Italian Grammar Drills

By Paola Nanni-Tate

Sharpen your ITALIAN grammar with skill-building exercises

If you want to be proficient in Italian, you have to master its grammar. The best way to perfect your grammar skills is through drills, drills, and more drills. Covering all facets of Italian grammar--from prepositions and pronouns to verbal forms and tenses--Italian Grammar Drills helps you learn often-perplexing topics through hands-on experience.

This comprehensive book features:

• More than 200 exercises that demonstrate how the Italian grammar system works
• Authentic examples that illustrate correct grammar usage
• A thorough review section, new to this edition
• An answer key to give you immediate clarification on any concept

Topics include:
Adjectives and adverbs * Comparatives and superlatives * Present tense versus past tense * Prepositions * Passive voice * Verbal expressions and constructions * and more

• Language: English
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education
• Release date: Aug 10, 2012
• ISBN: 9780071789684

Book preview

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Contents

Preface

1 Nouns

2 Articles

3 Pronouns

4 Prepositions

5 Adjectives

6 Adverbs

7 Comparative and Superlative Forms of Adjectives and Adverbs

8 Present Tense

9 The Imperative

10 Reflexive Verbs

11 Future Tense

12 Present Perfect Tense

13 Other Past Tenses

14 Conditional Tense

15 Subjunctive Mood

16 Passive Voice

17 Verbal Expressions, Idioms, and Special Constructions

18 Numbers, Time, and Dates

19 Exclamations

20 Additional Exercises for Further Practice

Answer Key

Preface

If you’ve picked up this book, you probably already know that to learn a language well—to have the ability to read it and write it and to understand others in that language and be understood yourself—you must at some point deal with the grammar. Italian Grammar Drills will give you a better command of Italian grammar by providing plenty of writing drills that will reinforce your knowledge and enhance your ability to speak, read, and write with finesse. You will be able to work at your own pace while focusing on those aspects of grammar that you feel require most of your attention.

Each of the book’s nineteen chapters features concise explanations of various grammar topics. And each chapter includes a variety of exercises that will reinforce your ability to manipulate the Italian language and give you an opportunity to immediately apply what you have learned. You can find answers to all exercises in the Answer Key at the back of this book. When using this book, you can follow the order presented or skip a chapter and return to it at a later time.

Once you’ve worked your way through Italian Grammar Drills, not only will you find yourself confidently on your way to fluency, but you will also find that this book will remain a unique resource any time you need to clarify or review essential grammatical concepts.

Sometimes learning a new language may appear to be an insurmountable and tedious task, but the students who stay with it and master the grammar will find it a satisfactory and gratifying experience. How exciting to be able to communicate in Italian and appreciate the language of Italy and its people! My hope and intent in writing Italian Grammar Drills is to give you a basic tool for understanding, speaking, reading, and writing basic Italian, whether you are learning the language on your own or with an instructor.

I am proud and excited to help students learn such a beautiful language. I will never tire of the excitement I feel when I see students wanting to learn Italian and then mastering it through study and practice. It has been my pleasure and privilege to have written Italian Grammar Drills. I wish to thank my editor, Garret Lemoi, for his guidance and many useful suggestions; my husband, Bob Tate, for proofreading the text; and the many students who encouraged me to write a grammar book.

1

Nouns

A noun is used in a sentence to refer to people, animals, and objects that can be real or imaginary.

Gender

All nouns in Italian are either masculine or feminine, whether they refer to people, animals, or things. It is important to know the gender of a noun in order to accompany it with the right article—il, lo, or la (the) or uno or una (a)—and the right adjective (definite and indefinite articles are discussed in depth in Chapter 2 and adjectives in Chapter 5). The other words in a sentence that refer to the noun must agree in gender and number with that noun.

Italian makes it easy to learn the gender of a noun: The noun’s ending often reveals whether it is masculine or feminine. Most nouns ending in -o are masculine and most nouns ending in -a are feminine.

There are a few exceptions. Some nouns ending in -a are masculine such as:

Nouns of Greek origin ending in -ma are also masculine. For example:

And some nouns ending in -o are feminine:

L’auto, la foto, and la moto are abbreviations of l’automobile, la fotografia, and la motocicletta.

Nouns with the following endings are generally masculine:

• -ore and -tore

• -ere and -iere

• -ame and -ale

Nouns with the following endings are generally feminine:

• -ione

(Most of these nouns correspond with English words ending in -tion or -sion.)

• -udine and -igine

• -ice

• -tà and -tù

(Most of these nouns correspond with English words ending in -ty and -th.)

• -i

Exercise 1

Translate the following nouns into Italian. Don’t worry about putting in the articles; just pay attention to the endings.

Exercise 2

Translate the following nouns into Italian. Don’t worry about putting in the articles; just pay attention to the endings.

Exercise 3

Translate the following nouns into Italian. Don’t worry about putting in the articles; just pay attention to the endings.

Change of gender

Sometimes changing the gender of a noun also changes its meaning. For example:

Exercise 4

Translate the following nouns into Italian. Don’t worry about putting in the articles, just pay attention to the endings.

Many nouns referring to people can be both masculine or feminine depending on whether they refer to a male or a female. However, the definite article preceding the noun (see Chapter 2) and the adjective following it (see Chapter 5) must be either masculine or feminine, depending on the gender of the noun they are referring to.

