I like learning nouns by choosing from a certain category. Last week it was body parts. This week I’m going to try food and drink:

20 Words:

il pasto (meal)
l’uva (grape)
l’insalata (salad)
le frittelle (pancakes)
la lattuga (lettuce)
la vedura (vegetable)
la zuppa (soup)
la fragola (strawberry
la bevanda (drink)
ubriaco (drunk)
la frutta (fruit)
il dado (nut)
il cocomero (watermelon)
il succo (juice)
la bistecca (steak)
la salsiccia (sausage)
il burro (butter)
il ghiaccio (ice)
l’uovo (egg)
il tè (tea)

10 Verbs

gridare (to shout)
paragonare (to compare)
curare (to look after)
distruggere (to destroy)
festeggiare (to celebrate)
fingere (to pretend)
frequentare (to attend)
garantire (to guarantee)
godere (to enjoy)
insistere (to insist)

So, for the nouns for week 1, I’ve decided to focus on body parts, as I’m a little sketchy on these.

Here is my list of 20 nouns

la bocca (mouth)
la mano (hand)
la fronte (forehead)
il naso (nose)
il cervello (brain)
la schiena (back)
la lingua (tongue)
il braccio (arm)
il volto (face)
il dente (tooth)
il gomito (elbow)
il cuore (heart)
l’occhio (eye)
la pelle (skin)
l’unghia (fingernail)
la gamba (leg)
il dito (finger)
la testa (head)
la caviglia (ankle)
il ginocchio (knee)
la bocca (mouth)

And for the 10 verbs:

dire (to say)
aprire (to open)
cominciare (to begin)
dare (to give)
mettere (to put)
morire (to die)
perdere (to lose)
spendere (to spend)
uscire (to leave)
vedere (to see)

As I mentioned in my other post, with the verbs, I don’t want to just memorize their meaning, as being able to conjugate verbs is more important than just knowing what their definition is. I obviously won’t be fluent in every tense, but I want to be able to at least work through the basic tenses of each verb.

I think setting goals is a great way of progressing in any endeavour and language should be no exception.

So far, my journey in the learning of Italian has made me think deeply about how languages are learnt and the whole learning process in general. I can speak English perfectly (well, almost) yet I had never thought about the English language (ironically) before learning Italian. I love to write and even did quite well in school etc, but my point is that everything that I have learnt with English has been more or less subconscious, yet with a new language, we find ourselves mainly doing the opposite and thinking about every word and sound that we learn. I guess there’s not really any other way, but the whole process does fascinate me.

At the moment, I find myself trying to balance my attention between the raw material (learning vocabulary, repetition of words, flash cards, studying grammar etc.) and a sort of simulated conversational environment (trying to talk to other Italians/Italian students, learning whole phrases, watching Italian movies etc). It is a hard balance but I think both are important processes.

When I’m getting overwhelmed I just think of it like this – every bit of practice that I do will help me somehow, and if I end up spending some serious time in Italy, the learning environment will be much more fertile because of all the seeds I’ve planted doing repetitive and often seemingly fruitless practice. Wow, that’s a lot of plant references!

Ok. Back to my original point. I think vocab is a good thing to set goals and learn in the rote fashion. Why? Well, at some stage, you have to just learn the words. of course it would have more meaning and resonance if I was learning the words out of necessity because I was in Italy and had to think on my feet. But for now, I just want to learn the words. Even if I have to think about each one before I use it, it doesn’t worry me. I can always get faster. The words will naturally feel more comfortable.

How many words should I learn. Well, I’m going to set myself the goal of learning 1000 words and 500 verbs.

I’m such a sucker for this kind of stuff. Here’s my plan.

I want to know 500 verbs. This includes verbs I already know. I want to include verbs I already know because the goal with the verbs side of things is not just to know the infinitives, but be able to conjugate them and use them in context. This goal really has a double incentive – vocab and grammar.

