Ecco!: An Introduction to Advanced Italian

By Giuseppe Iavicoli

Written in easy, conversational English, ECCO! reviews and explains all
major points of Italian grammar, with special attention to those areas
that appear more foreign to English speakers. Emphasis is also placed on
vocabulary enrichment. The book presents about 6,000 Italian words,
grouped thematically by structural or grammatical characteristics, many of
them illustrated by examples. It also includes about 1,000 Italian idioms
(particular turns of phrase peculiar to the language) and lists all irregular
forms of verbs and nouns. Students wanting to move beyond an elementary
acquaintance with Italian will fi nd the book useful as a self-teaching tool,
an adjunct to other textbooks or as a reference source

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483695365

Giuseppe Iavicoli

author bio coming soon

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by Giuseppe Iavicoli.

Photography by Charley Gast

Cover design by Pietro Cassinadri

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-4836-9535-8

                eBook           978-1-4836-9536-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The cartoons on pages 44, 52, 58, 71, 128, 141, 148, 188, 208, 222, 227, 237, 271, 283 and 297 are reproduced with the kind permission of the magazine La Settimana Enigmistica (Milan, Italy), copyright reserved.

Rev. date: 01/03/2014

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Part 1: Nouns

Chapter 1   Noun Gender Recognized From Ending Letter

Chapter 2   Gender Recognition By Classes Of Nouns

Chapter 3   Masculine Nouns Ending In –A And Feminine Ones Ending In –O

Chapter 4   Italian Nouns Ending In –Ista

Chapter 5   Nouns With Irregular Plurals

Chapter 6   Nouns Of Occupations By Gender

Chapter 7   Suffix-Modified Nouns That Are Nouns In Their Own Right

Chapter 8   Iitalian Compound Nouns

Chapter 9   Noun- Or Verb-Derived Nouns Ending In –Ata

Chapter 10   Food And Money Vocabulary

Chapter 11   Posto And Luogo: Two Nouns For Place

Chapter 12   Giorno And Giornata: Two Nouns For Day

Chapter 13   Fuoco And Incendio: Two Nouns For Fire

Chapter 14   Tempo, Ora, Volta: Three Nouns For Time

Chapter 15   Pairs Of Nouns Differing Only In The Final Vowel

Part 2: Articles

Chapter 1   Using Or Not Using The Definite Article

Chapter 2   Omitting The Definite Article After A Preposition

Part 3: Adjectives

Chapter 1   Adjective Position

Chapter 2   All About Numbers

Chapter 3   Possessive Adjectives And Pronouns

Chapter 4   Back-To-Back Nouns; An Italian No-No

Chapter 5   Adjectives Of Nationalities And Languages

Chapter 6   Unvarying Adjectives

Chapter 7   How To Translate Both

Chapter 8   The Uses Of Bello And Buono

Chapter 9   How To Translate Such

Chapter 10   Is Malo A Proper Adjective?

Part 4: Pronouns

Chapter 1   Subject Personal Pronouns

Chapter 2   The Use Of Indirect Object Pronouns

Chapter 3   Uses Of The Stressed Personal Pronouns

Chapter 4   All About Relative Pronouns

Chapter 5   How Do You Say It In Italian?

Chapter 6   The Uses Of Ne And Ci

Chapter 7   The Impersonal And Passivating Si

Chapter 8   The Redundant Object Pronoun In Italian

Part 5: Prepositions And Conjunctions

Chapter 1   The Many Uses Of The Preposition Di

Chapter 2   The Many Uses Of The Preposition A

Chapter 3   The Various Uses Of The Preposition Da

Chapter 4   English In Vs. Italian In

Chapter 5   Four Time-Related Prepositions

Chapter 6   Idioms Beginning With The Preposition In

Chapter 7   Idioms Beginning With The Preposition A

Chapter 8   How Do We Translate Than?

