Have you ever taken Italian or know the language?
Friday, July 23rd, 2010 at
10:54 am
im taking it for the first time in college.. does anyone have any tips for me? thanks so much!! Xx
PS:
- i have taken 4 or so years of Spanish and visited spain when i was 14 (im 18 now)
- i have taken 2 years of Latin (recently)
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Filed under: Free Italian Lessons And Tips
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The one tip that comes to mind almost instantly:
• Forget everything that you know about prepositions. Italian uses prepositions VERY differently than English does. So even though a preposition seems to have an equivalent, don’t expect it to be used in the same manner.
For example:
— I am going TO Italy. — Vado IN Italia.
— I am going TO Rome. — Vado A Roma.
• Forget what you know about Spanish. Spanish is really only good for some vocabulary; otherwise, the grammar is markedly different, even down to the way nouns are pluralized! [Italian gatto--gatti; Spanish: gato--gatos]
One of the biggest blunders students familiar with Spanish tend to import to Italian is the whole "ser vs. estar" distinction. Italian has two cognate verbs: essere (ser) and stare (estar), BUT Italian uses "essere" in almost all cases.
For example:
— Sono a casa. — I am [at] home. (Spanish would use a form of "estar" here but Italian uses a form of "essere")
If you were to say "Sto a casa" (with "stare"), that would actually mean "I [am] stay[ing] home (as opposed to going out)."
• Basic pronunciation. For some reason, a lot of students in my classes habitually pronounced the Italian conjunction "e" («and») as if it were the English letter "E", which ironically made it sound identical to the Spanish "y". In Italian "e" is pronounced like the "a" in "made". The verb "è" «is» (note the accent) is pronounced like the "e" in "bet".
Double consonants make a difference! In English we tend to ignore double consonants because we don’t actually pronounce them any differently than the single ones. In Italian it’s important to make the distinction.
For example:
— pena (punishment) vs. penna (pen)
— ano (anus) vs. anno (year)
Pronouncing only a single "n" in "anno" could cause the common question "Quanti anni hai?" ("How old are you?") to come out as "Quanti ani hai?" ("How many anuses do you have?")!
Many people think it’s hard to pronounce them as "double", but what you actually have to do is:
– 1. Pronounce the word up until the first consonant.
– 2. Begin to position your tongue in preparation of pronouncing the consonant.
– 3. Hold your tongue in that position for about half a second.
– 4. Finally, pronounce the consonant wholly and forcefully.
I learned abit.. I WIll tell you this If you Learned Spanish It will Be wayyyyy Easier.. Most of words are the same… so its going to be easier…
examples
Spanish —————— Italian
Madre Madre
Familia Famiglia
Ciudad Cita
Sol/Luna Sole/Luna
Helado Gelato
Agua Aqua
Como Estas? Come Sta?
Escuela Scuola
Montana Montagna
(GN) Sounds like La Enye In Spanish… Good Luck have fun…
you’ll do fine! Especially since you’ve taken Spanish. I’ve been taking Italian for three years now, and I’m pretty advanced because I know Spanish. They pretty much go hand in hand
Love Italian! You’ll have no problem with it after Spanish and Latin. It’s a well-guarded secret that Italian is easier than Spanish.
A couple of tricky things: getting used to using past perfect tense to express simple past tense. Example, from avere (haber) and mangiare (comer): ho mangiato (he comido) which you would expect to mean "I HAVE eaten" but is used to say "I ate." Another: using essere (ser), instead of avere (haber) with the past participle. From essere + andare (ir): sono andato/a = I went. But probably the trickiest thing about Italian is the prepositions because a lot of them don’t seem to follow any rule.
If you find youself mixing up the languages, the best way to deal with that is with the Sesame Street approach: how are these things alike? how are they different? Make a three-column list—Latin–Spanish–Italian—and write down the appropriate words from each language. Studying this helps to reinforce the correct forms and to ‘fix’ the corrresponding languages in your mind. Buona fortuna!
Italian is amazing!!! The fact that you know spanish is going to help you but, in my experience, even though italian sounds like spanish it’s closer to french, just look at the days of the week.
Italian is easy to learn and there are some very good movies in that language.
If there’s a tip to learn it, I would advice you to pay close attention to plural and gender. Also, pay close interst in the use of pronouns and the use of "ci" and "ne".
Have a nice time learning italian.. I know I did.
My Italian teacher often reminded us to not think it’s the same as Spanish. A few of the rules are different. Also, make sure you know the difference between Spanish and Italian pronunciation.