Learning Italian: I need help!

Luukas,

Thanks for the encouragement. I'm impatient sometimes, but I guess I just have to realize that Rome wasn't built in a day.


The "si" was a guess. We haven't covered direct object pronouns at all, but we have done basic reflexive pronouns, such as "Mi, ti and si". I knew it wasn't Mi or ti, so I guessed "si". I was just trying to use what I know so far.

That's for sure, but remember that a language isn't like a building. You wouldn't live in a house until the roof is built, but you can start using Italian even with a few 'bricks'.

'si' is always a reflexive pronoun, i.e. it refers directly to the subject.

You don't understand me (I don't understand you - You don't understand us)
Tu non mi capisci (io non ti / vi capisco - voi non ci capite)

I introduce myself to her family (you introduce yourself - we introduce ourselves - you introduce yourselves)
Io mi presento alla sua famiglia (tu ti presenti - noi ci presentiamo - voi vi presentate).

The 3rd person pronouns has many different forms:

I don't understand him / her / them
Io non lo / la / li / le capisco

He introduces himself
Lui si presenta
She introduces herself
Lei si presenta
They introduce themselves
Loro (or essi / esse) si presentano
The dog scratches itself
Il cane si gratta

Luukas, I appreciate the info. I will have to come back to it though, because I just got back from class tonight, and I have been intensely trying to remember my lesson for the past few days, and I'm taking a break for tonight.

But, I wanted to tell everybody that all your help is greatly appreciated. Tonight, I was actually putting more than one sentence together at a time, and when my teacher asked questions, I actually understood quickly and even made a couple jokes! It felt so cool. Sto Contentissimo! I don't even know if that's the proper word, but hey, I'm feeling great!

Eh, I know, the usage of "essere" and "stare" is not so simple to learn. I have a japanese friend with the same problem. The right way to say what you wrote is "Sono contentissimo".

Luukas, I have a question about "lo". You wrote this a while back.



In class I used the phrase "lo chiamamo il piccolo mostro", meaning "we call him the little monster." on an earlier assignment, and my teacher did not correct it, so I thought "lo" meant "him".

But in your sentence, it means "it" doesn't it?

So does "lo" mean "it", or does it mean "him"? Or does it mean both things? Does it change meaning depending on something that I don't know yet?

This is beyond what we've done in class so far, but I'm just curious.

by the way, thanks, alhazred.

Your second guess is right, lo can mean both him and it. Here are a few examples with third person direct object pronouns:

1)
Elena mandò Antonio a fare il bucato
Elena sent Antonio to do the laundry
Elena lo mandò a fare il bucato
OR
Elena mandò lui a fare il bucato
Elena sent him to do the laundry
(you use the second form, with 'lui' when you want to say something like this: it's Antonio, not someone else, whom Elena sent to do the laundry)

2)
Antonio mandò Elena a fare il bucato
Antonio sent Elena to do the laundry
Antonio la mandò a fare il bucato
OR
Antonio mandò lei a fare il bucato
Antonio sent her to do the laundry
(see example #1)

3)
Elena prestò il libro ad Antonio
Elena lent the book to Antonio
Elena lo prestò ad Antonio
Elena lent it to Antonio

4)
Antonio prestò la macchina a Elena
Antonio lent the car to Elena
Antonio la prestò a Elena
Antonio lent it to Elena

5)
Elena mandò Antonio e Marco a fare il bucato
Elena sent Antonio and Marco to do the laundry
Elena li mandò a fare il bucato
OR
Elena mandò loro a fare il bucato
Elena sent them to do the laundry
(see example #1)

6)
Antonio mandò Elena e Giulia a fare il bucato
Antonio sent Elena and Giulia to do the laundry
Antonio le mandò a fare il bucato
OR
Antonio mandò loro a fare il bucato
Antonio sent them to do the laundry
(see example #1)

7)
Giulia prestò i libri a Marco
Giulia lent the books to Marco
Giulia li prestò a Marco
Giulia lent them to Marco

8)
Marco prestò le matite a Giulia
Marco lent the pencils to Giulia
Marco le prestò a Giulia
Marco lent them to Giulia

Luukas, you are a treasure here. Tell us more about yourself, what do you do for a career, and for fun, and so on. We appreciate your help a lot.

Luukas, you are the BEST! I think you could be a teacher. is that what you do?

No kickycan, I'm not a teacher, nor a linguistics student.
I'm a law student and not really a brilliant one, since I'm already in my late 20's (so I started answering to ossobuco's request too...)

I read along, too. Very interesting, indeed.

I think, that's is relative easy to teach his native tongue to other.

Nevertheless, thanks, luukas .

I disagree, Thok. One might know a subject inside and out, but explaining it to others in an understandable way is not always as easy as it might seem.

By the way, I just bought an italian grammar book to go along with my book of verb conjugations and my italian dictionary. I should be ready for anything now.

E' un bell giorno, quindi vado al parco a studiare le mie lezioni di italiano!

Quella e' corretto, no?

and I agree here.

For that reason I wrote "relative". ;-)

va bene.

I'd rather say:

È una bella giornata, quindi vado al parco a studiare le mie lezioni di italiano . È corretto, no?

If you really want to use the demonstrative, you can say 'questa (meaning: this sentence) è corretta, no?'. In this case I would imagine that you had already written a sentence that wasn't correct, so now you are saying something like: 'this second sentence can't be wrong'
But your sentence in English must have been: 'that's correct, isn't it?' which can be translated in Italian simply as 'è corretto, no?

I personally think that speaking a language doesn't make you a teacher, simply because that language is your mother tongue. I don't think I could explain all the oddities of the Italian language.

Damn, I really thought I had that one right.

Why is giornata preferable in this case? I thought that giornata was used figuratively, like "A new giornata has dawned for Rome", or "back in my giornata"...something like that.

Once again, thank you.

That's a really a tough question!
Giorno is a 24-hour period while giornata is more a period of the day between dawn and nightfall. This means that the word giornata is related to the way a day is spent (i.e. job or other activities), to the weather or to what happens during a day.
Anyway this is just a general rule with lots of exceptions.
It's not always easy to distinguish between the use of iorno and giornata.

I would say:

Un nuovo giorno è nato per Roma
A new day has dawned for Rome
but
È cominciata una nuova giornata
A new day has begun
---------------------------------------
Ho trascorso una giornata in montagna(*)
I spent a day in the mountains
but
Sono stato in vacanza dieci giorni
I have been on holiday for ten days

(*) giorno sounds correct too
---------------------------------------
You can say both:
Sono stato a casa tutto il giorno
and
Sono stato a casa tutta la giornata
I have been home all day
---------------------------------------
Un giorno di sole
and
una giornata si sole
mean both a sunny day
but I would probably use 'gionata' in this case:
una bella giornata di sole
a beautiful sunny day

In this case I'm not saying that 'giorno' would be wrong, it's just that 'giornata' sounds better to my ears. The whole thing is probably more a matter of taste than of grammar.

Giornata--period of time related to the way a day is spent.

Giorno--the actual 24-hour period known as a day.

Okay, cool. Got it.

But as long as you're not saying that giorno is actually wrong, I'll not worry too much about it.

I know I haven't stopped in here in a while, but I just wanted to let you all know that my first italian class ended two weeks ago, and I kicked ass! So thank you all for helping me out.

We had a test at the end of the last class, and guess who had the only perfect score. Go ahead, guess! Yup, you got it! Me!

Of course, we started out with 14 students, and by the last class there were only 7 of us left, but still...I am the only one who got a perfect score!

I'm an Italian badass.

Complimenti!!