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Learning Italian: I need help!

 
 
artemisia
 
  1  
Reply Sun 8 Aug, 2004 06:21 am
hi ossobuco!
I live far away from the center of the city even though I work near the Coloseum!
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ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Sun 8 Aug, 2004 11:31 am
Ah. I remember when I first saw the colosseum. We walked past a small coffee stand just inside the doors of the Colosseo metropolitana station towards the outside, and could see the building as we approached and came out the doors. It was hard to believe my eyes!
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kickycan
 
  1  
Reply Mon 16 Aug, 2004 09:35 pm
Well, tonight I am submitting for your critique, my Italian homework, which, coincidentally, is basically to describe a one day visit to rome. I know this is probably filled with mistakes. I hope it isn't too horrible. You'll figure out early on that we're working on "going to do things" in this lesson.

Oggi, vado a visitare Roma con mio fratello, mia cognato, e i miei genitori. Anche, i miei amichi Ramon, Giovanni e Shayla vanno con ci. Primo, noi andiamo a visitare Il Vaticano. Andiamo a vedere Il Papa, e vado a dire, "Ciao, Signore Papa! Come Stai?"

Dopo quello (does that mean "after that"?), andiamo in bicicletta a mangiare in un ristorante eminente a Piazza Navona. Capito il cibo e squisito. Nessuno di i miei amichi parliano italiano, percio, Io vado a ordinare per tutti.

Dopo il nostro pranzo, andiamo a piedi a visitare Il Colosseo. Piu avanti (does that mean "Later on?"), andiamo in Metropolitana a visitare Il Pantheon, Il Foro Romano e Il Museo di Villa Giulia.

Stasera, mio fratello e io andiamo in discoteca, dove andiamo a ballare e berre con la gente Italiana fin alba.

Domani, vorrei girare a l'isola di Capri in una barchettina, sotto un ombrello azzuro, cadente di viole.

Does that make sense?
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littlek
 
  1  
Reply Mon 16 Aug, 2004 10:01 pm
Francesca's take on your homework:

Oggi, vado a visitare Roma con mio fratello, i miei genitori, mia cognata, e i miei amichi [AMICI] Ramon, Giovanni e Shayla, chi e la moglie di Giovanni [you can say: CHE E' LA MOGLIE DI GIOVANNI, or simply, SHAYLA, MOGLIE DI GIOVANNI]. Primo [COME PRIMA COSA], noi [YOU DO NOT NEED THE NOI] andiamo [YOU WOULD RATHER USE THE FUTURE: ANDREMO] a visitare Il Vaticano. Andiamo [ANDREMO] a vedere Il Papa, e vado a dire [E GLI DIREMO], "Ciao, Signore Papa! Come Stai?" [NOT SO SURE THE POPE WILL LIKE THAT!]

Dopo quello (does that mean "after that"?) [YOU CAN SAY EITHER 'COME SECONDA COSA' OR JUST 'DOPO'], andiamo [ANDREMO] a piedo [A PIEDI] a mangiare in un ristorante eminente [VICINO] a Piazza Navona. Capito il cibo e squisito [SENTENCE WHICH UNFORTUNATELY HAS NO SENSE... I THINK YOU MEAN: SO CHE IL CIBO E' SQUISITO]. Nessuno di i [DEI] miei amichi [AMICI] parliano [PARLA -- NESSUNO IS ACTUALLY THE SUBJECT HERE AND, IN ANY CASE, YOU WOULD SAY 'PARLANO' IN THE PLURAL] italiano, percio [QUINDI... AND WITHOUT COMMA AFTER THAT], Io vado a ordinare per tutti.

Dopo il nostro pranzo [DOPO PRANZO SOUNDS BETTER], andiamo [ANDREMO] a piedi a visitare Il Colosseo. Piu avanti (does that mean "Later on?") [DOPO OR DOPO LA VISITA], andiamo [ANDREMO] in Metropolitana a visitare Il Pantheon, Il Foro Romano e Il Museo di Villa Giulia.

