Practice Makes Perfect: Complete Italian Grammar, Premium Second Edition

By Marcel Danesi

Build up your Italian grammar skills and communicate with ease

The only way to boost your confidence in a second language is to practice, practice, practice. From the present tense of regular verbs to direct object pronouns, this comprehensive guide and workbook covers all aspects of Italian grammar that you need to master.Focusing on the practical aspects of Italian as it's really spoken, each unit features clear explanations, numerous realistic examples, and lots of engaging exercises.

Practice Makes Perfect: Complete Italian Grammar makes mastering grammar easy with:

• Clear, down-to-earth, easy-to-follow explanations that make even the most complex principles easy to understand
• Example sentences that illustrate and clarify each grammatical point
• Dozens of exercises in formats suited to every learning style
• Practical and high-frequency vocabulary used throughout
• A detailed answer key for quick, easy progress checks
• Supporting audio recordings, flashcards, and an auto-fill glossary online and via app

With help from this book, you can effortlessly use:Possessive adjectives • Relative pronouns • Gerunds • Expressions of time • The passive and the impersonal Si * The subjunctive mood * Question words

• Language: English
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education
• Release date: May 6, 2016
• ISBN: 9781259587733

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Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

1     Nouns and titles

Common nouns

Gender patterns

Spelling adjustments in the plural

Mass nouns

Proper nouns and titles

Grammar in culture

2     More about nouns

More gender patterns

Nouns of Greek origin

Other types of nouns

Altered nouns

Compound nouns

Grammar in culture

3     Articles

The indefinite article

The definite article

Uses of the indefinite article

Uses of the definite article

Grammar in culture

4     Adjectives

Descriptive adjectives

Invariable adjectives

Position

Form-changing adjectives

Comparison of adjectives

Grammar in culture

5     Pronouns

Subject pronouns

Object pronouns

Stressed pronouns

Other pronouns

Grammar in culture

6      More pronouns

Object pronouns with compound tenses

Double pronouns

Attached pronouns

Grammar in culture

7      Demonstratives

The demonstrative of nearness

The demonstrative of farness

Demonstrative pronouns

Indicating words and expressions

Grammar in culture

8      Possessives

Possessive adjective forms

The third-person forms

Possessives with kinship nouns

Possessive pronouns

Grammar in culture

9      Partitives

Partitives with count nouns

Alternative forms

Partitives with mass nouns

Partitives in the negative

Adjectives indicating quantity

Grammar in culture

10      Present tenses

The present indicative of regular verbs

Irregular verbs in the present indicative

The present subjunctive of regular verbs

Irregular verbs in the present subjunctive

Special uses of the subjunctive

Grammar in culture

11      Past tenses

The present perfect

Irregular past participles

The past subjunctive

The past absolute

Irregular verbs in the past absolute

Grammar in culture

12      The imperfect and pluperfect tenses

The imperfect indicative

The imperfect subjunctive

The pluperfect tenses

Grammar in culture

13      The progressive tenses

The gerund

The present progressive tenses

The imperfect progressive tenses

Grammar in culture

14      The future and conditional tenses

The future

The future perfect

The conditional (present and past)

Hypothetical sentences

Grammar in culture

15      The imperative

Regular forms of the imperative

The negative imperative

Irregular forms

Grammar in culture

16      Reflexive verbs

Forms

Compound tenses

Imperative forms

Grammar in culture

17      Prepositions and adverbs

Prepositional contractions

Uses of the prepositions

Adverbs of manner

Other kinds of adverbs

Comparison of adverbs

Grammar in culture

18      Sentences

Interrogative sentences

Question words

Negative sentences

Objects

Conjunctions and relative pronouns

Grammar in culture

19      Numbers

The cardinal numbers

Telling time

The ordinal numbers

Numerical expressions

Dates

Grammar in culture

20      Miscellaneous topics

The verb piacere

The passive and the impersonal si

Other topics

Grammar in culture

Irregular verb tables

Italian-English glossary

English-Italian glossary

Answer key

Preface

Practice Makes Perfect: Complete Italian Grammar focuses on topics of importance to intermediate- to advanced-level learners. By concentrating on areas of grammar for making more complex, meaningful sentences and conversations, the book is designed to improve the ability to communicate effectively in Italian at higher levels.