Chapter 9   Translating Why, Because, Since

Chapter 10   The Many Equivalents Of English On

Chapter 11   The Many Equivalents Of English By

Chapter 12   Conjunctions

Chapter 13   The Uses Of Anzi

Part 6: Adverbs

Chapter 1   Italian Adverb Classes

Chapter 2   The Uses Of Più And Meno

Chapter 3   The Various Uses Of Altro

Chapter 4   The Uses Of Mai And Sempre

Chapter 5   Translating Again

Chapter 6   The Uses Of Così

Chapter 7   The Many Uses Of Tanto

Chapter 8   The Uses Of Allora And Dunque

Part 7: Verbs And Their Conjugation

Chapter 1   Present Tense (Regular And Irregular Forms)

Chapter 2   The Two Groups Of Verbs In –Ire

Chapter 3   Verbs Ending In –Rre

Chapter 4   The Past Participle

Chapter 5   The Italian Past Tenses

Chapter 6   Compound Verb Tenses In Italian

Chapter 7   Choosing The Auxiliary For Compound Tenses

Chapter 8   Reflexive And Reciprocal Verbs

Chapter 9   The Imperative

Chapter 10   The Passive Sentence

Chapter 11   Accent Position In Verb Forms

Part 8: Verbs And Their Usage

Chapter 1   All About Using Infinitives

Chapter 2   The Object + Infinitive Construction

Chapter 3   Connecting An Infinitive After A Conjugated Verb

Chapter 4   Causing Things To Be Done/Made

Chapter 5   Translating English Modal Verbs

Chapter 6   Alternative Ways To Translate Can

Chapter 7   The Past Tenses Of Italian Modal Verbs

Chapter 8   The Italian Gerundio

Chapter 9   Conditional Sentences

Chapter 10   The Participle Absolute

Chapter 11   Uses Of The Future In Italian

Chapter 12   Sentences Containing Two Verbs And A Single Subject

Chapter 13   Io Sì, Tu No (I Do, You Don’t)

Chapter 14   Impersonal Verbs

Chapter 15   Introduction To The Subjunctive

Chapter 16   The Uses Of Avere Vs. Those Of To Have

Chapter 17   Colloquial Uses Of Avere And Sapere

Chapter 18   The Uses Of Piacere

Chapter 19   The Uses Of Rimanere And Restare

Chapter 20   Sentire, A Verb Of Many Uses

Chapter 21   Two Ways Of Translating To Try

Chapter 22   What Is To Enjoy In Italian?

Chapter 23   What Is To Lie Down In Italian?

Chapter 24   The Uses Of Mancare Vs. English Miss

Chapter 25   What Is To Wish In Italian?

Part 9: Idioms And Odds And Ends

Chapter 1   Exclamations

Chapter 2   Many Ways To Say Please In Italian

Chapter 3   Idioms With The Verb Fare

Chapter 4   Idioms With The Verb Dire

Chapter 5   Idioms With The Verb Dare

Chapter 6   The Uses Of The Verb Prendere

Chapter 7   The Uses Of Andare And Venire

Chapter 8   The Uses Of Volerci And Metterci

Chapter 9   Idioms With The Feminine Object Pronoun La

Chapter 10   Idioms With Nouns Of Body Parts

Chapter 11   Idioms With Names Of Animals

Chapter 12   Idioms With Nouns Of Apparel

Chapter 13   Idioms With Nouns Of Weather And The Physical World

Chapter 14   Idioms With Nouns Of Life And Death

Chapter 15   Idioms With Colors

Chapter 16   Doubled-Up Words

Chapter 17   Paired Words

Chapter 18   False Friends

Chapter 19   Similes Or Similitudini

Chapter 20   Italian Proverbs

Chapter 21   Italian Tonguetwisters

Chapter 22   Division Into Syllables

Chapter 23   About Punctuation And Computer Terms

A Last Word

Appendix

INTRODUCTION

Over my twenty years of teaching Italian in the U.S., I have recognized that there are a number of topics that seem particularly challenging to American students, as they try to advance from a beginner-intermediate to a more advanced level of proficiency. Many of these topics relate to the ways Italians really speak and write, as well as to points of grammar that seem strange from an English speaker’s point of view.

Italians make heavy use of idioms and proverbs in their daily speech, therefore a good part of this book is devoted to that subject, as well as to systematic vocabulary enrichment. Over 1000 idiomatic expressions are presented, grouped by common themes and illustrated by sample sentences.

I also explain, in plain and discursive English, many of the more troublesome aspects of the language, such as use vs. non-use of the article; gender recognition rules for all nouns; recognizing, on sight, the two types of –ire verbs; use of the redundant object pronoun and of the indirect object pronoun; accent placement on all verb forms; and many others. The book also illustrates all irregular forms of nouns and verbs.

This book has been a grass-roots project that began and grew in response to specific questions and concerns voiced by scores of students over the years. It is my hope that it will not only deepen the reader’s knowledge of grammar and increase his/her vocabulary by, literally, thousands of words, but in addition lead to a greater appreciation of the beauty and richness of expression to be found in the Italian language

PART 1: NOUNS

Nouns are the backbone of any language, as either the agents or the racipients of actions described by that other major group of words (vocaboli), i.e. verbs. Helping students acquire a robust vocabulary is, along with the mastering of grammar, one of the two major objectives of this book. This section (Part 1) approaches that task by providing extensive noun lists illustrating each of the points of grammar covered. These include, among others:

•   An exhaustive guide to gender recognition

•   Nouns with irregular plurals

•   Nouns with a common feature (ending in –ista, masculine nouns ending in –a, nouns of occupations in both genders, compound nouns, etc.)

We also review the best Italian equivalents of such everyday English nouns as food, money, day, time, place and fire.

A number of TIPS, recalling or expanding on various points of grammar and vocabulary, are interspersed through this as well as through the following sections.

Chapter 1

NOUN GENDER RECOGNIZED FROM ENDING LETTER

The gender of over 90% of Italian nouns can be identified with a few simple rules, based on their final letter or combination of letters.

A. MASCULINE NOUNS

A few foreign nouns are feminine because they were feminine in the original French or Spanish.

For example: la brioche, la corrida.

B. FEMININE NOUNS

C. NOUNS THAT EXIST IN BOTH GENDERS

SUMMARY OF GENDER RECOGNITION RULES

Footnotes:

1. Not preceded by a g.

2. The -ice ending must be unaccented

3. The –one ending must not be preceded by an i.

4. The –ione ending must not be preceded by a p or an r.

Chapter 2

GENDER RECOGNITION BY CLASSES OF NOUNS

The gender of several nouns can also be recognized by their belonging to certain classes, specifically:

1. Days of the week

These are all masculine, except la domenica (Sunday). None of them are capitalized.

2. Months of the year

These are all masculine and none of them are capitalized.

3. Numbers

All numbers are masculine, by themselves and in dates (see also page 56). They are feminine, however, when used to express the time of day. Examples:

4. Colors

Nouns of colors are all masculine, regardless of the ending letter. Examples:

Il mio colore preferito è il viola My favorite color is purple

5. Countries

Country names ending in –o or –a follow the general rule (il Canada is an exception). Those ending in other vowels or a consonant are usually masculine, e.g. il Brasile (Brazil),

il Cile (Chile), il Perù (Peru).

6. Animals

Nouns of animals ending in –o or –a mostly follow the general rule (il gorilla is an exception). Those ending in –e can be either masculine or feminine (il leone, lion, la lince, lynx). For a few animals, different nouns exist for males and females:

7. Fruits and trees

Nouns of fruits ending in –o or –a mostly follow the general rule. Those ending in other vowels are usually masculine. For example: il melone (cantaloupe), il kiwi (kiwi).

Nouns of trees ending in –o or –a usually follow the general rule. Those ending in –e are generally masculine. Examples:

With several fruit nouns ending in –a, their respective fruit trees have identical names but with the ending vowel changed to –o. Examples:

8. Other parts of speech used as nouns

All other parts of speech (infinitives, adverbs, etc.) are masculine when they are used as nouns:

9. Names of cars and business entities

The names of cars and business entities are all feminine, regardless of ending vowel or consonant, since the words for car (automobile, macchina) and company (società, ditta) are feminine. For example:

10. Compound nouns

All compound nouns (see page 25) are masculine, and are mostly unchanged in their plural. Example:

11. Geographical names

Names of rivers and lakes are generally masculine, reflecting the masculine gender of fiume (river) and lago (lake). Some names of mountain ranges are masculine, others feminine (Italian has two nouns for mountain, the masculine il monte and the feminine la montagna). Examples:

12. Names of languages

These are all masculine, regardless of ending vowel, and are not capitalized. Examples:

13. Names of chemical elements

These are all masculine, regardless of ending vowel. For example:

14. Names of cardinal points

These are all masculine: il nord (north), il sud (south), l’est (east) and l’ovest (west). The cardinal points have also native Italian names (masculine too): settentrione (north), meridione (south), oriente (east) and occidente (west)

15. Cities

Cities, for purposes of agreement with adjectives, are all feminine, regardless of the ending letter. Examples:

TIP: Remember that some nouns are shortened forms of longer words, and

therefore take the gender of their original noun. For example:

The shortened forms of these words are invariable in the plural:

IN CONCLUSION

The gender of almost all Italian nouns is easily recognizable:

1. from its ending letter (see previous chapter) and/or

2. the class or category to which they belong.

There remain less than 200 nouns of any importance to which the above rules do not apply and whose gender needs, therefore, to be memorized. A listing of these nouns is provided in the Appendix (page 322).