Stasera, mio fratello e io andiamo [ANDREMO] in discoteca, dove andiamo [JUST SAY -- PER BALLARE E BERE] a ballare e berre con la gente Italiana fin alba [FINO ALL'ALBA].

Domani, vorrei girare a [WITHOUT THE A] l'isola di Capri in una barchettina, sotto un ombrello azzuro, cadente di viole [LITERALLY YOU ARE SAYING THAT THERE ARE VIOLETS FALLING DOWN THE UMBRELLA... IS THIS WHAT YOU MEAN? WHERE DID YOU GET IT? IN CAPRI??].

Ouch, she's brutal!
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kickycan
 
  1  
Reply Mon 16 Aug, 2004 10:15 pm
That is excellent. Thank you littlek, and thank Francesca for me.

Yeah, I was literally saying violets falling down the umbrella. It's part of a poem that was in an earlier lesson, so I thought I'd throw it in there for fun.

Awesome critique. It's only my seventh week of this class though, so I'm just happy you at least knew what the hell I was trying to say! Thank you, thank you, thank you.
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ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Mon 16 Aug, 2004 10:16 pm
Pretty good, kicky, you have some words of your own left...
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kickycan
 
  1  
Reply Mon 16 Aug, 2004 10:25 pm
littlek wrote:
Capito il cibo e squisito [SENTENCE WHICH UNFORTUNATELY HAS NO SENSE... I THINK YOU MEAN: SO CHE IL CIBO E' SQUISITO].


I was going for "I understand the food is exquisite." Is that what yours says?
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littlek
 
  1  
Reply Mon 16 Aug, 2004 10:27 pm
Kicky - she's a native speaker of italian. She was laughing a lot, but she also said that she thought it was really very good. And that I should tell her if you post for this kind of help in the future. '

She also hardened to the idea of teaching ME italian this fall. She's been talking about that (and I've been hoping for it) for a while. So, maybe I can help you myself soon!
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kickycan
 
  1  
Reply Mon 16 Aug, 2004 10:34 pm
Ha ha, I guess I'm not ready to go hang out and chat with the locals yet. I hope you can get her to teach you. It is so fun. Hard, but fun. I have three weeks to go and I'm definitely taking the next class.
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kickycan
 
  1  
Reply Mon 16 Aug, 2004 10:35 pm
And I'll definitely have more questions. Smile
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littlek
 
  1  
Reply Mon 16 Aug, 2004 10:46 pm
I have some vocab and some basic gramar. t'd be better if I learned via a regular class - with structure and process, but it looks like I may learn in a new and different way.

Someday I'll do more than teach myself italian!
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luukas
 
  1  
Reply Mon 16 Aug, 2004 11:58 pm
kickycan wrote:
Ha ha, I guess I'm not ready to go hang out and chat with the locals yet.

Don't say you aren't ready because what you wrote was already good. There are a few spelling mistakes but they don't hinder the comprehension of what you wrote, for instance bere -one 'r'- that wasn't corrected in a previous post.
The only sentences that sound really wrong are:
1) 'Giovanni e Shayla vanno con ci'. This would be probably more difficult to understand.
The correct form is:
Giovanni e Shayla vengono con noi (just like in English: 'they come with us').
Remember that you never use mi, ti, ci, si vi with a preposition. Example:

She writes to me
Lei scrive a me
Lei mi scrive

2) 'Capito il cibo e squisito' - I understand the food is exquisite
to understand means capire: I don't understand Chinese - Io non capisco il cinese
but in your sentence understand must be translated with sentir dire. Thus:
Ho sentito dire che il cibo è squisito

'eminente' was corrected with 'vicino' but I think you wanted to say 'excellent / very good restaurant'. I would say: in un ottimo ristorante.

I would write the last sentence like this:

Domani vorrei fare un giro dell'isola di Capri su una barchetta, sotto un ombrello azzuro da cui scendono delle viole

'cadente di viole' would be correct only in a poem, it's even difficult to understand (like poetry often is!).

