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So I'm half Italian and I've halfheartedly learnt the language over the years, being able to say whatever I need to my grandparents and my mum (she's the Italian side of me), but recently, I've found myself wanting to get back into it seriously. I took some lessons when I was younger for proper grammar and more vocabulary, but it was pretty simple stuff, e.g. conjugating ere, ire and are verbs and really basic grammar etc.
I was hoping some Italian TLers or TLers whom know Italian could help me with a few questions I have (excuse the length and confusion ^^)
1. "il mio bimbo" or "la mia bimba", why do you write the definite articles as well as the possessive article (are the possessive words called articles?)? From studying French, it seems redundant and doesn't really make sense to me, e.g. in French you would say, "mon bébé" (mon=mio and bébé=bimbo), not using the definite article.
I realise that they are obviously different languages, but I have usually been able to liken the grammatical structure or reasoning behind some structure to French or English. Is [definite article] [possessive] [noun] just the way you always write stuff in Italian? If so, are there any exceptions to this, I swear I have seen or heard just [possessive] [noun].
2. Piacere. With the verb piacere, isn't it usually reflexive (as in you say, mi piace, ti piace, gli/le piace, etc or are those direct object articles?). Also, I got more confused because I looked at the proper present indicative conjugation of piacere and it is not what I have grown up learning :/. By that, I meant that it says you conjugate it as piaccio, piacci, piace, piacciamo, piacete and piàcciono, whereas I just learnt it as mi/ti/gli/le/ci/vi/loro piace when I was growing up. Could someone please tell me the difference between these two forms?
3. Sort of a continuation with piacere, I changed my facebook into Italian just to help with vocab, and I have seen things like, "A John Smith piace questo elemento". What purpose does "A" serve there? Again, I seem to be confused because I'm trying to liken it to French, where you just say, "John Smith aime ça" (with aime=piace and ça=questo elemento).
With "A" just being a preposition that can mean at, to, per and a few other things, I just don't really see its purpose in the sentence, "A John Smith piace questo elemento", I would've thought you would write it as "John Smith piace questo elemento".
Thanks to anyone who has read this and tries to help, I would be really grateful!
P.S. any Italian TLers from Abruzzo? I'm also trying to learn the dialect from my mum's town (Vasto), but resources are pretty thin except for my grandparents, aunts, uncles and mum haha.
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1. It better defines what are you talking about, so it is mostly used this way. There are rules and exceptions about its use though, so wikipedia can help you there.
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articolo_determinativo#Articoli_determinativi
2. The present form of "Piacere" means approximatevely "to be liked". To express your own likings, you have to make the reflexive form of the verb, so that the thing you like is liked to you.
Ex.
"Io piaccio a Giulia" means Giulia likes me (present form)
"Giulia mi piace" means i like Giulia (reflexive form)
The way you learnt the verb expresses your own likings, but the verb itself actrually means the other way around.
3. "A John Smith" determines who likes the subject of the phrase when "piacere" isn't used in the reflexive form.
In your example, "Questo elemento piace a John Smith", "questo elemento" is the subject of "piace" and "a JS" determines who likes "questo elemento". Piacere requires the "A+someone/something" construction to tell who likes your subject.
It is kinda the jumbled explanation, so feel free to still be confused after this post, though I hope I did somewhat help you.
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forum.wordreference.com would be a very very useful place for you then. There's a forum and a very useful dictionary/translator, conjugator, phrase explanations... Helped me a lot with my French.
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I'm not actually from italy but I've studied for two years or so.
1. Usually you have to have the article and the possessive pronoun with the exception of speaking about family members.
Your question 2 and 3 are closely related. The "mi" or "ti" or "gli/le" and so on are indirect object pronouns, essentially translating to "to me" or "to you" "to him/her" Making the translation of mi piace roughly "it is pleasing to me" That is how I think of it. That is why when you don't use an indirect object pronoun you have to use the "a." Because the form is " A qualcuno piace qualcosa"
Hope that helps a bit! Also hopefully real italians will correct me if I said something sbagliato :D
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On June 28 2011 00:36 g1rg10 wrote: 1. It better defines what are you talking about, so it is mostly used this way. There are rules and exceptions about its use though, so wikipedia can help you there. http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articolo_determinativo#Articoli_determinativi2. The present form of "Piacere" means approximatevely "to be liked". To express your own likings, you have to make the reflexive form of the verb, so that the thing you like is liked to you. Ex. "Io piaccio a Giulia" means Giulia likes me (present form) "Giulia mi piace" means i like Giulia (reflexive form) The way you learnt the verb expresses your own likings, but the verb itself actrually means the other way around. 3. "A John Smith" determines who likes the subject of the phrase when "piacere" isn't used in the reflexive form. In your example, "Questo elemento piace a John Smith", "questo elemento" is the subject of "piace" and "a JS" determines who likes "questo elemento". Piacere requires the "A+someone/something" construction to tell who likes your subject. It is kinda the jumbled explanation, so feel free to still be confused after this post, though I hope I did somewhat help you.
Oh okay, that makes quite a bit of sense. So is the structure of piacere able to be varied? I.e. Are "Questo elemento piace a John Smith" and "A John Smith piace questo elemento" both acceptable?
And yeah, I think I was quite confused because piacere means to be liked and not to like, as I had assumed, thanks.
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send a PM to r33k, he has a lot of experience with being italian
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EPT