I want to learn 1000 non verbs that I don’t already know, or at least don’t know that well. What I plan to do is create the 2 lists on this site. I can add to it as I go and I can use this blog to practice using the words also. 1000 words is a good number to aim for. I just came across a fascinating post on how to learn spanish. I actually came across it by chance while searching for a tim ferriss article on language learning. The spanish article is quite amazing. There’s a lot of data there and I’m sure I’ll be going back to read it a few times, but basically the bit of information that interests me is this:

“Learning the first 1000 most frequently used words in the entire language will allow you to understand 76.0% of all non-fiction writing, 79.6% of all fiction writing, and an astounding 87.8% of all oral speech ”

Now the quote was referring to the Spanish language, but I’m sure it translates approximately to other languages and I would think that Italian would be quite similar. In my mind, 87.8% (roughly 80 percent) is pretty awesome. It’s good motivation for getting to that magic number. I have heard this statistic before (or a variation of it) which is why I was searching for it in the first place.

I will start in the new year. It works out to be roughly 20 regular words a week and 10 verbs a week. I think it’s achievable. But as time goes on, if it looks like I’ve set the bar to high, I can always lower it. I’m not going to pretend this is life or death and I’m not going to start deleting posts for fear of looking like I’ve failed. If I can’t absorb that much information every week (or can’t maintain the process) then I will have learnt a bit about how much information I can take in every week.

Wish me luck!

With Italian verbs, the ending of the verb changes, which is unlike english. This can take a while to get your head around and requires a lot of practice. For each verb, there are 6 ways of conjugating in the present tense. That equates to 3 ways in the singular and 3 ways in the plural.

For example mangiare (to eat)

io mangio (I eat)
tu mangi (you eat)
lui/lei mangia (he/she eats)

noi mangiamo (we eat)
voi mangiate (you all eat)
loro mangiano (they eat)

I have come up with a good way of practicing the 6 forms of each verb, which forces you to think in the context of a real conversation. The basic idea is to have a conversation in your head (but spoken out loud) between 3 people (singular) or 2 people and 1 group (plural)

For example, if I was to do this in english, it would look like this.

Person 1 (sam):  Jenny, does Fred walk walk to school every morning?
Person 2 (Jenny): Hmmm… I’m not sure. I’ll ask him. Fred, do you walk to school every morning?
Person 3 (Fred): I walk to school on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays
Person 2 (Jenny): Fred walks to school on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays

Person 1: Jenny, do your friends walk to school every morning?
Person 2: Hmm…. I’m not sure. I’ll ask them. Hey guys, do you walk to school every morning?
Group: Yes, we walk to school every morning:
Person 2:  My friends walk to school every morning!

As you can see, the example is in English but it can be applied to almost any Italian verb. The conversation can come across as a little frivolous but the main point is that it gets you to actually think about the different conjugations in some sort of context, rather than just going through a list of verbs and saying the different forms one after the other.

Of course, this can be applied to different tenses, such as the past and future, so it is a very useful tool for practicing verbs.

A frog, a chair, a bike.

We have just demonstrated the use of definite and indefinite articles. Definite articles refer in English, to the use of ‘the’. They are specifying a specific object (etc. the apple). Indefinite articles refer in English to ‘a’ and ‘an’ and refer to an object that could has not effectively been singled down to one (e.g. ‘an’ apple – it could be any apple, ‘a’ dog – it could refer to any dog).

In English, both definite articles and indefinite articles are simple to understand and use. In Italian, it is a little more tricky. Italian nouns are either masculine or feminine, and the article has to take on the gender of the object.

Definite Articles ‘the’

There are different ways of saying ‘the’ in Italian.

il
la
i
le
l’
lo
gli

To understand where they are used, it is good to break them down into sub categories:

The 2 most commonly used articles are:
il (masuline, singular)
la (feminine, singular)

Both of these articles change in the plural:
i (plural of il)
le (plural of la)

l’ is used for singular nouns, both masculine and feminine that start with a vowel

the plural of l’ is different for masculine and feminine nouns
l’ becomes gli when the noun is masculine
l’ becomes le when the noun is feminine (the same as the plural of la, therefor, all feminine plurals are the same)

The last definite article is lo.
lo is used when a masculine noun begins with either a z or an s plus consonant (e.g. s plus t)

the plural of lo is the same as the masculine plural of l’ (gli)

If you understand where to use the different articles, this summary of singular articles becoming plural articles should make sense:

Masculine Nouns
il becomes i
lo and l’ becomes gli

Feminine Nouns
la and l’ becomes le

Indefinite Articles (‘a’)

Indefinite articles are a little bit easier. There are no plurals with the indefinite article because it is effectively referring to 1 thing only.

