Elementary Italian

How to Tell the Time In Italian

Telling the time in Italian follows a straightforward structure, but there are a few key differences from English. I'll cover these below. Che ore sono? This is the most common way to ask, "What time is it?" You're literally asking, "what are the

Those Words In Italian That Capture The Essence of Life

As I've mentioned a few times on this blog, the key to effectively learning a language is to understand the idioms, phrases and words that give the language its character. Otherwise, you're just speaking in your native language and subbing in Italian words. Italian also has

When and How to Use -issimo, -issima, and -issimi

One of the ways you can emphasizes intensity or extremes in Italian, is with the use of the superlative suffixes -issimo, -issima, and -issimi. The superlative form is used to express the highest degree of a quality, often translated as "very," "extremely," or "most"

What's the longest word in Italian?

Let's take a little break from the usual learning elementary Italian and have some fun with words. Precipitevolissimevolmente is widely regarded as the longest in the Italian language, consisting of 26 letters. It is an adverb that can be translated as "in a hasty or headlong manner&

What Is Included In The Italian B1 Language Exam?

To give you a little background as to why I'm learning Italian, my wife is currently going through the process of claiming Italian citizenship as a member of the worldwide Italian diaspora. I don't have any Italian blood relatives, so for me to gain Italian citizenship

10 'False Friends' for English-Speaking Italian Learners

As I've mentioned in previous blogs, I'm starting to build up an elementary vocabulary in Italian. As you do that, you run into these things called "false friends." What are false friends? False friends are words in two languages that look or sound similar

Start Memorizing Here: The 20 Most Common Verbs

One of the most daunting parts of starting to learn a language is building your vocabulary. I mean, I've spent almost 40 years speaking English, and I'm still learning new words. It's estimated that there are around a half-million words in the Italian language.

Introduction to Passato Prossimo

One of the most challenging parts of starting to learn a language is being patient. If you're like me, you're eager to start forming more and more complex sentences in the language you're learning. However, this can become problematic if you haven't

When to put the adjective before the noun, and when to put it after

As I've been working through my elementary esercizi, I've been noticing that adjectives sometimes go after the noun and sometimes they go before. This came as a bit of a surprise. I had assumed that Romance languages always stuck the adjective after a noun. However, that&

How to use 'mi piace' and 'mi piacciono'

We spent a recent session in my Dante Global course learning how to use the phrase mi piace. Mi piace and mi piacciono are used to express likes or preferences. It's pretty simple, but this one is a little tricky for English speakers, because the subject of the

Simple prepositions in Italian

I'm starting to learn prepositions! This is Part 1 of a two-part series. Let's cover some of the more common prepositions in Italian today, and tomorrow I'll review how these interact with definite and indefinite articles in sentences. So, let's start with

When to use c'è and ci sono

Work is getting busy, so it's a short one today. I'm starting to get the hang of using c'è and ci sono in conversation. What are they, and when should you use them? C'è and ci sono are both used to express

Make sure your nouns agree with everything else

One of the things I really enjoy about learning a new language is the way it challenges you to shift the way your brain works. As a native English speaker and until I started learning German as a high schooler, I conceived the world in English. It was the house,

The rules for indefinite articles

A few days ago, I wrote out a blog post covering the rules for forming definite articles in Italian. Let's briefly review: Singular nouns * Il - Most masculine nouns that start with consonants. * Lo - Masculine nouns that start with a s+consonant, z, y, ps, pn, gn,

Il Condizionale, or 'How to not sound like a jerk'

I'm plugging along with my lessons in Babbel, and lately, I've been coming up on a lot of phrases that include the word vorrei. Of course, I'm dying to know more about what vorrei means, how you form it and when you should use

Let's learn the months of the year in Italian

Last week, I shared some tips I made up for memorizing the days of the week in Italian. As a native English speaker, one of the things I was finding tricky about remembering the days of the week in Italian is that they sometimes don't sound like the

The 5 W's (and more!)

Both my Società Dante Alighieri and Babel courses have heavy focuses on immersion. They drop you into do-able cases where you are either understanding or constructing sentences in Italian, and the repetition and context helps you learn other words and usages naturally, as if you were learning Italian as your

Present tense conjugations of the verb Avere

Last week, I got some practice writing down the present tense conjugations of the word Essere ("to be"). This week, let's do Avere ("to have"). As you might imagine, Avere is very commonly used in Italian, so it's an important one to

Let's count to 100 in Italian

I have been learning and practicing my numbers a lot this week. In that spirit, let's count to 100! Numeral Italian 1 uno 2 due 3 tre 4 quattro 5 cinque 6 sei 7 sette 8 otto 9 nove 10 dieci 11 undici 12 dodici 13 tredici 14

Handy phrases in Italian: Super beginner edition

Fluency is the ability to easily express yourself in a language, written or spoken. While vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation are obviously big parts of that, it's important to also learn the idioms and phrases that add flavor to the language. After all, there's no better way

Here are two tricks to remember the days of the week

Back when I was taking high school German, our teacher would have us start each class by reciting the conjugations of sein, haben and werden in order. Ich bin, du bist, er ist, sie ist, man ist (take a breath) Wir sind, ihr seid, Sie sind (repeat) I can'

Present tense conjugations of the verb Essere

Let's start at the very beginning, shall we? After all, you can't do anything else until you are. Essere means "to be." It's the most-used verb in the Italian language, and it's used in a number of different contexts, including: