Introduction

Where as a person sitting in a classroom somewhere in the world needs to worry about practice and grammar otherwise they can't have a hope of getting it right, a person in Italy needs to worry about communication. It's like the difference between learning to swim in a classroom and learning to swim in water. In water you can play around and try different things because the water will correct you, you see what works.

So although I am not saying abandon grammar I am saying that communication is the priority because local people will help us with the details.

Don't try to learn everything on these pages by heart, read them in a relaxed way, your brain will accept things when the time is right. I have been very careful not to force Italian on myself like they tried to force French and German on me at school. At the time of writing I really don't know every Italian word on all these pages, but I know I have made progress in these last two years of being in Italy because I can talk in Italian for an hour and I understand half of what comes back, if it's simple. OK it's about coffee and biscuits when shall we next meet, tomatoes, apples, honey and plumbing, but it's a start. Sometimes somebody says something and I understand nothing and other times I am surprised by what I do understand and the conversation I just had. So be prepared for these ups and downs.

I just keep playing with Italian and strangely I find that as if by magic my capabilities are increasing though more slowly of course than I would like. I started two years ago with the phrases below.

Start learning

Before anything else we need to learn the common words of politeness that tell Italians we don't presume they should speak English. I have put them in the table below. Even if you learn just sì, no, per favore, grazie e prego you will be starting on the right foot when you first arrive. That is yes, no, please, thank-you and my-pleasure.

With the vocabulary in this table and if you learn The Numbers you can go into a shop and ask "Buongiorno. Vorrei otto di questi, per-favore." Which means "Good-day. I-want-maybe eight of-this, please." As you can see I write Italiano e Inglese in a different styles. That means Italian and English and I do this so your eye is drawn to the Italian first and then if you look harder you can read the English if you need to.

I use the hyphens "-" when many words in one language correspond to one, or different words, in the other. So, for example, per-favore corresponds to please and I-want-maybe corresponds to Vorrei. I use this notation a lot but do remember the hyphens should not appear when you write properly, they are simply to help you understand.

Italians have a way of changing the ending of a verb, to mean maybe something will happen or maybe it will not. It's called the conditional tense and it can be used when you say "I want" so that it is not demanding but is polite. You could say simply I-want which is Voglio but it would certainly be rude, but Vorrei the conditional, is not. Literally it corresponds almost to English I-want-maybe ... but actually it is like when we say in English maybe I could have ...?"

Now take a look at the page on Pronunciation to see how reading the letters in Italian is different from English, or you will not be able to read the Italian below!

Once you have a feel for these words you might like to look at the Questions like Where and When so you can find the station or the bus stop and catch a train or bus to somewhere or maybe you would rather look at some Verbs or Nouns. BUT BEFORE YOU MOVE ON please read what is below as its important to help you understand what is on other pages.

Masculine, feminine, singular and plural

I often write il amico the male friend and la amica the female friend. Using this highlight so you can see how two italian words for the namely il for masculine and la for feminine relate to the word endings. Similarly for un amico a male friend and una amica a female friend.

I also write amic{o,a,i,e} which is short for amico, amica, amici, amice and allows me to indicate that there is a masculine singular, feminine singular, masculine plural and feminine plural form of the word. male friend, female friend, male friends and female friends respectively. For a mixed group of friends normally Italians use the masculine plural amici.

Not all words can be both genders la strada the street is a feminine noun so there is no masculine version of it. il treno the train is a masculine noun so there is no feminine version of it.

Articles, a and the

When you learn a new noun, don't try to learn its gender and then work out which "the" to use. Rather always learn the noun with its article as children do. When a parent points out a train to a small child, in the English they just enthusiastically say "train". In Italian they just enthusiastically say "il treno" or "un treno" almost as if they were one word. This is why I never present lists of nouns without their articles!

Often in tables, I write in the columns a bit like this; street followed by una la strada followed by le strade. In Italian literally a the street then the streets.

Another example is train followed by un il treno followed by i treni. In Italian literally a the train then the trains.

This is to show how "a" and "the" change with the word's gender and number. Of course Italians do not actually say "a the" just like in English they use "a" or "the".

Having complimented Italian spelling on its effectiveness I have to say that all this fuss over "a" and "the" is a problem. Lucky for us that Italians know this very well and so using the wrong form of "the" or "a" isn't going to bother them. They will be far more impressed by your effort to learn the language then disturbed by your difficulties.

He and she, lui e lei

We always use the word you to address another person, the italians use tu to address a friend or a child, but use lei to (formally) address adults they don't know in particular their elders. Lei is also the word for she but it is still used to address both men and women you don't know. It is the form of "you" that you use to address people formally or to be polite.

There is no longer an italian word for it rather than say it they say he or she lui o lei depending on the gender of the thing they are referring to. If the gender is not known then they use masculine lui.

So when you see lui/lei literally translated as he/she, you must remember that really this is not just he/she but actually can means he/she/it/you(formal).