You missed a couple of accented vowels becuase you don't have those keys on your keyboard. You can type the accented vowels like this:
à - a' (egli verrà- egli verra' - he will come)
è/é - e' (è bello - e' bello - it's beautiful; perché - perche' - why/because)
ò - o' (però - pero' - but)
ì - i' (così - cosi' - so)
You can do that because Italians do.
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kickycan
 
  1  
Reply Tue 17 Aug, 2004 12:15 am
Great tips, luukas. Thanks.

Yeah, I was just skipping the accents because I was too lazy to go find the special characters every time. I'll type like your examples from now on.

A lot of the things I got wrong were things that we haven't covered in class yet, but I'm ambitious. Smile

One more thing, about sentire. Why do I see verbs like "sentire" written as "sentir" sometimes? In that poem we read, the word "girare" was spelled "girar". Is that just an alternate spelling?

Thanks again.
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luukas
 
  1  
Reply Tue 17 Aug, 2004 01:37 am
kickycan wrote:
Why do I see verbs like "sentire" written as "sentir" sometimes? In that poem we read, the word "girare" was spelled "girar". Is that just an alternate spelling?

It's called 'troncamento', a final vowel or even a whole syllable can be omitted when the following word starts either with a vowel or a consonant.
It is compulsory in the following cases (I'm sure you already know them, even though you've probably never thought about them in terms of 'troncamento' ):
1) uno and similar words (nessuno, ciascuno, alcuno...) are written as un in front of a vowel or a consonant: un amico, nessun libro, ciascun uomo...
2) buono becomes 'buon' in similar cases: un buon amico, un buon libro
3) bello and quello loose the final vowel (actually even a consonant) in front of a consonant: un bel libro, quel giorno
4) santo shortens to 'san' and frate to 'fra' in front of names starting with a consonant: san Giorgio; fra Matteo
5) suora looses the final 'a' in front of names: suor Maria, suor Anna

In your examples (sentir, girar) this truncation isn't compulsory and I wouldn't say it's an alternate spelling. In some fixed expressions the truncated form (sentir dire) is more common because it's sounds better, but it would be correct to write 'sentire dire' as well. In other cases (poems) leaving the final vowel out makes words sound better.

Do not mistake 'troncamento' for 'elisione'. You have 'elisione' when you omit a vowel and put an apostrophe instead:
l'albero, un bell'uomo, sant'Antonio, un orologio d'oro
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kickycan
 
  1  
Reply Tue 17 Aug, 2004 03:41 pm
Okay, thanks. I'll try to remember that. I have a question or two about troncamento and elisione, but I don't want to be too much of a pain with all my questions, so I'll just hold back for now, and try to digest what you've given me so far.

Ciao for now!
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littlek
 
  1  
Reply Tue 17 Aug, 2004 07:33 pm
Luukas - your answer goes above and beyond! I went to your profile and went to your website. What an amazing endeavor you've taken on. No wonder you are so good with explaining language!
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ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Tue 17 Aug, 2004 09:07 pm
I guess I need to check Luukas's profile. In the meantime, I appreciate every post here. I was just beginning to grasp italian when I stopped classes and I haven't had any reinforcement... for more than a decade, and I forget almost everything, but... not quite. This thread is bringing a lot back to my mind. I applaud Kicky's bravery in posting beginning efforts and when I check each morning, find posts to look things up and review - although I admit I only look up immediate questions as I would be at it all day if I got involved.

I suppose I should post some of my own hilarious-in-italiano essays. Soon, I'll do it soon.
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ehBeth
 
  1  
Reply Tue 17 Aug, 2004 09:19 pm
Hasn't kicky left on his voyage of self-discovery yet?
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ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Tue 17 Aug, 2004 10:36 pm
He's working up to it quite well.
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kickycan
 
  1  
Reply Wed 18 Aug, 2004 12:36 am
This is part of it, actually. :wink:
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