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La personalità… Come sei tu? Describing your personality…
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In this lesson:
VOCAB: Adjectives of Personality
GRAMMAR: Masculine vs. Feminine Adjectives
GRAMMAR: The verb "ESSERE - to be"
CULTURE: Gender & Addressing a group
Adjectives of Personality
Come sei tu?
Word for word, this is "How are you?", but because it uses the verb "essere" (sei) [and not "stare" as in Come stai?] it is not asking your current state or mood, but rather, generally, how are you... as in What do you look like?, or What is your personality like?
This time, we're going to focus on the personality aspect of this question and look at some possible answers.
No matter what your personality type (or your gender) the answer could start with:
Sono una persona …
I am a …… person.
"Persona" is a feminine noun, no matter if the person is male or a female, so the adjective describing it will be in the feminine as well.
Try browsing some of the possible answers and see which, if any, you recognize. Write down a few, or as many as you like, that apply to you:
Now that you've browsed, use the definitions below to look up any of the terms that you don't know or are unsure about and edit or add to your own personal list as necessary:
AGGETTIVI DI PERSONALITÀ*
*again, all the adjectives are in the feminine, because "persona" is a feminine noun
—also, masculine forms get enough attention as far as I'm concerned!
(See the Cultural Note at the bottom of this post!)
allegra
cheerful
amichevole
friendly
ansiosa
anxious
arguta
sharp/witty
arrogante
arrogant
assennata
sensible/level-headed
audace
audacious/bold
calma
calm
cattiva
mean/bad
codarda
cowardly
compiacente
obliging/eager to please
comprensiva
understanding
coraggiosa
courageous
decisa
decisive
diligente
diligent
disobbediente
disobedient
disonesta
dishonest
dispettosa
mischievous
distaccata
detached
divertente
fun
dolce
sweet
educata
well-mannered
elegante
refined/graceful
emotiva
emotional
estroversa
extroverted
felice
happy
fredda
cold
generosa
generous
gentile
kind
impacciata
clumsy
impaziente
impatient
impulsiva
impulsive
infelice
unhappy
intelligente
intelligent
introversa
introverted
lunatica
moody
maleducata
rude/ill-mannered
mite
mild-mannered/gentle
modesta
modest
noiosa
boring
obbediente
obedient
onesta
honest
ottimista
(invariable)
optimistic
ottusa
obtuse/dumb
paziente
patient
permalosa
sensitive/touchy
pessimista
(invariable)
pessimistic
pigra
lazy
premurosa
caring/thoughtful
presuntuosa
presumptuous
prudente
prudent/cautious
sbadata
scatterbrained/careless
scettica
skeptical
scontrosa
surly
scortese
impolite/unkind
sensibile
sensitive
seria
serious
sgarbata
rude
snob
(invariable)
snobbish
spregiudicata
unscrupulous/unprejudiced
tetra
timida
shy
Looking at your list of adjectives, practice saying them aloud and in full sentences. Starting with the formula from above:
…emotiva e permalosa.
...onesta e pigra.
(Just for examples!)
Just as in English, it is possible to say 'I am' and then launch into the adjectives without saying 'a person.' In Italian, however, this means that you will have to be aware of your gender, as well as the gender of your adjectives. If you're female, then you can use all of the adjectives in the form given above. If you're male, however, you will have to switch your adjectives to the masculine form.
In most cases, if the adjective ends in "a", you change the ending to an "o", as in:
Sono …
…tetra e lunatica. (female)
…tetro e lunatico. (male)
In most cases, if the adjective ends in "e", it remains the same for male and female.
Sono …
…sensibile e scortese. (male or female)
In the above examples, we see the question in the "tu" or "you" (informal) form:
Come sei tu?
And the answer in the "io" or "I form":
Sono una persona...
It is, of course, possible to talk about the personalities of other people as well. For this, you will need to know the other forms of the verb ESSERE:
So, following this chart, we could say..
(io) Sono… comprensiva.
(tu) Sei… comprensiva.
(lui) È… comprensivo.
(lei) È… comprensiva.
(Lei) È… comprensivo/a.
(noi) Siamo… comprensivi.*
(voi) Siete… comprensivi.*
(loro) Sono… comprensivi.*
Tutto il mondo è comprensivo!
The whole world is understanding!
*Notice how the adjective ending changed? That's because noi, voi, and loro are PLURAL forms and so require also PLURAL adjectives. Not sure about pluralization rules? Check out: Pluralization
For additional practice, think of people in your life and use the adjectives above to describe them.
—Com'è tua madre?
—Mia madre è…
—Com'è il tuo amico?
—Il mio amico è…
—Come sono i tuoi professori?
—I miei professori sono…
Hai capito? (Got it?)
"Like" Via Optimae on Facebook and share your own personality descriptions!
Ciao! Mi chiamo Alex e sono una persona
cattiva e dispettosa
(o forse solo scherzosa!)
or maybe just a jokester!
Come sei tu?
Buono studio!
CULTURE: Gender & Addressing a group
In general, you use masculine forms to address men and feminine forms to address women, but what if you're addressing a mixed group? Well, in that case, the masculine form wins out. Even if there are three hundred women and just one man— the grammar books say that you should use the masculine.
I watched a television series recently in which they played with this idea. The boss of a women's magazine frequently addresses her employees using feminine forms, much to the dismay of the lone male employee. He cites grammar rules as justification for why she should use masculine forms, but this only drives her character to use the feminine with more gusto. This shows how changing gender roles can affect longstanding linguistic rules—or at least how those rules can be used as fodder for comedy in a television series! {I'm on the lookout for the clip and will post it if I find it— From what I remember, it's pretty funny!}
Potrebbero interessarti…
ITALIAN: Beginners Series:
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