Sunday

Italian basics: Definite Articles (singular)

(how to say THE in Italian)

Il fruttivendolo— fruit stand/vendor, excerpt from Food Picture Dictionary Vol. 01 from viaoptimae.com
Il fruttivendolo, excerpt from Food Picture Dictionary Vol. 01 

Last time, we talked about indefinite articles, which in English are: a/an, but what if we want to say "THE"?

"The" is a definite article.  In English, it remains the same no matter the gender or number of the noun we are referring to:

the dog
the cats
the boy
the girls


Italian nouns have a gender (either masculine or feminine) and a number (singular or plural)

and Italian articles do too…

(Today, however, we'll focus just on the singular!)


The masculine, singular definite article is IL:



il libro
the book

il ragazzo
the boy

il giorno
the day





The feminine, singular definite article is LA:


la cosa
the thing

la ragazza
the girl

la casa
the house

la birra
the beer



MASCULINE or FEMININE?
In general, nouns that end in "o" are masculine, and nouns that end in "a" are feminine, but there are some exceptions that must be memorized as well as nouns that end in -e, -à and others.  When learning a new noun, I recommend learning it with the article, so that the association of the noun with its gender becomes automatic.





Just like Italian indefinite articles, definite articles have different forms depending on the starting sound of the word that follows them.



If the word starts with a VOWEL, the article is L' and 
(for both masculine & feminine!)




l'occhio (m.)
the eye

l'albero (m.) 
the tree

l'occasione (f.) 
the occasion

l'aria (f.) 
the air





If the word is masculine and starts with Z, S+consonant, PS or GN, the article is LO


lo zaino
the backpack

lo sport
the sport

lo psicologo
the psychiatrist

lo gnocco
the dumpling




This means that there are 4 different versions of the singular definite article, which can be summed up in the following chart:

It may seem like a lot, but really the main articles are IL and LA, and the others are variations based on pronunciation.  

When you learn a new word, LEARN IT WITH THE ARTICLE and say it out loud several times so that it begins to sound natural to you!


When I make vocab lists, I always include the proper article in parentheses and the gender if it isn't obvious from the article/ending:

cosa (la) — thing
sport (lo) - sport
anno (l') — year
occasione (l') (f.) - occasion
città (la) - city





Tutto chiaro? 
                  (Is it all clear?)


Reinforce what you've learned with the Italian Basics digital workbook: (with easily printable pages!)

Preview of digital workbook: ITALIAN: THE BASICS Workbook, available exclusively to subscribers of viaoptimae.com Subscribe now: http://eepurl.com/MMic9
(New worksheet that corresponds to this lesson added!)

 —be the first to know about new lessons & worksheets! {Subscribe here!}



Alex on www.viaoptimae.com


Ready for the next lesson in this series?






Potrebbe pure interessarti...
The Beginner's Italian Grammar Series, starting with:

Preview of How Italian Verbs work, http://www.viaoptimae.com/2013/10/how-italian-verbs-work.html

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The most used nouns: no. 005 VOLTA

“Baciami mille volte e ancora cento | poi nuovamente mille e ancora cento | e dopo ancora mille e dopo cento, | e poi confonderemo le migliaia | tutte insieme per non saperle mai, | perché nessun maligno porti male | sapendo quanti sono i nostri baci.„, on viaoptimae.com

Kiss me now a thousand times & now a hundred more &  then a hundred & a thousand more again till with so many hundred thousand kisses you & I shall both lose count nor any can from envy of kissing put his finger on the number of sweet kisses you of me & I of you, darling, have had.
[An English translation of the famous poem (originally in Latin) by Catullus]



In this series, we're covering the most used nouns in the Italian language 
(I sostantivi più utilizzati nella lingua italiana)



In case you missed it… 




Numero 5 è…..

 volta (la)






The digital magazine has been updated, and is now on a new platform! Check out all the new content (even on previous terms) and save the new link to your bookmarks! 


ITALIAN: The most-used nouns digital notebook by ab on viaoptimae.com
Italian: The most used nouns digital magazine(Updated regularly!)
*not currently available on mobile devices



Can you write a sentence using the word volta? Or maybe you can find a quote or aphorism that uses it? Comment below! (or on Facebook if you prefer)





Happy studying!
—Alex


Potrebbe pure piacerti…
Read about Catullus and his poetry (in Italian) at Revolart.it




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Basic Italian: Indefinite articles

(how to say A/AN in Italian)

"a" is the indefinite article in English and it is used with nouns to specify that we are talking about a non-specific or general noun:

a dog
a cat
a boy
a girl


Italian nouns have a gender (either masculine or feminine) 
and Italian articles do too…


The masculine indefinite article in Italian is UN:

un (a/an) masculine indefinite article


un libro
a book

un ragazzo
a boy

un giorno
a day

un occhio
an eye


~

The feminine indefinite article in Italian is UNA:
una (a/an), feminine indefinite article


una cosa
a thing

una ragazza
a girl

una casa
a house

una birra
a beer


MASCULINE or FEMININE?
In general, nouns that end in "o" are masculine, and nouns that end in "a" are feminine, but there are some exceptions that must be memorized as well as nouns that end in -e, -à and others.  When learning a new noun, I recommend learning it with the article, so that the association of the noun with its gender becomes automatic.