Some nouns referring to animals, however, have only one form to indicate male or female. For example:

When one needs to distinguish whether an animal is male or female, the term maschio (male) or femmina (female) is added. It looks like this: l’elefante femmina (female elephant), la giraffa maschio (male giraffe).

Some nouns ending in -a can be used to refer either to males or females but are considered feminine nouns, such as:

Exercise 5

Translate the following nouns into Italian, this time including the definite articles. (The letters in parentheses refer to masculine [m.] and feminine [f.].)

Many masculine nouns referring to people or to occupations and professions have a separate feminine gender using an -a ending.

Other masculine nouns add the suffix -essa in the feminine form.

And some masculine nouns change the -tore ending to -trice in the feminine version.

Sometimes the feminine forms are significantly modified from the masculine. These are usually words inherited from Latin.

A few nouns have completely different forms in the masculine and in the feminine.

Exercise 6

Translate the following nouns into Italian using the definite articles.

There are other words in Italian that are always treated as masculine. The following list will help you get a feel for some of these nouns.

• Days of the week (except for la domenica, Sunday)

• Months of the year

• Names of metals and chemical elements

• Nouns taken from other languages

• Most names of trees

(However, la palma, palm, and la betulla, birch, are feminine.)

• Compass points

• Other direction-related terms

• Proper names of major geographical features (rivers, lakes, etc.)

(But le Alpi, the Alps.)

• All languages

Exercise 7

Translate the following nouns into Italian using the definite articles.

Nouns that are generally feminine follow these guidelines:

• Names of most fruits

(However, il fico, fig, l’ananas, pineapple, and il mango, mango are masculine.)

• Most names of cities, regions, islands, countries, and continents

(However, il Lazio, Lazio; il Perù, Peru; il Brasile, Brazil; and gli Stati Uniti, United States, are masculine.)

• School subjects

Italian nouns ending in -e can be either masculine or feminine. When one of these nouns refers to a person, the gender of the noun is the same as the person it refers to.

Note: Il/la nipote is also used for the terms grandson and granddaughter.

When a noun ending in -e does not refer to a person, determining its gender can be difficult. These nouns must be learned by practice and memorization. Remember, it is important to know the genders of nouns so that the articles and adjective endings are used correctly.

The following table shows some common nouns that end in -e:

Exercise 8

Translate the following nouns into Italian using the definite articles.

Plural of nouns

In Italian the plural of masculine nouns ending in -o or -a is formed by changing the final vowel to -i.

To form the plural of feminine nouns ending in -a, change the -a to -e.

Masculine and feminine nouns ending in -e form the plural by changing the -e to an -i.

Some nouns ending in -a change the -a to an -i in their plural forms.

However, not all nouns follow these rules. In the following table you will see that there are some nouns ending in -o that are feminine, but that only the noun mano changes its form in the plural. The others (some of them abbreviations of their fuller forms) do not change. It is easy to tell that these nouns are in their plural forms by looking at the definite article before them. Definite articles change to show singular or plural forms.

Other nouns that do not change in the plural are those ending in -i or -ie.

Feminine nouns ending in accented vowels also remain unchanged in the plural.

Exercise 9

Write the plural forms of the following words.

There are still more nouns that do not make a change in their plural forms, such as:

Masculine and feminine nouns accented in the final vowel, and monosyllable nouns, do not change in the plural.

There are even some masculine nouns that become feminine in the plural.

Exercise 10

Write the plural forms of the following nouns.

Feminine and masculine nouns ending in -ca/-co, or -ga/-go, form the plural by replacing the endings with -che/-chi or -ghe/-ghi respectively, in order to preserve the hard sound of the -c and the -g that is in the singular.

However, some nouns ending in -co/-go, do not keep the hard sound in the plural. In these words the -ci and -gi retain a soft sound, as in the English words cheese and jeep.

Of course, some masculine nouns have a completely irregular plural. For example:

Exercise 11

Write the plural forms of the following nouns.

The plural of nouns taken from other languages is formed by using the plural form of the definite article. The noun itself is unchanged.

Masculine nouns ending in -io use an -ii ending if the final -i in the word is a stressed syllable. If it is not stressed only one -i is used.

But:

Feminine nouns ending in -cia and -gia usually omit the -ia and add an -e in the plural.

But la camicia (shirt) and la ciliegia (cherry) are two exceptions; they keep the -i in the plural: camicie, ciliegie.

Another exception to this rule are nouns that stress the -i in -cia and -gia. They make their plural form by using -cie and -gie.

Exercise 12

Write the plural forms of the following nouns.

Compound nouns

Sometimes a word in Italian combines the root of the third person singular present tense conjugation of a verb with a noun. Together they form one word, called a compound noun. In some cases the plural form of compound nouns remains the same and the definite article will indicate if it is plural or singular. (See Chapter 2.) In other cases the ending of the compound noun changes to indicate a plural form. There is no rule to follow here, so it is best if these nouns are practiced and memorized.

Other compound nouns combine two nouns to form one word, much like a compound word in English. The gender of such nouns is determined by the gender of the second noun and their plural is usually formed by changing the second noun to its plural form.

Sometimes, however, there are compound nouns that will change the first noun to its plural form.