Chapter 3

MASCULINE NOUNS ENDING IN –A AND FEMININE ONES ENDING IN –O

Italian has about 100 masculine nouns ending in –a (in addition to those ending in –ista, see page 17). Most of these end in –ma ( some in –ta) and are often identical or very similar to their English equivalents. As do all other masculine nouns, they have plurals ending in –i (e.g., il problema, i problemi). The following list includes the most commonly used among these nouns:

A few more nouns ending in –a, related to professions or human traits, are either masculine or feminine depending on the person’s gender, as are also all above-mentioned nouns in –ista:

There are only two feminine nouns ending in –o: la mano (the hand) and l’eco (the echo). A very few other nouns ending in –o are feminine because they are truncated forms of longer feminine nouns, for example:

Chapter 4

ITALIAN NOUNS ENDING IN –ISTA

Most English nouns ending in –ist, all relating to human professions, activities or personal traits, have Italian equivalents ending in –ista that are usually very close, in form and meaning, to the corresponding English nouns. All these Italian nouns in –ista are used identically for both genders (e.g. il pianista, la pianista), although the two genders are differentiated in the plural (i pianisti, the male pianists, le pianiste, the female pianists). In several cases, however, English nouns ending in –ist have Italian counterparts which do not end in –ista. Italian also has a number of nouns ending in –ista that do not have an English equivalent ending in –ist. The following three lists present nouns in all three groupings but are not meant to be exhaustive.

1. 54 Italian nouns in –ista with English equivalents in -ist

2. 20 English nouns in –ist without an Italian equivalent in -ista

3. 16 Italian nouns in –ista without an English equivalent in -ist

Chapter 5

NOUNS WITH IRREGULAR PLURALS

Italian has about 30 nouns with irregular plurals. Most of them are masculine nouns that become feminine in the plural, taking an ending in –a instead of the normal –i. The following is a fairly exhaustive list.

1.   Masculine nouns with a feminine plural in –a¹

2. Masculine nouns with irregular masculine plurals

3. Feminine nouns with plurals in -i

Some idioms in which these plurals are used:

incrociare le braccia (to cross one’s arms), used for refusing to work, striking

mettere le corna a q.u. (to cheat on one’s spouse)

tra grida e applausi (with great acclamation)

ce l’ho sulle labbra (I’ve got it on the tip of my tongue)

in carne ed ossa (in the flesh, in person)

ci ho fatto le ossa (I got used to it)

scoppiare dalle risa (to burst with laughter)

mettere ali (to sprout wings, take off, fig.)

essere/andare sotto le armi (to do military service)

TIP: REFRESHER ON PLURALS

The plural of nouns is formed by changing the noun’s ending vowel, as follows:

Some nouns remain unchanged in the plural:

1. la mano and l’eco are the only feminine nouns ending in –o.

2. There are about 100 masculine nouns ending in –a (see page 16).

3. Re (king), gru (crane) and tè (tea) are just about the only single-syllable nouns, beside a few others like tre (three), the musical notes (do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si), sì, no (yes. no) and some conjunctions (e, o, se, ma) when used as nouns.

Chapter 6

NOUNS OF OCCUPATIONS BY GENDER

Some nouns of human occupations are used identically for both male and female individuals. Among them are:

-   All nouns ending in –ante. Examples:

All nouns ending in –ista (see page 17). Examples:

-   A few nouns of traditionally male professions. Examples:

However, most nouns of occupations have different masculine and feminine forms:

1. Most nouns ending in –o or –iere have feminine forms in which the final vowel has been changed to –a. For example:

2. A few nouns, mostly ending in –e, have a feminine form ending in –essa. For example:

3. Most nouns ending in –tore have a feminine form ending in –trice. For example:

Chapter 7

SUFFIX-MODIFIED NOUNS THAT ARE NOUNS IN THEIR OWN RIGHT

Italian has several suffixes that can be attached to practically any noun to indicate its size or some other property. The most common endings are: -ino, -etto, -ello (indicating smallness), -one (indicating largeness) and -accio (indicating poor quality). In a number of cases, as shown in this section, the suffix-modified noun becomes a noun in its own right, with a specialized meaning. For example, the noun for string, spago, took on the diminutive suffix –etto, thus becoming spaghetto (small string), but of course nobody uses it in that original meaning any more. Studying this group of nouns thus provides not just a vocabulary-building opportunity, but a warning about which diminutives should be avoided as diminutives because of the life of their own they have acquired.