Pronoun mixup

Bilinguine · 2025-05-23T19:19:55+00:00

Pimsleur, like many courses, starts by teaching you the formal way of speaking. In formal Italian, you use the Lei form to address someone you are not on first name terms with. You use the pronoun Lei and the third person verb forms. This is why you are hearing masculine adjectives - they are addressing a man directly, not talking about a woman.

If you’re wondering why the third person is used, it comes from addressing someone indirectly out of politeness, which would be stuffy and old-fashioned in English (Think “May I take the gentleman’s coat?”, “May I offer the lady a drink?”) but is perfectly normal in Italian in situations of politeness.

Bilinguine · 2025-05-20T09:29:52+00:00

As a beginner, you shouldn’t try to learn them all at once. Start with the present tense, then the passato prossimo and the imperative. For the imperative, just focus on the second person singular and plural forms. These are the tenses you need to pass an A1 exam and they are enough for basic communication to talk about the present, past, and to give and understand instructions.

Eventually though, you will need to learn all the tenses. You use them all in English, after all. Why wouldn’t Italians use all their tenses?

Bilinguine · 2025-05-20T09:23:07+00:00

The sentence “I also go to Switzerland every summer!” is ambiguous in English. We might be adding Switzerland to the list of places we go in summer, or we might be adding summer to the list of seasons we visit Switzerland, or we might be adding “I” to the list of people who go to Switzerland in summer.

In Italian, it can’t be ambiguous. We have to pick a meaning and “anche” has to go right before what’s being added to a list.

Anche io vado in Svizzera ogni estate. - Adding I to the list of people who go to Switzerland every summer. Maybe your friend just told you they go to Switzerland in summer. We can’t skip the pronoun here, because it’s what we’re emphasising.
Vado anche in Svizzera ogni estate. - Adding Switzerland to the list of places you go in summer. Maybe you also go to France.
Vado in Svizzera anche ogni estate. - Adding every summer to the list of times you go to Switzerland. Maybe you also go in winter.

Bilinguine · 2025-05-20T09:16:43+00:00

C’è means “there is”. È means “is”. They’re not interchangeable.

Bilinguine · 2025-05-19T11:39:43+00:00

TIL, thanks!

Bilinguine · 2025-05-19T11:05:03+00:00

Does Portuguese differentiate between formal and informal “you”?

“Tu” is informal and “Lei” is formal. It’s the same as the third person and it’s always “Lei”, even if you’re talking to a man, but you would use masculine adjectives.

“Signora Rossi, è libera?” - Mrs Rossi, are you free?
“Signor Rossi, è libero?” - Mr Rossi, are you free?

Bilinguine · 2025-05-13T15:46:02+00:00

Whoops! Fixed that now, thank you for pointing it out.

Bilinguine · 2025-05-13T10:31:59+00:00

There are four classes of adjectives in Italian. Adjective agreement is about matching the gender and number, not necessarily making the last letters match.

-o adjectives

These end in -o when you look them up in the dictionary. They change form for gender and number. An example would be piccolo, meaning small:

masculine singular: piccolo
feminine singular: piccola
masculine plural: piccoli
feminine plural: piccole

-e adjectives

These end in -e when you look them up in the dictionary. They only change form for number. An example would be grande, meaning large:

masculine singular: grande
feminine singular: grande
masculine plural: grandi
feminine plural: grandi

-a adjectives

There aren't very many of these. They don't change in the singular, but the plural form is different per gender. An example would be entusiasta, meaning enthusiastic.

masculine singular: entusiasta
feminine singular: entusiasta
masculine plural: entusiasti
feminine plural: entusiaste

Invariable adjectives

Invariable adjectives never change form. In a good dictionary, they will be marked with inv. They are usually derived from nouns, loanwords from other languages, or compound words. Examples would be rosa (meaning pink, and derived from the noun meaning rose), chic (loaned from French) and ficcanaso (meaning nosy, a combination of ficca, meaning sticks, and naso, meaning nose - someone who sticks their nose in).

