In estate si va in vacanza
    With the verbs essere and diventare we use plural adjectives, exaple:
    Se si mangia troppo si diventa grassi
    Se si è felici, si è anche tranquilli
    When we have to do an impersonal costruction with a reflexive verb, we can not put twice the si. Therefore in this case the correct costructions is: ci + si + verb (3th person singular), example:
    Se ci si stanca, ci si deve rilassare (verbs: stancarsi, rilassarsi)
  • as affective si. In this particular case we can use si when we want to give a particular affective implication to the action or to the event, example:
    Anna si mangia finalmente un gelato.
    Dopo il lavoro Luca si beve un buon caffé.
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This entry was posted on Friday, May 16th, 2008 at 7:05 am and is filed under Basic, Grammar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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