fact—because your nonna (grandmother) used to call you “Tesoro” and you now want to truly honor her memory and your roots. Or it is simply because you love art, and quality, and architecture; poetry and beauty; and by learning Italian you know you are going to get, in some real way, all that. Plus of course good food and even better wine!
Bene (well...), the good news is that you, with this book, are indeed going to be “making out in Italian” and all that comes with it. As far as the lady or the gentleman with the brown eyes and charming accent…well, that’s up to you…but this book will give you some useful tools.
ITALIAN IS EASY…AND YOU ALREADY KNOW IT
Indeed the good news is that speaking Italian—at least, speaking enough to make out—is not as difficult as you have imagined, and you already know more words in Italian than you might believe.
The first easy part about learning Italian is the pronunciation: Italian (unlike English!) is a phonetic language, which means that it’s spoken the way that it’s written. Letters are pronounced consistently; for each letter there is a corresponding sound.This means that spelling surprises are rare, and most important, that to say something in Italian is pretty straightforward.
The second easy part is that, if speaking a foreign language is about making yourself understood and understanding another person’s messages to you—in a word, communicating—Italian is the best bet. Why? Because in Italy you communicate not only with words and sentences (which you’ll learn here) but also with your whole body. In an Italian dialogue everything is involved, used, embraced: hands, gestures, facial expressions, sounds.And if you throw yourself into this lively way of communicating, Italians are going to be so fully attuned to you that they’ll undoubtedly understand you.
The third easy part is that many many Italian and English words are very similar, or sometimes even identical.That’s because they share a common source: Latin. When words have the same root and so are written or pronounced similarly in two languages they are called cognates, and here are some examples of cognates—the Italian you already know:
| restaurant | ristorante |
| bank | banca |
| victory | vittoria |
| airport | aeroporto |
| ideal | ideale |
| air conditioning | l’aria condizionata |
One warning: be mindful of the so-called “false friends,” words that look very similar in their Italian/English spellings but that actually have very different meanings. For example, parents and parenti (in Italian parenti means not “parents” but all kinds of family members: “relatives” in English). Or, morbid and morbido : morbido in Italian means “soft,” nothing to do with the English meaning of morbid.
Back to yet another side of the easy part—the non-cognates but universally known words: amore, pizza, buongiorno, sì, grazie, spaghetti, lasagna, pasta, pesto, vino, ciao…la dolce vita!
And if you still have any lingering concerns about how easy it will be for you to make out in Italian, just remember that Italian has—especially in recent years—acquired so many English words that the language will sound very familiar. In Italy you’ll see and hear “la privacy,” “il check-in,” “il computer,” “un week-end,” “sexy,” “un must,” “e-mail,” “hard-disk,” “OK,” and the list goes on.
A ROMANCE LANGUAGE, A “SEXY” LANGUAGE
Italian is a lingua romanza (a Romance language). Like other Romance languages (French, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian) it derives from Latin, and from Latin it has inherited a series of specific grammar “rules” that makes it at a certain level more articulate and complex than English.
Italian is a very “sexy” language, in that it’s extremely focused on gender differences: in fact Italian nouns—all of them aside from the “neutral” ones—have a gender. They are either masculine or feminine, and as a consequence, any words that describe a noun, like adjectives and articles, must match its gender.
Gender also comes into play when making plurals, which of course you’ll need to do at some point while you’re getting along in Italian. Italian does not create the plurals of words by adding an “s” as English does. Instead, Italian changes the last letter of a noun or adjective to create the plural. In the end, all this gender-matching is one of the trickiest parts to learn and remember for foreigners.
Take it as social game—hmm, what’s the gender of intelligence?—and you’ll start to better understand all the “soft power” of women in Italy...of course intelligenza is feminine!
And there are so many other uniquely charming, rather than challenging, aspects of Italian: for example, Italian is a musical-sounding language which for centuries has made it very apt for opera or for very sentimental pop songs.This “genetic” musicality stems from among other things the fact that most Italian words end in a vowel sound, and this creates a very clear rhythm in the flow of a sentence. Speak, speak and you’ll find yourself almost singing….
A word about dialects. Italian derives originally from Latin but specifically from the dialects that over the centuries arose from it: Italian is an evolution of what was judged to be the “best” dialect (“lingua volgare”)—the Florentine that was spoken and written in the 13th and 14th century.
However, still today, many many different dialects are spoken in different areas of the peninsula.You are not going to recognize the differences initially, although you might notice the diverse accents. Just be aware that if suddenly one day, while in Italy, you find yourself not understanding Italian anymore, you are probably just listening to someone speaking a dialect.
ITALIAN GREETINGS: FORMAL AND INFORMAL
In Italy the ways of greeting someone are several, and they’re clearly defined in their use according to the occasions, and the level of familiarity or formality.
Ciao and Salve are the equivalents of Hi and Hello. Salve means literally “salute” (good health). These two greetings are used informally, with a cheerful, friendly sense. They are common expressions among family and friends, but also with less intimate acquaintances with whom there is a good chemistry and you want to show it.
Buongiorno (Good morning), Buonasera (Good evening) are good greetings for strangers, acquaintances and whomever you want to treat with a certain degree of cordial formality.
A presto means “See you soon” and it is also widely used.
Arrivederci is a wonderful little “farewell” Italian word, meaning literally “See each other again.” It’s a way of parting that assumes you will see each other again and probably soon. It is cheerful and does not have any of the dramatic tone of addio.
Addio is the Italian “Farewell” meant as…maybe we won’t see each other again. Everything is uncertain with the word addio. It was the expression used by the emigrants to say goodbye to their families when they were leaving the “Bella Italia” to go to America, the land of opportunity.
When it comes to the non -verbal greetings to others, there are interesting peculiarities about the Italian way. First of all, when two friends, not necessarily even close friends, meet they kiss each other on the cheeks: one light kiss on each cheek, not on just one cheek as Americans do. Italians also hug each other but less strongly and with less patting than the American norm.
The handshake exchanged among acquaintances, or colleagues, or dignitaries is also different: Italians shake hands lightly and with only one short up-down movement.
FORMAL AND INFORMAL CONVERSATIONS… “PUOI DARMI DEL TU”
This is one of the most distinct differences between English and Italian. While English always uses the pronoun