DOES ANYONE KNOW BASIC ITALIAN??

Joe, let me speak for Kicky and I to say how truly annoying it is that you are so facile in italiano when just starting. On the other hand, I am envious of him, with italian heritage, as he has some natural sense of the flow of the language.

I'm an irish-american with a tin ear, and horrendous unmusicality. But I remember my first subway ride in Rome, the speech sounds were melodious to me.

Thanks osso.

As for what it seems to be a facility in the italian it mainly is because of two things:
My first language is spanish and the fact that I spend about 15-30 minutes per post in italian using a dictionary and an on-line conjugator.

You are right: while most of Italian words have emphasis on the syllable next to the last (I'm learnign lots of new words, thanks!) there are lots of exception. A lot of which are due to words that came from greek instead of latin, but you can not state this as a rule, I'm afraid there's no rule at all and you just have to be prepared to learn the accent anytime you learn any new word.

Italian is a melodic language, there are a lot of rules to keep harmony between words or when vocals meet and a lot of forms are not used just because they sounds awful, even if they are formally correct.

There are, on the other hand a lot of poetry works using formally wrong construction in order to keep harmony between words. we call it "licenza poetica" is there something similar in English?

L'infinito, Giacomo Leopardi

Sempre caro mi fu quest'ermo colle,
e questa siepe, che da tanta parte
dell'ultimo orizzonte il guardo esclude.
Ma sedendo e mirando, interminati
spazi di la da quella, e sovrumani
silenzi, e profondissima quiete
io nel pensier mi fingo, ove per poco
il cor non si spaura. E come il vento
odo stormir tra queste piante, io quello
infinito silenzio a questa voce
vo comparando: e mi sovvien l'eterno,
e le morte stagioni, e la presente
e viva, e il suon di lei. Così tra questa
immensità s'annega il pensier mio:
e il naufragar m'è dolce in questo mare.

(I've always loved this lonely hill, and this brush, removing from my sight so large part of the last horizon. But sitting and looking unlimited spaces behind that and more than human silence and the deepest peace, I fix in this thoughts where my heart is almost frightened. As soon as the wind sings between those plants I compare this voice to that neverending silence, I recall the eternity and the dead seasons and the actual, living one and its sound. So, in this immensity, my mind sinks, a sweet shipwreck in such a sea)

This is a really beautyful poetic work from one of our most appreciated poets, I've tried something impossible: translating a poem, but I hope you will mix your knoledge of Italian to my poor translation to be able to grasp the sweet, charming, melody of the sonet

We call it "poetic license." Same thing.

Uh oh, I'm wrong again. I checked on google, and I gather that the antepenult is the third last syllable, not the second from the end.

I did mean second from the end when I called it that.

Thanks for the help

Just one thing:


Could you give me an example of this?

Yes, of course, sorry for the late reply.

One example could just be the composed prepositions: wile it is formally correct to say:

"Ho giocato spesso a la saltacavallina"

It is so unused to be practically uncorrect, we say

"Ho giocato spesso alla saltacavallina"

Another form is to use the infinite as a subordinate (Hope I'm correct with those words)

"Ho visto Mario giocare con Francesca"

It is still used when you write a letter but we strongly prefere

"Ho visto Mario che giocava con Francesca"

Also the "participio presente" is becoming obsolete

"Vidi Antonio piangente"

better

"Vidi Antonio che piangeva"

and so on

Can someone take a look at my new italian thread?

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=48323&highlight=

Joef/x:

witch, bruja: strega
wizard, brujo: stregone

For us Spanish speakers the Italian accent is a conundrum, since -unlike Spanish- their accent laws are scarse.
Besides, we have the problem that some words are so similar to Spanish, we tend to put the accent at the same place.

For example: "Eravamo". It has no written accent, but all we know by it is that it's not "aguda" (it would be eravamò). It may be "grave" or "esdrújula" ("Eravámo" or "Erávamo"). So we tend to mimic Spanish and pronounce, wrongly, "erávamo".

Rule of thumb: when it's the third person plural (essi, loro) it's often "esdrújula" in present and past tenses -and not like Spanish-: mángiano, témono, capírono, érano, piacévano; when it's the first person plural (noi, noialtri), then it's "grave" -and like Spanish-: cantiamo, abbiamo, giochiamo, fummo, capimmo. For the future tense, no problem: usually it's "grave".

("Esdrújula": the accent belongs to the third to the last syllable;
"Grave": the accent goes in the second to last syllable;
"Aguda": the accent is on the last syllable).

In Italian is:
"Accentata" the accent goes on the last syllable
"piana" on the next to the last
"sdrucciola" on the third to the last
"bisdrucciola" un the fourth to the last

And we say "acuto" or "grave" whether the accent lies on a short or long vocal.

A curious correspondance of sounds, isn't it?

Ho una domanda semplice, per piacere. Come si dice, "I feel reborn."?

E' "Mi sento rinascere?"

Grazie.

Perfetto!

You could also use the "participio passato":

"Mi sento rinato"

Both perfectly correct, and very used too.

Eccellente! Grazie.

Posso fare delle domande piu'?

I'm trying to figure out how to say the phrases, "I feel like..." or "I feel like doing..." in italiano. In my books, it says there are two ways to convey this.

Per esempio:

I feel like having a Pepsi.

Ho voglia di prendere un Pepsi.

Or

Mi sento di prendere un Pepsi.

Are those correct? And one more thing. In English, you can convey the same thing without the word, "prendere." Can you do that in Italian?

Per esempio:


Ho voglia un Pepsi

or

Mi sento di un Pepsi."

Grazie

I would use "mi va".

Mi va d'una Pepsi.

I feel like [having a] Pepsi.

(Strange wording for the Italian language: I don't know now, but at least until the late '80s, in Italy you'd order a Coke, they'd served you a Pepsi and, if you said you ordered a Coke, they'd answer: "È lo stesso")

Ti va di andare al cinema?

Do you feel like going to the movies?

Hmmm...are you saying that the way I phrased those others are incorrect, or that they are just not the preferred usage? Also, does the verb then agree with the subject, like with piacere, and change to "vanno" in the case of a plural subject?

Ti vanno delle arachidi?

"Ho voglia d'una Pepsi" is correct, but formal. Like if you said: "I desire a Pepsi".

(la Pepsi, la Coca: femminile)

"Mi sento d'una Pepsi" is probably correct (I've heard "te la senti di andare a prendere un gelato?"), but it kind of sounds odd to my ear.

Plural is correct. Si, mi vanno delle arachidi. O meglio, delle noccioline americane.

Ah, grazie.

But now you've brought up another thing that I have seen before, but don't understand at all. Please help.

"te la senti di..."

I don't understand what that "la" is doing in there. Is it a pronoun? If so, what is it replacing? Is it some colloquial word that they just throw in there? I don't get it.

I don't know for sure. I picked it up from colloquial speech.
But I think it's a pronoun for "it".
Do you feel it like getting an ice cream?

Okay, I guess it's just one of those "italian things" then. Hehehe...thank you.

fbaezer:

Yes, it's because of spanish that I feel weird just changing the accent from syllable to syllable without any ortographic accents.

Raphilion:

Thanks for your examples.

What's the difference between a short vowel and a long one?



while = during a certain time
wile = verb or noun of trick, deceive