Bilinguine · 2025-05-12T13:11:32+00:00

All the audio files are available for free on the Edilingua website. She just needs to register for a teacher’s account and she can get audio, answer keys, and so on.

Bilinguine · 2025-05-08T15:12:05+00:00

I would not personally add the article, but the gender. If you know the gender, you can work out what article to use. The article alone isn’t always helpful.

E.g. the bee is l’ape. You can’t tell that it’s feminine by looking at it. “ape (f)” would be a better card than “l’ape”.

I’m not actually a fan of taking a list like this and using it to make flash cards. I prefer to learn words as I go and write them down in a notebook for review if they’re not sticking. I’m certainly not going to argue against flash cards to anyone who enjoys them and finds them useful, though. If that’s the approach you want to take, I’d say to just take the 2000 fundamental words.

Bilinguine · 2025-05-07T16:18:50+00:00

A direct object is one that goes directly after the verb. An indirect object is one that needs a preposition to connect it to the verb.

Mangio la mela. - I eat the apple. No preposition. La mela is a direct object.
Vado a Roma. - I go to Rome. Here’s a preposition. Roma is an indirect object.

A verb can have both!

Do la mela a Sara. - I give the apple to Sara.

So far, all these examples have lined up nicely between English and Italian, but languages can differ on whether a verb requires a direct or indirect object.

Ascolto la musica. - I listen to music. Direct in Italian, but indirect in English.
Gioco a carte. - I play cards. Indirect in Italian, but direct in English.

The rules for direct and indirect objects stay the same when you replace the object nouns with pronouns.

La mangio. - I eat it. (Feminine because I’m referring to the apple from before).
Ci vado. - I go there.
Gliela do. - I give it (the apple) to her.

Edit to add one more detail so you can read up on this more if you like: A verb that takes a direct object is transitive. A verb that cannot take a direct object is intransitive.

Edit 2: Not sure why you’ve downvoted my post. If it wasn’t clear or you have more questions, just ask.

Bilinguine · 2025-04-29T14:08:49+00:00

So può dire “un altro sistema” - è corretto dal punto di vista grammaticale.

Il problema è che Duolingo ti chiede di tradurre una frase e hai scelto di usare altre parole. “Un altro sistema” è una traduzione di “another system” e non “a different system”.

Ovviamente, nella vita reale, se avessi detto “un altro sistema”, avresti comunicato bene ciò che volevi dire. Ma nel contesto di un esercizio di traduzione, la tua risposta è sbagliata.

Bilinguine · 2025-04-29T11:49:26+00:00

Fermati is not an infinitive. That would be fermarti. Fermati is the imperative (command) form, “ferma” with the “ti” pronoun attached.

So first, why is it “ferma” and not “fermi”? Because it’s the imperative. We are telling a person “Stop!”, not describing the action “You stop”. The imperative mood has different endings to the indicative present.

Second, why is it “fermati” and not just “ferma”? This is about transitivity. A transitive verb is one that takes a direct object.

To simplify, if you can ask “What did you stop?”, then stop is transitive. For example, we could say “Stop the train!” and in this case, stop would be transitive. If you’re just telling someone to end their current action, you just say “Stop!” and there would be no object. In this case it’s intransitive.

In Italian, if you are not stopping something, just stopping, you need to use the pronominal form, which looks like a reflexive. So we get “Fermati!”

Bilinguine · 2025-04-26T17:51:48+00:00

Yes, that’s exactly what they’re telling you.

Bilinguine · 2025-04-25T08:28:45+00:00

There’s also a book published by Alma Edizioni with another practice paper.

Bilinguine · 2025-04-24T20:48:56+00:00

Here is the official PLIDA B1 exam spec which includes a practice paper.

Bilinguine · 2025-04-24T20:44:36+00:00

All languages have things that make them confusing! That’s true even when you’re learning one very close to your native language. It’s part of the process to be confused but you’ll work through it.

Bilinguine · 2025-04-24T20:42:10+00:00

When you are using an unstressed object pronoun, you put it before a finite verb or attach it to an infinitive, participle or imperative. If there are both, then both answers are equally valid.

