Unlocking Italian with Paul Noble: Your key to language success with the bestselling language coach
is “you have” in Italian?
Ha
(a)
And what is “prepared”?
preparato
(prep-are-art-oh)
So, how would you say “you have prepared”?
Ha preparato
(a prep-are-art-oh)
If you want to say “what have you prepared?” in Italian, one very typical way to express this is to literally say “what thing you have prepared?”
“What thing” in Italian is:
Che cosa
(ke koe-ser)
Again, how would you say “you have prepared” in Italian?
Ha preparato
(a prep-are-art-oh)
And how would you say “what thing”?
Che cosa
(ke koe-ser)
To say “what have you prepared?”, you can simply say “what thing you have prepared?” Let’s do that now. Again, what is “what thing”?
Che cosa
(ke koe-ser)
And what is “you have prepared”?
Ha preparato
(a prep-are-art-oh)
So, how would you say “what thing you have prepared?”?
Che cosa ha preparato?
(ke koe-ser a prep-are-art-oh)
Literally this means “what thing you have prepared?”, but it means not only “what have you prepared?”, it also means “what did you prepare?” Just as before, even though it’s a question, you still get more than one English past tense for the price of one in Italian.
Let’s just make sure you’ve understood this 100%. How would you say “what have you prepared?”?
Che cosa ha preparato?
(ke koe-ser a prep-are-art-oh)
And “what did you prepare”?
Che cosa ha preparato?
(ke koe-ser a prep-are-art-oh)
So, they’re the same!
And how do you think would you say “what have you reserved?” / “what did you reserve?” (literally “what thing you have reserved (pre-noted))”?
Che cosa ha prenotato?
(ke koe-ser a pray-no-tart-oh)
The word for “done” in Italian is:
fatto
(fat-oh)
So, how would you say “what have you done?” / “what did you do?” (literally “what thing you have done?”)?
Che cosa ha fatto?
(ke koe-ser a fat-oh)
And once more, how would you say “I reserved a table” / “I booked a table”?
Ho prenotato un tavolo.
(o pray-no-tart-oh oon tav-oh-loe)
And how would you say “I ordered the dinner”?
Ho ordinato la cena.
(o or-din-art-oh la chain-er)
And remind me, what was the word for “then” in Italian?
poi
(poy)
And the word for “and”?
e
(ay)
So, now say “and then paid the bill”.
e poi pagato il conto
(ey poy pag-art-oh eel kon-toe)
Let’s put those bits together again and say “I booked a table, ordered the dinner and then paid the bill.”
Ho prenotato un tavolo, ordinato la cena e poi pagato il conto.
(o pray-no-tart-oh oon tav-oh-loe, or-din-art-oh la chain-er ey poy pag-art-oh eel kon-toe)
And let’s add the final bit onto it all. Again, how would you say “what thing?”
Che cosa
(ke koe-ser)
And, as I mentioned earlier, “you have done” in Italian is:
Ha fatto
(a fat-oh)
So, how would you say “what have you done?” / “what did you do?” (literally “what thing you have done?”) ?
Che cosa ha fatto?
(ke koe-ser a fat-oh)
Now let’s combine absolutely everything together and (taking your time to think it out) say “I booked a table, ordered dinner and then paid the bill. What did you do?”.
Ho prenotato un tavolo, ordinato la cena e poi pagato il conto. Che cosa ha fatto?
(o pray-no-tart-oh oon tav-oh-loe, or-din-art-oh la chain-er, ey poy pag-art-oh eel kon-toe. ke koe-ser a fat-oh)
How did you find that final, complex sentence? Try it a few more times, even if you got it right, until you feel comfortable constructing it. Every time you practise building these long sentences, the naturalness and fluidity of your spoken Italian will improve and your confidence in speaking will get better along with it.
Building Blocks 2
It’s time to add some new building blocks to the mix. As before, it will be just six new ones. Here they are:
* literally “a chamber”
Once more, these new building blocks have been put into four piles below. As previously, what I want you to do is to make sentences with