Italian All-in-One For Dummies (12 page)
Read Italian All-in-One For Dummies Online
Authors: Consumer Dummies
virtù
(veer-
tooh
) (
virtue
)
Differences between dialects and the Italian language
The different peoples living in the Italian peninsula have only recently been united under the common banner of “Italian.” Indeed, a long period of political and social disunity characterized much of Italy's history. Following the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 CE, the Italian peninsula was disjointed by repeated invasions that ushered in an era of internal division that would last until the 18th century. After the Middle Ages, merchants, artists, and artisans from the Italian peninsula were recognized as “Italian” by outsiders, but they identified themselves based on their city of origin and spoke regional dialects. In the 1500s, the issue of having a literary Italian language was addressed, and it was in part resolved by the choice of adopting the language from Florence of the 1300s. But the provincialism of Italy was exhibited even more distinctly by illiterate peasants, who composed 80 percent of the Italian population in the 19th century. When Italy was politically unified in 1861, the Italian government promoted national literacy and the adoption of a standard Italian language to build a cohesive social identity.
In the proper context, the use of regional words or expressions helps to express particular nuances of meaning and to render communication playful. Italian dialects correspond to the geographical areas that characterize Italy. It's possible to distinguish among a northern Italian area, an Italian Tuscan area, an Italian central area, and a southern Italian area. Each of these areas is home to several regional dialects.
For example, you can say
ragazza
(rah-
gaht
-tsah) (
girl
) in ten different ways, as you can see in this table.
Dialect | Region |
carosa | Puglia |
carusa | Sicilia |
ciumachella | Lazio |
fiola | Umbria |
guagliona | Campania |
putela | Trentino Alto Adige |
mata | Piemonte |
suéna | Liguria |
tosa | Veneto |
vagnona | Puglia |
Only vowels can have accents, and in Italian, all vowels at the end of a word can have this accent (`). If there's no accent in the word, you're unfortunately left on your own. A rough tip is that Italian tends to have the stress on the
penultimate
(next-to-last) syllable. But there are too many rules and exceptions to list them all here!
Fortunately, only a few words have the same spelling and only an accent to distinguish them. But it can be a very important distinction, as in the following example:
e
(eh) (
and
) and
è
(eh) (
he/she/it is
) are distinguished only by the accent on the vowel and from a closed and opened sound in the pronunciation.
Chapter 2
Dealing with Numbers, Dates, and Time
In This Chapter
Counting to a billion
Using ordinal numbers to indicate sequence
Naming the days, months, and seasons
Talking about the time
Getting familiar with the metric system
N
umbers crop up in all aspects of conversation, from counting, to telling someone your phone number, to putting things in order (“I went to Rome first, then Bologna second”). The good news is, in Italian, numbers are reliably straightforward, even though using them for dates, for example, may not seem so. This chapter gets you up-to-speed on counting, chatting about time and date, and using numbers with confidence in Italian.
Counting from Zero to a Billion: Cardinal Numbers
To express how many glasses of wine or scoops of gelato you want, you have to know your numbers.
Table 2-1
provides some of the more useful cardinal numbers, from zero to a billion. Listen to Track 2 to hear a selection of numbers in Italian: 0 to 25, 30, 40, and 50.
Table 2-1 Counting from Zero to a Billion
Number | Italian | Pronunciation |
0 | zero | dzeh |
1 | uno | ooh |
2 | due | dooh |
3 | tre | treh |
4 | quattro | kwaht |
5 | cinque | cheen |
6 | sei | sey |
7 | sette | seht |
8 | otto | oht |
9 | nove | noh |
10 | dieci | dyeh |
11 | undici | oohn |
12 | dodici | doh |
13 | tredici | treh |
14 | quattordici | kwaht- |
15 | quindici | kween |
16 | sedici | seh |
17 | diciassette | dee-chahs- |
18 | diciotto | dee- |
19 | diciannove | dee-chahn- |
20 | venti | vehn |
21 | ventuno | vehn- |
22 | ventidue | vehn |
23 | ventitré | vehn |
24 | ventiquattro | vehn |
25 | venticinque | vehn |
26 | ventisei | vehn |
27 | ventisette | vehn |
28 | ventotto | vehn- |
29 | ventinove | vehn |
30 | trenta | trehn |
40 | quaranta | kwah- |
50 | cinquanta | cheen- |
60 | sessanta | sehs- |
70 | settanta | seht- |
80 | ottanta | oht- |
90 | novanta | noh- |
100 | cento | chen |
101 | centouno | chen |
200 | duecento | dooh |
300 | trecento | treh- |
400 | quattrocento | kwaht |
500 | cinquecento | cheen |
600 | seicento | sey |
700 | settecento | seht |
800 | ottocento | oht |
900 | novecento | noh |
1,000 | mille | meel |
2,000 | duemila | dooh |
10,000 | diecimila | dyeh |
100,000 | centomila | chehn |
105,000 | centocinquemila | chehn |
1,000,000 | un milione (di) | oohn mee- |
1,000,000,000 | un miliardo (di) | oohn mee- |
Building numbers in Italian
Before you can get very far with using numbers in Italian, you have to know how to build them. For example, say you have a powerful appetite and want to order 12,640 scoops of gelato. How do you convey that specific number? You'll be happy to know that you build Italian numbers in a direct manner, similar to English. When building Italian numbers, you spell out large numbers as one word, without the use of
and
(
e
) to connect them. So
12,640
is written (and spoken) as
dodicimilaseicentoquaranta
(
doh
-dee-chee-
mee
-lah-sey-
chehn
-toh-kwah-
rahn
-tah).