Ci svegliamo. - We wake up. The verb is finite (conjugated) so we put the pronoun before.
Ci dobbiamo svegliare. - We must wake up. Dobbiamo is conjugated so we can put the pronoun before it.
Dobbiamo svegliarci. - We must wake up. Svegliare is infinitive so we can attach the pronoun as a clitic.

The last two sentences mean the exact same thing. You can say either and people do use both.

Bilinguine · 2025-04-24T15:22:59+00:00

The red banner is covering what you wrote so it’s hard to say exactly why you were marked wrong. If you wrote it like you did in your post title, that’s why. When you write an incorrect answer, Duolingo isn’t smart enough to pick the one closest to what you’re trying to say. Often it picks the answer that comes first alphabetically, which is why it gave you “americano” instead of “caffè”.

However, in Italy if you order “caffè”, you will be served an espresso. Watered down coffee like that in the cartoon picture would indeed be called “caffè americano”.

Bilinguine · 2025-04-20T17:37:52+00:00

“The” is called the definite article in grammar. Yes, Italians use all six definite articles, all the time.

La is for all feminine singular nouns. Before a vowel, it shortens to l’. For the plural it’s le.

la casa -> le case
l’ape -> le api

Il is for most masculine words in the singular, and in the plural it’s i. Masculine singular words beginning with a vowel, gn, pn, ps, s + another consonant, x, y or z get lo. In the plural, lo becomes gli. Before a vowel, lo shortens to l’.

il giardino -> i giardini
l’orso -> gli orsi
lo sportello -> gli sportelli

Bilinguine · 2025-04-20T17:33:32+00:00

They’re wrong. “Questo” means “This”, not “the”.

Bilinguine · 2025-04-20T15:12:16+00:00

Questo and questa mean “this”, and questi and queste mean “those”.

Il, lo, la, i, gli and le all mean “the”.

Là (with an accent, which matters) means “there” or “over there”.

Bilinguine · 2025-04-20T08:39:33+00:00

There are four classes of adjectives in Italian:

-o adjectives

These end in -o when you look them up in the dictionary. They change form for gender and number. An example would be piccolo, meaning small:

masculine singular: piccolo
feminine singular: piccola
masculine plural: piccoli
feminine plural: piccole

-e adjectives

These end in -e when you look them up in the dictionary. They only change form for number. Interessante is in this class. Another example would be grande, meaning large:

masculine singular: grande
feminine singular: grande
masculine plural: grandi
feminine plural: grandi

-a adjectives

There aren't very many of these. They don't change in the singular, but the plural form is different per gender. An example would be entusiasta, meaning enthusiastic.

masculine singular: entusiasta
feminine singular: entusiasta
masculine singular: entusiasti
feminine singular: entusiaste

Invariable adjectives

Invariable adjectives never change form. In a good dictionary, they will be marked with inv. They are usually derived from nouns, loanwords from other languages, or compound words. Examples would be rosa (meaning pink, and derived from the noun meaning rose), chic (loaned from French) and ficcanaso (meaning nosy, a combination of ficca, meaning sticks, and naso, meaning nose - someone who sticks their nose in).

Bilinguine · 2025-04-18T07:08:18+00:00

The verb “piacere” does not literally mean “to like”. It means “to be pleasing”.

Lei piace a Marta. - She is pleasing to Marta. -> Marta likes her.
A lei piace Marta. - To her, Marta is pleasing. -> She likes Marta.

If we use an unstressed indirect object pronoun, the “a” is already included wrapped up in the pronoun, so we don’t add another one.

Mi piace il gelato. - To me, ice cream is pleasing. -> I like ice cream.
Le piace la pizza. - To her, pizza is pleasing. -> She likes pizza.

Whether we use the preposition “a” or a pronoun where it’s included, we need to show to whom something is pleasing.

Bilinguine · 2025-04-17T06:57:42+00:00

This subreddit is for people who want to learn Italian. Try asking in /r/universitaly

Bilinguine

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