This lesson will cover a few more of the basics. To start with, here is a review of the various times of the day. Take note of the gender of each word. The article la indicates that a word is feminine, whereas il signifies a masculine word.
La Mattina – The morning
Il Pomeriggio – The afternoon
La Sera – The evening
La Notte – The night
As a rule, feminine words end in "a" and masculine words end in "o". There are of course a few exceptions. Here for instance, the word for night is feminine, but ends in "e".
Days of The Week
It is also important to be able to specify which day you are talking about. The days of the week are as follows:
Lunedi – Monday
Martedi – Tuesday
Mercoledi – Wednesday
Giovedi – Thursday
Venerdi – Friday
Sabbato – Saturday
Domenica – Sunday
When speaking, take particular care to emphasise the accented i at the end of the words. It should be a short, definite sound, not a long drawn out "eeee..." sound.
Past, Present and Future
You may wish to talk about the things that you did yesterday, or the things that you are planning to do tomorrow:
Ieri – Yesterday
Oggi – Today
Domani – Tomorrow
Numbers 11 to 20
11- undici
12 – dodici
13 – tredici
14 – quattordici
15 – quindici
16 – seidici
17 - diciasette
18 – dic’otto
19 - dicianove
20 – venti
Remember that in Italian, the letters "c and i" together are pronounced "ch".
Grammar
In Italian, all verbs in their infinitive forms have one of three endings: -are, -ere, or -ire. This lesson will teach you how to conjugate the first, most common type of verb, the one ending in -are. The verb "mangiare" – to eat, will be used as an example.
Mangio – I eat
Mangi – You eat
Mangia – He or She eats
Mangiamo – We eat
Mangiate – You (plural) eat
Mangiano – They eat
In order to conjugate an "are" verb, you must start with the infinitive form, in this case, "magiare". Remove the A"are" ending, and add on instead the appropriate ending. These are as follows:
I = o
You (singular) = i
He or she = a
We = iamo
You (plural) = ate
They = ano
When you look in your dictionary, you will only find the infinitive form of the verb. If it ends in "are" then you must follow the above rules in order to conjugate it.
There are some irregular verbs in Italian, which do not precisely follow these rules. Sadly, there is no rule which will teach you how to conjugate them, and they must simply be learned by heart. The most common irregular "are" verb is probably the verb "andare" – to go. It is conjugated as follows:
Vado – I go
Vai – You go
Va – He or She goes
Andiamo – We go
Andate – You go (plural)
Vanno – They go.
This lesson has covered the various times of day: morning, afternoon, evening and night. It has also introduced the days of the week, and the terms for yesterday, today and tomorrow. Numbers 1 - 10 were covered in the Beginner's Guide to Italian, and this lesson has continued with the numbers 11 - 20. Teaching of some simple grammar has begun, with the conjugation of regular verbs ending in are, and the irregular verb andare has been learned.
Katy Hughes - I am a final year undergraduate from England. I'm still very new at writing professionally, but I have been writing for my own enjoyment ...
