Seconda settimana | Week 2
V
Visuals and Handouts
PowerPoint for Wednesday, Sept. 8 Download PowerPoint for Wednesday, Sept. 8
PowerPoint for Friday, Sept. 10 Download PowerPoint for Friday, Sept. 10
Worksheet - maschile, femminile, singolare e plurale Download Worksheet - maschile, femminile, singolare e plurale
Study the classroom vocabulary and read about definite and indefinite articles in Italian and complete the associated Pratica! exercises before class on Wednesday, Sept. 8
Week 2: Here and Now
You might be wondering why this class is subtitled “Here and Now”. The answer is: This is our overarching linguistic goal in this class. By the end of the term, you should be able to describe your surroundings and talk about everyday things. We are starting that this week by describing the space in which you are studying Italian. See the photo on the following page for some common classroom objects. Knowing what you learned last week about Italian pronunciation, try to pronounce these words out loud. Note that if you see a syllable underlined, for example below in the word cattedra, this syllable is the stressed one in the word (instead of the penultimate syllable, or next to last syllable, which is more common in Italian).
In Italian, a classroom is called un'aula. The students are la classe, and the teacher is la professoressa or il professore.
Note that some words end in -o and some in -a. Words that end in -o are called masculine, (but this name has little to do with biological gender Links to an external site.). Similarly, words ending in -a are called feminine. Italian also has singular words that end in -e, and the general rule is that you look to the article to see if the word is masculine or feminine. For example, la classe, or the class, is feminine because it uses the singular feminine article la. A word like studente, however, is masculine, but you wouldn't know this unless you memorized the gender of the word, or if you saw the word in context: lo studente. Seeing the masculine article lo helps you understand that the word is masculine.
Listen to the vocabulary here:
l'aula – classroom
la classe – students in a class
il corso – a class, course
il/la docente (universitario) – professor
il professore – professor (m.)
la professoressa – professor (f.)
il banco – student desk
il cancellino – chalkboard eraser
la cattedra – teacher's podium or desk
il cestino – wastebasket
la finestra – window
il gesso – chalk
la lavagna – chalkboard
la porta – door
lo schermo – screen (film, computer, tablet, phone screen)
la scrivania – desk (in general)
la sedia – chair
la calcolatrice – calculator
il calendario – calendar
il caricabatterie – computer/phone charger
la cartella – folder
il computer, il portatile – computer, laptop
la cucitrice – stapler
l'evidenziatore – highlighter
la gomma – pencil eraser
il libro – book
la matita – pencil
la penna – pen
il pennarello – marker
il quaderno – notebook
il temperamatite – pencil sharpener
il testo – textbook
Pratica! Vocabolario della classe della seconda settimana.
There are some ways to know if a word ending in -e is masculine or feminine. For example, words that end in -ione are feminine (i.e., la lezione). But sometimes you just have to memorize the grammatical gender of the word.
Like English, Italian has definite (determinativo) and indefinite (indeterminativo) articles Links to an external site.. The definite article in English is "the" and the indefinite articles are "a" and "an". In Italian, the system is a bit more complicated, mostly because of linguistic rules and processes based on pronunciation and gender systems. Let's first look at definite articles (articoli determinativi), AKA “the".
Note that there are three articles for masculine nouns. The article il is the default masculine article, and is used with masculine words that start with a consonant. The article lo is also used with words beginning with a consonant, but only very specific ones: words that start with z-, ps-, pn-, gn-, and the so-called esse impura, which is s followed by a consonant (st-, sb-, sv-, sp-, etc.) It is also used with some foreign loan words that start with x- and y-, such as lo yogurt.
Masculine and feminine words that start with a vowel use the article l'. So, at least that's easy. Feminine words that start with a consonant use the article la.
Pratica! Gli articoli determinativi (1)
Pratica! Gli articoli determinativi (2)
Indefinite articles, or ones that correspond to "a" or "an" in English, refer to any one item of an object. Think about the different between, "I need a book" and "I need the book". "I need a book" refers to any book (as in, "I need a book to squash this bug - hand one to me"). "I need the book" refers to a specific book ("I need the book on reserve at Hillman"). Articles in Italian work in the same way. Let's look at indefinite articles in Italian.
Indefinite articles can really only be singular in Italian. There are two masculine forms, un (the default that comes before most consonants and vowels) and uno (which comes before z-, ps-, pn-, gn-, and s+consonant (st-, sb-, etc.)) There are also two feminine forms: una (the default) and un' (which is used before a vowel). Note that masculine words that start with vowels do not get the apostrophe form of un. For example, you would say un amico ("a [m.] friend"), but un'amica ("a [f.] friend").
Pratica! Gli articoli indeterminativi
The image below gives the names of some common classroom objects, but uses the indefinite article instead of the definite article. Note which words are feminine and which are masculine.
Two nouns in the above image (caricabatterie and temperamatite) are called compound nouns, which are a combination of two words that make a new noun. In Italian, a common combination is a verb (for example, caricare, "load" or "charge") and a noun (batterie, "batteries"), which combine to name an object that performs a specific task (caricabatterie, "charger"). Note that *most compound words are masculine, even though in this case batterie is feminine (and that batterie is plural while caricabatterie is singular). Speaking of plural nouns...
Complete the following Controllo! exercise after class on Wednesday, Sept. 8
Controllo! I nomi e gli articoli determinativi
Read about the plural form of nouns in Italian and complete the associated Pratica! exercises before class on Friday, Sept. 10
Finally, let's look at plurals in Italian. Italian doesn't use the plural -s marker like English does.
The final vowel changes according to the word's gender. Look at the following chart and note how the definite articles change, too.
You've probably noticed that masculine plural words end in -i and that feminine plural words end in -e. If a singular feminine word ends in -e, in the plural form it will end in -i (la calcolatrice -> le calcolatrici). Bottom line, *most words that end in -o or -e use -i when they're plural, and words that end in -a use -e when plural.
In class this week, we will put this all together using the verbs for "there is" (c'è) and "there are" (ci sono); c'è is used with a singular noun and ci sono is used with plural nouns. Here are some examples.
(*I say "most" because, like any language, there are lots of exceptions. In Italian, borrowed (loan) words from foreign languages are usually masculine (il bar, lo sport). Compound nouns usually are invariable and do not have a plural form. Words that end with an accent mark do not change when they are pluralized (l'università -> le università). And some words, derived from Greek, end in -a but are in fact masculine (il problema, il programma). When pluralized, these words are regular (i problemi, i programmi). All of these types of words are fairly common, but their numbers are few.)
Complete the following Controllo! exercise after class on Friday, Sept. 8
Controllo! Gli articoli indeterminativi e i plurali
Complete this week's Parliamo! assignment by 11:59 pm on Sunday, Sept. 12
Parliamo! Che cosa c'è nel tuo zaino?