Italian All-in-One For Dummies (95 page)

For example, in the sentence
Mario dà il regalo a Fausta
(
Mario is giving the gift to Fausta
),
Mario
, the subject, performs an action with the verb
dà
(
is giving
);
il regalo
(
the gift
) is the direct object, or what was given, so it receives the action; and
Fausta
, the indirect object, is the person to whom the action was directed. Technically,
a Fausta
is also a prepositional phrase serving as the indirect object, with
Fausta
, the person, following
a
(
to
), a preposition.

Just as nouns have different roles in a sentence, they also have different characteristics. A noun can be proper, common, abstract, or concrete. A name of a person, city, or country is a
proper noun
(in English, proper nouns are usually capitalized): Mario, Fausta, Roma, and Italia. (In Italian, days of the week and months of the year aren't capitalized.)

Common nouns
are objects, such as a cat, dog, car, or school. Common nouns aren't capitalized in Italian or in English. An
abstract noun
may be something intangible, like your thoughts or desires; a
concrete noun
is anything you can touch, see, or taste.

Collective nouns
, like
family
or
people,
are singular in Italian. For example:
La famiglia è molto tradizionale
(
The family is very traditional
); and
La gente è proprio simpatica
(
The people are really nice
) — note the plural verb in English.

Pronouns

Pronouns take the place of nouns and add variation to a sentence. They have the same jobs as nouns but are simply a little more vague.
Table 1-2
lists the most commonly used pronouns in Italian.

Table 1-2 Common Italian Pronouns

In general,
loro
, which follows the verb, has been replaced by
gli
, which precedes the verb.

Articles

Articles are the small words that precede nouns and can be specific, or definite, meaning
the,
such as
the
book; or they can be indefinite, or vague, meaning
a
or
an,
such as
a
book.

Definite articles:
il, l', lo
(singular masculine);
la, l'
(singular feminine);
i, gli
(plural masculine);
le
(plural feminine)

Indefinite articles:
un, uno
(singular masculine);
una, un'
(singular feminine)

Articles must agree in number and gender with the nouns they accompany. When using articles, you also need to consider the beginning letters of the words following the article. That's why so many articles exists: masculine singular, feminine singular, feminine plural, and masculine plural.

Verbs

Verbs bring a language to life. You use verbs to show action and states of being, to comment and to question, to contemplate and to create. Language really doesn't exist without verbs, at least not sentient and sophisticated language.

For example:
Giovanni scrive canzoni ed è molto felice
(
John writes songs and is very happy
).
Scrive
(
he writes
) shows action;
è
(
is
) tells you how John is feeling.

Verbs change shape — must change shape — to show who's doing something or what's happening. Italian verbs characterize themselves by their
infinitives,
the unconjugated verb form that translates into the English
to
form (
to eat,
to play,
and so on). After you understand the appropriate forms of conjugation for different verbs, you can use those same forms for hundreds of other verbs in the same category.

Besides the subject of the verb, you need to keep in mind verb tense (when an action is taking place), mood (the mood or point of view of the subject), and voice (active or passive). Verbs come in 22 tenses (past, present, and future, to name a few) and 7 moods (indicative, subjunctive, conditional, imperative, infinitive, gerund, and participle); and they have two voices (active and passive). They follow a strict set of sequencing rules, as do English verbs.

Verbs are both complex and central to mastering the Italian language, but discovering verbs in all their forms will expand your vocabulary exponentially.

Adjectives

Adjectives add flavor, dimension, interest, and opinion. They let you describe in detail people, places, and things. They make self-expression possible.

Adjectives accompany nouns and pronouns. To say someone is happy or something is new, you use adjectives. Adjectives agree in number and gender with whatever they modify. For example
rosso
(
red
) has masculine singular, masculine plural (
rossi
), feminine singular (
rossa
), and feminine plural (
rosse
) forms.

Here are a couple more facts about Italian adjectives:

Some adjectives end in the letter
e
and have only two forms: singular, ending in
e,
and plural, ending in
i: Importante
(
important
) in the feminine and masculine singular becomes
importanti
in the feminine and masculine plural, as in
una donna importante
(
an important lady
),
due donne importanti
(
two important ladies
),
un ragazzo importante
(
an important boy
), and
due ragazzi importanti
(
two important boys
).