Italian Lessons

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by ITALY | Fri, 01/07/2011 - 10:07

At this time of year we are all thinking of the future so let us explore the use of the future tense in Italian:The good news is that the formation of the…

Language

Italian Language Lesson: Reflexive verbs

by Pat Eggleton | Thu, 10/21/2010 - 09:51

Words by Pat Eggleton // We are going back to basic grammar today, with a look at a group of verbs which often worry learners, the so-called reflexive…

Language

The prefixes "sopra" and "sovra"

by Pat Eggleton | Tue, 10/12/2010 - 10:45

Words by Pat EggletonPrefixes and suffixes, as we have seen, are often a clue to meaning.Today we are looking at the prefixes sopra- and sovra- which denote a…

Language

The suffix -accio

by Pat Eggleton | Wed, 10/06/2010 - 10:56

Words by Pat EggletonThe suffix – accio denotes something bad, eg:Una parola – a wordUna parolaccia – a swear wordLa carta – paperLa cartaccia – waste…

Language

Talking about the past - part 2

by Pat Eggleton | Thu, 09/23/2010 - 11:08

Words by Pat Eggleton//Last week we began our look at how to form verbs in the [past] perfect tense. We saw that you need to use the present tense of an…

Language

Talking About the Past

by Pat Eggleton | Thu, 09/16/2010 - 12:23

Words by Pat Eggleton When you learn a language at school, it is normally three years before you can say anything about the past. This is rather restricting…

Language

Adjectives in Italian

by Pat Eggleton | Thu, 07/15/2010 - 10:14

Words by Pat Eggleton - In this photo: a blue dress by Roberto Cavalli//Now it’s time to look at adjectives. Most Adjectives in Italian are placed after the…

Language

The suffixes -ino and -one

by Pat Eggleton | Tue, 07/13/2010 - 10:23

The suffix –ino [masculine] or – ina [feminine] means “little”:sorella – sister;sorellina – little sistercaro – dear;carino – dear in the sense of “cute”The…

Language

Plural of nouns

by Pat Eggleton | Thu, 07/08/2010 - 06:19

Words by Pat Eggleton//Masculine nouns ending in –o form their plural in – i:il libro – i libriun arco - gli archiMasculine nouns ending in unstressed – a [-a…

Language

The auxiliary verb "essere"

by Pat Eggleton | Thu, 05/06/2010 - 05:44

function MM_popupMsg(msg) { alert(msg);} Last week we looked at avere [to have]. This week we are going to look at essere [to be]: You may remember that…