Beginner Week 1

Vocabolario | Vocabulary
To help you pronounce the words in this section, you might want to try these video links
(also available on the HCLAW Italian blog):

L’alfabeto Italiano | Italian Alphabet

La Pronuncia delle Parole Italiane | The Pronunciation of Italian Words

I: You say goodbye and I say hello

Ciao | Hello, Goodbye (informal)

Pronto! | Hello! (when answering the phone)

Buon Giorno | Good Morning

Buon Pomeriggio | Good Afternoon
It is more common to say Buon Giorno than Buon Pomeriggio, even during the afternoon.
Buona Sera | Good Evening
Buona Notte | Good Night

II: Be nice
Per favore, Per piacere | Please
Per means “for,” so what you’re literally saying is something like “for [my] favor or for
[my] pleasing”

Keeping this in mind, let’s look at piacere, a verb which means “to please.”
If someone does something “for [my] pleasing,” then it makes sense
that person is “pleasing to me.” This latter phrase is how Italians say, “I like.” In
other words:

Mi piace | I like (Literally: It is pleasing to me)

We’ll come back to this in depth in a later section.

Grazie | Thanks
Prego | Your Welcome
Both grazie and prego are derivitives from the Catholic tradition in Italy. Grazie literally
means “graces” as in “thanks/graces be to God” and prego literally means “I pray.”
Beginner Week 1

The next time you are at a supermarket, look at the tomato sauces. You’ll notice, or might
already be familiar with, a brand called “Prego.” It’s telling you “You’re welcome.” A
little presumptuous, no?

III: Since the last time I saw you...

Come sta? | How are you? (formal)
Come stai? | How are you? (informal)
We’ll explain the differences between formal and informal in a later section.

Sto bene. | I am well.

Sto male. | I am not doing well.
Così- così. | So-so

Come va? | What’s up? (Literally: How’s it going?)

Looking at Come sta? and Come va? you’re probably able to tell that come means “how.”

Come? | How?

Now let’s look at some more question words...think about how you would
pronounce the following:

Che? | What?

If you thought “Ch” as in chair, you’ve fallen into your first English trap.
In Italian, che is pronounced “K” and the “ch” in chiunque (anyone) is
similarly pronounced, like “key-un-quay.”

Chiunque? | Anyone? (Anyone at All?)

Leave chiunque lost by itself for a moment so you can better see some
connections between four of its relatives:

Chi? | Who?
A chi? | To whom?
Con chi? | With whom?
Di chi? | Whose? (Literally: Of who?)

In English, we use “whom” instead of “who” when it is the object of a preposition.

Beginner Week 1

Seeing this relationship in translation from Italian, you might have noticed that “a,”
“con,” and “di” play the role of, and indeed are, prepositions.

A | to
Con | with
Di | of
Per | for (You knew this one already from “Per favore.”)

Perché? | ?

You know per means “for” and you know “che” means what. When you ask
for what reason someone does something you ask why. Why. Italian’s not so
hard, eh?

Perché? | Why, Because

Che has some other relatives:

Che? | What?
Che cosa? | What? (think What thing?)
Cosa? | What?
cosa | thing

Quale? | Which?

Quanto?/Quanta? | How much?

Quanti?/Quante? | How many?

You’ll notice there are two variations of each of the two above. Perché? You
might ask.

We’ve been addressing these question words as people in the sense they have
relatives, but we also address words in Italian (as in other romance
languages) as though they have gender.

Nouns and adjectives in Italian are masculine or feminine. Nouns hold their
ground. Adjectives are crossdressers. You’ll see them change their ending
based on what noun they want to hang out with.

For example,
Beginner Week 1

L’uomo buono | The good man.

La donna buona | The good woman.

L’uomo is proud to be a noun, he won’t change.

La donna is proud to be a woman, she won’t change.

Buono is cast in the next Hasty Pudding performance, so he changes based

on what the leading man or lady needs him to be.

o is masculine. buono.
a is feminine. buona.

Corresponding to this rule is:

Quanto?/Quanta? | How much?

This usually refers to a singular item like the cost, for example.

Quanto costa?| How much does it cost?

With some creative application of the last page or so, you now know enough
Italian to explore the red-light district. But hopefully in lieu of going there,
you will consider the following:

What about Quanti?/Quante?

See if you can figure out the rule from the following:

L’uomini buoni | The good men.

Le donne buone | The good women.

If you thought:

o  i when l’uomo  l’uomini

a  e when la donna  le donne

Then you’re right. The ending of the adjective changes when the noun is
plural as it does with our question words.
Beginner Week 1

Quanti?/Quante? | How many?

Note that though this is in pluralized form, its meaning is distinct from
Quanto?/Quanta?

If you are wondering quanti? more vocabulary words are going to be in this
lesson. Not to worry. I won’t keep you too long. But I wouldn’t want to leave
you with a ton of questions either (There’ll be more time for those next
week.)

Let’s conclude with a nice relaxing exercise. Take deep breaths. And count
slowly to ten. In Italian.

Uno | One ("OO-noh")

Due | Two ("DOO-eh")
Tre | Three ("TREH")
Quattro | Four ("KWAHT-troh")
Cinque | Five ("CHEEN-kweh")
Sei | Six ("SEH-ee")
Sette | Seven ("SET-teh")
Otto | Eight ("OHT-toh")
Nove | Nine ("NOH-veh")
Dieci | Ten ("dee-EH-chee")

There you have it. Your first lesson in Italian é finito, is finished, is complete.

Grazie per fare attenzione (for paying attention).

All the lessions will be in this format, about five pages in length.
Please direct positive/negative feedback to harvardclaw@gmail.com.

Fino a la prossima settimana (Until next week),

Cris

Cristoforo Magliozzi
cmaglioz@fas.harvard.edu
Director of Italian Program
Harvard College Languages at Work