Italian All-in-One For Dummies (179 page)

Se
+
congiuntivo imperfetto
(
imperfect subjunctive
) +
condizionale passato
(
conditional perfect
):
Se io
fossi
(imperfect subjunctive)
in te,
sarei rimasta
(conditional perfect)
a Tucson.
(
If I were you,
I would have stayed in Tucson.
)

What-iffing the impossible

The hypothetical construction that denotes impossibility suggests that whatever action you would've done in the past is no longer possible now, no matter your desires. You can demonstrate this by saying, for example,
Se io
avessi saputo
che
venivi
,
avrei cotto
una bistecca in più
(
If I had known you were coming, I would've made an extra steak
). In other words, it's now too late for you to have made the extra steak while you were cooking. Nothing keeps you from making a steak now, of course, but if you want to convey that, you don't need an if clause!

As you can see from the preceding example, the hypothetical construction denoting impossibility is composed of two compound tenses. You form it by rendering the structure of the construction of probability into the past:
trapassato congiuntivo
(
the
past perfect subjunctive;
see
Chapter 4
in Book V) and
condizionale passato
(
the past conditional;
see
Chapter 3
in Book V).

Se
+
trapassato congiuntivo
(
past perfect subjunctive
) +
condizionale passato
(
past conditional
):
Se Toby
avesse riconosciuto i visitatori
(present perfect subjunctive),
non
avrebbe abbaiato
(conditional perfect).
(
If Toby had recognized the visitors, he would not have barked.
)

Alternatively, but less commonly, you may have the following structure:

Se
+ present perfect subjunctive + conditional

It comes in handy with recriminations. For example:

Se tu non
avessi
speso
tutti i tuoi soldi per
divertirti
, adesso non
ti troveresti
in questa situazione.
(
If you hadn't spent all your money having a good time, you
wouldn't find yourself in this situation now.
)

Se
mi avessi ascoltato
(present perfect subjunctive)
, non
saresti
(conditional)
in questi guai ora.
(
If you had listened to me, you wouldn't be in this trouble now.
)

Se
avessi sposato
(present perfect subjunctive)
Enzo, ora
abiterei
(conditional)
a Cortona.
(
If I had married Enzo, I'd be living in Cortona now.
)

Come se: In a category of its own

The phrase
come se
means
as if,
and it works somewhat differently from the other hypothetical constructions you see in previous sections in this chapter.

The
imperfetto congiuntivo
(
imperfect subjunctive
) and the
trapassato congiuntivo
(
present perfect subjunctive
) always follow the expression
come se,
regardless of the tense in the main clause (see
Chapter 4
in Book V for details on these tenses). Here's the structure:

Any tense that makes sense +
come se
+ imperfect subjunctive or present perfect subjunctive

Here are a couple examples:

Lui
tratta
la moglie come se
fosse
una bambina.
(
He treats his wife as if she were a child.
)

Mi sono comportata
come se non
fosse successo
niente
.
(
I acted as if
nothing had happened.
)

Putting a Personal Touch on the Impersonal and the Passive

Come
si forma
il si impersonale?
(
How do you form the impersonal?
)
Quando
è usata
la forma passiva?
(
When is the passive voice used?
) Did you just notice the use of the
si impersonale
(
impersonal
you
) in the first sentence and the
costruzione passiva
(
passive construction
) in the second?
Bravo/Brava!
(
Good job!
) These constructions
sono usate
(
are used
) — another example! — all the time in everyday language.

In the following sections, you discover how to form and use the impersonal
you
across many tenses, and you find out how to recognize and use the passive voice when appropriate.

Forming the impersonal in the present

How do you form the
si impersonale,
and what does it mean? It translates as the impersonal
you/we/they/people.
The form is synonymous with the less common
one
— as in, how does one form the
si impersonale?
And, as you can see, the subject is indefinite. More than in American English, however, people often use the impersonal
you
in Italian to talk about their everyday activities. For example, you often hear the question
Quando
si parte
?
(
When are we leaving?
)

To form the
si impersonale
in the present tense, you take the word
si
(
one/you/we/they/people
) and add either of the following:

The third person singular form of a verb (and a singular direct object, if you have one)

The third person plural form of a verb (with a plural direct object)

Here are some examples that use
si
+ third person singular of a verb:

Come
si dice
“hi”
in italiano?
(
How do you say “hi” in Italian?
)

Cosa
si mangia
stasera?
(
What are we eating tonight?
)

Si mangia
la pasta
(singular direct object). (
We're eating
pasta.
)

Here are some examples that use
si
+ third person plural of a verb:

Cosa
si mangia
stasera?
(
What are we eating tonight?)
Si mangiano
gli gnocchi
(plural direct object).
(We're eating gnocchi.
)

Dove
si comprano
i francobolli
(plural direct object)
in Italia?
(
Where can you buy stamps in Italy?
)

When you have to deal with reflexive verbs and the reciprocal form (see
Chapter 3
in Book IV), you start with the impersonal pronoun
si,
but you transform it miraculously into the word
ci
(
ci
doesn't translate, except as the impersonal
you
). At that point, you
add
the third person reflexive pronoun
si
and then include the third person singular. (You can't very well have one
si
right after the other, can you?)

Here's this construction broken down and compared with a sentence in the present indicative that has a specified subject:

Ci
+
si
+
sveglia
presto in vacanza.
(
You/they/people get up early on vacation.
) This is the impersonal
you
without a specified subject.