There are 4 different indefinite articles (2 for each gender):
un
uno
una
un’

Masculine Nouns
un is used for all nouns that don’t start with a z or an s plus consonant
uno is used for all nouns that do start with a z or an s plus consonant

Feminine Nouns
una is used for all nouns that don’t start with a vowel
un’ is used for all nouns that do start with a vowel

Vuoi incontrare con me, la prossima settimana? (do you want to meet with me next week)

Certo, lo voglio fare! Ah, no, non posso incontrare con te la prossima settimana perche devo lavorare tanti. (certainly! I want to do it! Ah, no, I can not meet with you next week because I have to work a lot).

Va bene, domanderò alcuni altro amici se vogliono venire con me. (very well, I will ask some other friends if they want to come with me)

Si, spero che possono venire. (yes, I hope that they can come)

In English, the modal verbs in their infinitive form are to want, to be able, to have to. You would normally use each of these verbs with another verb, for example:

I want to eat…
Do you want to go…
We want to try…

I can run…
I can not see it…
I can show you…

I have to use it…
I have to be there…
I have to travel…

In Italian, the verbs are:
Volere (to want)
Potere (to be able to)
Dovere (to have to)

Each of these verbs are irregular in the present tense:

Volere
io voglio
tu vuoi
lui/lei vuole
noi vogliamo
voi volete
loro vogliono

Potere
io posso
tu puoi
lui/lei può
noi possiamo
voi potete
loro possono

Dovere
io devo
tu devi
lui/lei deve
noi dobbiamo
voi dovete
loro devono

Here are a few examples of the modal verbs in use:

ti voglio vedere (I want to see you)
vuole mangiare adesso (he wants to eat now)

possiamo sedere qui? (can we sit here?)
potete andare a scuola (you can go to school)

devi parlare con me (you must talk with me)
dobbiamo trovare nostri biglietti (we have to find our tickets)

Another example… “I practice Italian while I am on the train”. In this example, ‘while’ is the connector.

The different words that I learnt are:

quando (when)
mentre (while)
e poi (and then)
perche (because)
siccome (because)
e allora (so)
e quindi (so)

The above words can all be used to connect points of time together. The difference between perch and siccome is that a sentence cannot start with ‘perche’ but a sentence can start with ‘siccome’. Siccome almost functions as ‘since’, for example, “since it was hot outside, I didn’t need a jacket…”.

I’ll do a few examples that let me use the above words.

quando (when)
Io mangio quando ho fame (I eat when I am hungry)
Quando sono stanco, io dormo (When I am tired, I sleep)
Io sempre piango quando sono triste (I always cry when I am sad)

mentre (while)
Io penso mentre io lavoro (I think while I work)
Io parlo con i miei amici mentre aspetto per il treno (I talk to my friends while I wait for the train)

e poi (and then)
Guardo la partita e poi ritorno alla casa mia (I watch the game and then I return to my house)
Mangio la cena e poi leggo un libro (I eat dinner and then I read a book)

perche (because)
Gioco lo sport perche lo godo (I play sport because I enjoy it)
Guido la mia macchina al lavoro perche e troppo lontano per camminare (I drive my car to work because it is too far to walk)

siccome (because)
Siccome sono felice, io sorrido (Because I am happy, I smile)
Siccome lei e bella, le compro alcuni fiori (Because she is beautiful, I buy flowers for her)

e allora (so)
Mi piace calcio e allora io lo gaurdo spesso (I like soccer so I watch it often)

e quindi (so)
E Piova, e quindi porto un ombrello (It rains, so a bring an umbrella)