Practice Makes Perfect is, thus, geared toward those who have already learned the basics of grammar, focusing on topics that consistently need to be practiced in an in-depth manner by non-beginning learners. The book covers topics that often prove difficult for English speakers when they learn Italian, such as the correct use of object pronouns. Numerous practical exercises give students the opportunity to test what they have learned.

There are twenty chapters covering everything from the formation and use of nouns to the structure of sentences and clauses. Each chapter is designed to deal with a topic of grammar as completely as possible.

Each chapter presents the main points related to a topic. Each point is followed by an Esercizio. Along the way, information boxes provide further detail on some topics, offer tips, or introduce related vocabulary. At the back of the book, there are Italian-English and English-Italian glossaries (containing all the words and expressions used in the book), irregular verb charts, and the answers to all the exercises.

This handbook is designed as a reference grammar for intermediate or advanced learners with a large practice component—there are over 300 distinct exercise questions consisting of various types and parts. As they say, practice makes perfect. It can also be used as a textbook in intermediate courses of Italian, since it contains the same kinds of information and exercises that are normally found in such courses and in more elaborate formal textbooks. The difference is that this book takes nothing for granted. As mentioned, it contains many sidebars throughout to clarify, supplement, or complement a topic. This feature will allow you to stay within the confines of this single book. You will not need to resort to other materials. Although it is review grammar, very little has been taken for granted!

This Premium Second Edition presents several new features. At the end of each chapter is a Grammar in culture section that links a grammar topic to culture or usage, with a related exercise. This section underscores the relevance of grammar to the study of culture.

In addition, extensive support materials are available in the McGraw-Hill Education Language Lab app:

   Flash cards comprising all vocabulary used in this book

   An auto-fill glossary (a digital version of the glossaries at the back of this book)

   Audio recordings of the Answer key for exercises with complete-sentence answers in Italian. With the mobile version of this app, you can record your own answers, then replay them alongside the native-speaker recordings.

Buon divertimento!

Acknowledgments

I wish to express my sincere gratitude to Garret Lemoi of McGraw-Hill for his superb editing and encouragement, not to mention his wonderful advice. I also thank Grace Freedson for her support and help. I am truly grateful to her.

Nouns and titles

Simple Italian sentences, like English sentences, are composed of a subject, a verb, and an object. The subject consists of a noun or noun phrase. It is what the sentence is about and around which the rest of the sentence revolves. The subject is, more generally, the performer of some action. Many types of objects also consist of a noun (or noun phrase). In this case the noun is the person, concept, thing, etc., toward which the action of the verb is directed or to which a preposition expresses some relation. This unit and the next one describe nouns.

Nouns can be regular or irregular. Regular ones have predictable endings in the singular and plural. Nouns are also classified as either common or proper. The former refer to persons, objects, places, concepts, and all the other things that make up the world. Proper nouns are the actual names and surnames given to people, geographical places and formations, brands, and the like.

Common nouns

A common noun can generally be recognized by its vowel ending, which indicates if it is masculine or feminine. This is called grammatical gender. Gender is important because it determines the form of both the articles and adjectives that accompany nouns in sentences and phrases. Generally, nouns ending in -o are masculine. They are made plural by changing the -o to -i.

Nouns ending in -a are generally feminine. They are made plural by changing the -a to -e.

Lastly, nouns ending in -e are either masculine or feminine. This is not an option; gender is fixed by the grammar of Italian. To find out if a noun ending in -e is masculine or feminine you will have to consult a dictionary, or else you will have to infer it by observing the form (article, adjective, etc.) that accompanies it. Such nouns are made plural by changing the -e to -i, no matter what their gender is.

