Residential Italian Language Lessons In Italy

Italian language lessons for all levels and abilities from beginners to advanced.

The vowels Just as in English there are five Italian vowels: a, e, i, o and u. The letters a, i and u have a single sound, the letters e and o however have two sounds which are referred to as either open or closed. By making reference to standard English words we can provided examples of how the vowels actually sound in reality. Here are the examples: a as in cat, mat or fat Mano means hand. e as in fed or sled Fetta means slice as in poem Sella means saddle i as in me or meet Giubbino means light jacket o as in pot or slot Rotto means brocken as in code Sono means I am and they are u as in the English double o Crudo means raw or crude (food, mood, cool or tool) Italian consonants are for the most part sounded just as in English, there are however some exceptions which are as follows: h The letter h is not sounded in Italian, instead it is used to modify the letters c and g. Even with imported words such as hobby the letter h is not sounded thus, as regards the pronunciation of the word hobby we have the equivalent of obby. c Before the letters i and e the letter c is pronounced exactly like ch in English. So then we have words like, Certo (certainly) and Cinema (cinema)  remember to pronounce cinema as chinema. The letter c in combination with either e or i is know as a soft c. When the letter c is instead followed by any other letter it is know as a hard c and sounding like the English letter k. For example we have Cane which means dog and Cotto which means cooked. ch The combination of c and h only occurs when ch is followed by either i or e, serving thus to separate them and therefore modify the combined sound. Some examples should make this clear: Chi means who, but if it where not for the separating h we would have ci, which depending on context means either us or there or of it / of them. China means slope or descent, Cina on the hand is the spelling of the country name - China. The concept of noun gender doesnt exist in English and as such presents a completely new set of problems to the student of Italian. Fortunately there are only two forms, Masculine and Feminine (maschile and feminile). How can we know whether a noun is masculine or feminine? The answer is to observe the final letter of the word (desinenza). There are three final letter possibilities o, a and e. It would be very helpful to be able to say that all nouns ending in o are masculine and that all nouns ending in a are feminine, unfortunately this isnt the case. The good news is however that it is generally the case. So then some examples: Forno means oven Masculine Pavimento means floor Masculine Ufficio means office Masculine Olio means oil Masculine Letto means bed Masculine Governo means government Masculine Francobollo means stamp Masculine Conto means bill Masculine Legno means wood Masculine Oro means gold Masculine Stagno means pond Masculine Zoo means zoo Masculine Verdura means vegetable Feminine Settimana means week Feminine Cravatta means tie Feminine Vacanza means holiday Feminine Ricevuta means receipt Feminine Lingua means tongue Feminine Camicia means shirt Feminine Acqua means water Feminine Doccia means shower Feminine Ora means hour Feminine Animale means animal Masculine Glottide means glottis Feminine Aspirapolvere means vacuum cleaner Masculine Pelle means leather Feminine Bicchiere means glass Masculine Stazione means station Feminine Dottore means doctor Masculine Estate means summer Feminine Nome means name Masculine Madre means mother Feminine Pane means bread Masculine We can intimate from this list that when a noun ends in o its more than likely masculine and that when a noun ends in a it's more than feminine but what about those nouns that end in e? Clearly such nouns can be either masculine or feminine. All such words must simply be learnt by wrote. Here we can notice an interesting problem for the student learning Italian. Consider the sentence, Il direttore ama la cameriera.. The word direttore (director) is preceded by the Il form of the definite article and therefore allows us to immediately picture a male director. The word ama comes from the third person singular of the verb amare which means to love  in this instance it means that he - the director - loves something or someone. What or whom does the doctor love? He loves, la cameriere, the waitress (the word for waiter is cameriere. So far so good. Now consider this sentence, Lanimale cerca labete.. Is the animal male or female and of what gender is an abete? From the sentence given we simply cannot say, it could be a male mouse or a female kangaroo the abate on the other hand refers to something masculine - a fir tree - but only experience can tell us this. Interestingly now that we know that abete is a type of tree we also know that the word abete cant be anything but masculine. This is simply because all trees in Italian are masculine, further, all fruits are feminine. And so we have for example: Larancio Orange tree Masculine Larancia Orange (fruit) Feminine Il melo Apple tree Masculine La mela Apple (fruit) Feminine Il pesco Peach tree Masculine La pesca Peach (fruit) Feminine Il noce Walnut tree Masculine La noce Walnut (fruit) Feminine Lalbicocco Apricot tree Masculine Lalbicocca Apricot (fruit) Feminine Il pero Pear tree Masculine La pera Pear (fruit) Feminine Exceptions to the rule La quercia Oak tree Feminine La ghianda Acorn Feminine As regards all of the nouns that end in there are some tips and tricks available to help us to remember whether theyre masculine or feminine. Firstly, if in doubt, assume that its masculine  Italian is a male orientated language and most words ending in are indeed masculine. Secondly, one way of learning the gender of new words is to develop memory games. Consider a new word to our vocabulary, estate meaning summer. This word ends in and so the first thing to do in deciding its gender it to examine its definite article. Unfortunately however, this particular word begins with a vowel which means that the definite article is l so then, neither the ending nor the definite article can tell us anything about the gender of the word. So what can we do? Well one thing we can do is to invent a memory aid. For example, the four seasons are: Spring La primavera Feminine Summer L'estate Feminine Autumn L'autunno Masculine Winter Inverno Masculine