~

In English, if the word following the article starts with a vowel sound the article becomes "an":


an apple
an orange
an ear
an eye


This "n" has a function— it makes pronunciation easier.

Similary, in Italian, the masculine and feminine articles vary a bit based on the starting sound of the following word:


Masculine nouns that start with Z, S+consonant, PS and GN take UNO:


uno, masculine indefinite article before words that start with Z, S(+consonant), PS, and GN

uno zaino
a backpack

uno sport
a sport

uno psicologo
a psychiatrist

uno gnocco
a dumpling


UN-> UNO

Italian adds the vowel "o" to break up these difficult consonant clusters that would be hard to pronounce together. 

With feminine nouns that begin with these consonants, you don't have to do anything special because UNA already has a vowel:

una zia
an aunt


una sposa
a bride




~


For feminine nouns, UNA becomes shortened to UN' (with an apostrophe) and attached if the following word starts with a vowel: 


un' (a/an) + féminine word that begins with a vowel

un'amica
a friend (that's a girl)

un'aranciata
an orange soda



UNA-> UN'
This rule can be easily remembered if you practice saying the words aloud.  If you say: una amica you have to say the "a" sound twice— it glides along much better to just have one "a" sound: un'amica so that's how you pronounce it and write it.

The masculine form UN doesn't have an extra vowel sound at the end, so you don't need to do anything special with words that begin with vowels:

un amico
a friend (that's a boy)

un anniversario
an anniversary



That's it!  Capito? (got it?)



Reinforce what you've learned with the Italian Basics digital workbook: (with easily printable pages!)

Preview of digital workbook: ITALIAN: THE BASICS Workbook, available exclusively to subscribers of viaoptimae.com Subscribe now: http://eepurl.com/MMic9


 be the first to know about new lessons & worksheets! {Subscribe here!} 


Alex on www.viaoptimae.com





Ready for the next lesson in this series?






Potrebbe pure interessarti….
The Beginner's Italian Grammar Series, starting with:

Preview of How Italian Verbs work, http://www.viaoptimae.com/2013/10/how-italian-verbs-work.html





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Saturday

Ogni cosa che facciamo...

Ogni cosa che facciamo è come una goccia nell'oceano, ma se non la facessimo l'Oceano avrebbe una goccia in meno. -Madre Teresa di Calcutta, foto da Alex per viaoptimae.com


I really like the idea behind this quote and what it says about our role in life and the world.  It also brings up an interesting difference between Italian and English verbs, so before going straight into the translation, let's look at its two parts individually— paying particular attention to the tense of each verb.



The first part, speaks of general actions or states of being in the present, and therefore, uses the Simple Present Tense:

facciamo (we do) 


io faccio, tu fai, lui fa, *noi facciamo*, voi fate, loro fanno, simple present tende of verb fare "to do", by Alex for viaoptimae.com



—and—

è  (is)


io sono, tu sei, *lui è*, noi siamo, voi siete, loro sono, simple present tense of verb essere "to be", by Alex for viaoptimae.com



{Review how Italian verbs work & the Simple Present tense here}


In this case, English and Italian use the Simple Present tense in similar ways, and so the phrase can be translated word-for-word:


Ogni cosa (each/every thing) che facciamo (that we do) è come (is like) una goccia nell'oceano (a drop in the ocean)

{The most-used noun— COSA on Via Optimae}


Again, English and Italian both use the Simple Present tense to talk about actions that occur generally, so there is no change in tense as we translate from one language to the other.

The second part of the quote, however, speaks of a hypothetical or imagined situation:  what would happen IF something else were true.

In Italian, this is expressed using the Imperfect Subjunctive tense, and the Present conditional, in what is called a "hypothetical clause of possibility" (periodo ipotetico della possibilità):


se (imagined scenario in imperfect subjunctive), (what would happen in present conditional tense): Formula "il periodo ipotetico della possibilità" (the hypothetical phrase of possibility) by Alex for viaoptimae.com

We'll cover hypothetical clauses and these tenses individually and more in-depth later, but for now, let's just look at it in the context of the quote:


ma (but) se non la facessimo (if we didn't do it) l'Ocean avrebbe (the Ocean would have) una goccia in meno (one drop less)

IF we didn't act, the ocean WOULD HAVE less… 

If every action is "just a drop" in the huge "ocean" that is the world, we must contribute our "little drops" because the ocean would be lacking without them.  

In other words, every little thing counts!


Ogni cosa (each/every thing) che facciamo (that we do) è come (is like) una goccia nell'oceano (a drop in the ocean) ma (but) se non la facessimo (if we didn't do it) l'Ocean avrebbe (the Ocean would have) una goccia in meno (one drop less)

What do you think?  Any thoughts about the quote or the grammar points covered?  Feel free to comment below or connect via Facebook, if you prefer.



Happy Studying!
—Alex





See also:

Frasi celebri su Via Optimae

Frasi celebri su Via Optimae
Acque del sud (To Have and Have Not) original: "You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and… blow."