Here’s a tip. Most nouns ending in -ione, especially in -zione and -sione, are feminine.

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Useful common nouns

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Common nouns are not capitalized unless they occur at the beginning of a sentence. Unlike English, nouns referring to languages, speakers of a language, or inhabitants of an area are not normally capitalized.

Note: The noun gente (people) is singular in Italian.

Note: The plural of l’uomo (the man) is irregular; it is gli uomini (the men).

Also, note that some nouns ending in -ione are masculine. Those ending in -one are all masculine.

A. Provide the singular or plural form of each noun, as required.

B. Provide the missing endings to the common nouns in the following sentences.

  1. A suo nipot_________ piace la matematic_________.

  2. L’amor_________ conquista (conquers) tutto.

  3. Quella donn_________ ha chiamato mia nipot_________.

  4. Marco è un caro amic_________.

  5. La mia amic_________ vive in periferi_________.

  6. I miei amic_________ hanno comprato un televisor_________ plasma.

  7. L’italian_________ è una lingu_________ facile.

  8. Lui è italian_________, ma lei è american_________.

  9. Dov’è quella region_________?

10. A che ora c’è la riunion_________?

C. There is an error in each sentence. Spot it and rewrite the sentence to correct it. You might have to make adjustments to the other words as well.

  1. Quei due uomi sono italiani.

  2. La gente parlano troppo.

  3. Sara è Siciliana.

  4. Alessandro parla Francese.

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Gender patterns

Every noun in Italian is marked for gender—that is to say, it is classified as either masculine or feminine. In the case of nouns referring to people (or animals), the grammatical gender of the noun usually matches the biological sex of the person (or animal).

With few exceptions, nouns that refer to males (people or animals) are masculine, and those that refer to females (people or animals) are feminine.

There are exceptions. For example, il soprano (soprano) is a masculine noun but it refers to a female person and la guardia (guard) is a feminine noun but can refer to either a male or female person.

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Nouns ending in -a and referring to both males and females

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Some nouns ending in -e refer to males or females. Note that with these nouns any other forms (articles, adjectives, etc.) that accompany the nouns must indicate the correct grammatical gender.

Some masculine nouns ending in -e correspond to feminine nouns ending in -a.

Note: The plural ending -i is used when the noun refers to both male and female beings taken together as a group, whereas the plural ending -e refers only to a group of females.

A. Provide the corresponding nouns referring to males and females. The first one is done for you.

B. How do you say the following in Italian?

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Spelling adjustments in the plural

The consonants in the noun endings -co, -go, -ca, and -ga represent hard sounds. There are two possibilities for changing the -co and -go endings to the plural.

If the hard sounds are to be retained, the masculine plural endings are spelled respectively -chi and -ghi. To remember that ch and gh represent hard sounds in Italian, think of English words that use them in the same way: chemistry, ache, school, charisma, ghost.

If the corresponding soft sounds are required instead, the masculine plural endings are spelled respectively -ci and -gi.

So, when do you use one or the other plural form? In general, if -co is preceded by e or i (as in amico and greco), the noun is pluralized to -ci (amici, greci). Otherwise the hard sound is retained (-chi). In the case of -go, the tendency is to retain the hard sound. However, when the noun ends in the suffix -logo and refers to a profession, career, or activity, then the appropriate plural suffix is -logi.

These rules should be considered rules of thumb rather than strict grammatical rules (covering a large number of cases, however).

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Exceptions to the rules of thumb

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The endings -ca and -ga are always changed to -che and -ghe, which represent hard sounds.

The consonants in the endings -cio and -gio represent soft sounds. Note that the i is not pronounced. It is put there simply to indicate that the consonants are to be pronounced softly. There is only one way to change such nouns to the plural, which is to retain the soft sounds with the endings: -ci and -gi.

If the i in -io is stressed, it is retained in the plural, otherwise it is not retained. To be sure if it is stressed or not, consult a dictionary.

There are two possibilities for changing nouns ending in -cia and -gia to the plural. If the i in the