Thoughts from Italy

So, I just got back from Italy a few weeks ago, though I can't exactly claim that that's the only reason I haven't posted anything in a while... At any rate, since the point of this blog is to point out the practical parts of Italian (and learning it) that might get lost in more "official" instruction, I thought I might take a few minutes to discuss some things that struck me on this trip.

1) Useful words and phrases
These are things you use ALL of the time, and if you don't learn them here, you'll definitely pick them up naturally before too long:

•  "Permesso" - Said in a crowded place to ask people to move for you, like every single time you ride the metro in Rome.
• "Scusi" - Keep it on your tongue while on that same metro- with the sudden starts and stops you'll be bumping into people all over the place, and this apology will be handy. Of course, everyone reading this blog should already know this word, but it's here for another reason: to reinforce my first point: when trying to get through people, "permesso" is more common that "scusi", which is more for apologizing (on the metro).
• "Prego" - Most commonly known as a response to "grazie" to mean "you're welcome", it's also used to say "after you", or "please go ahead". I promise the first time you have a traffic jam at a door, back up, point through and kindly say "prego", you'll feel the "immersion rush" of interacting naturally with someone in their native environment.

2) Getting someone to speak italian with you is hard!
At least in the touristy areas (ie. everywhere you're likely to go... venice, florence, rome, etc) most people who interact with tourists regularly speak basic english... and like to use it. This can feel both frustrating and discouraging, with you thinking that your italian must be absolutely horrible or something*. After 4 trips, I've come to learn to ignore it. Just try to communicate, using whichever language happens to come out. I've found that usually in a normal discussion it can flip back and forth several times, with both parties making the flip. You say something in italian, they respond in english, you reply in english, they come back with italian. My main point is this: If you really want to find a true immersion experience and learn something, head out of town, and away from the tourists.

*After my first trip to Italy, I almost quit studying italian because of this, thinking that it was useless because "everyone knows english". Luckily I was wrong. English competency is actually really low in Italy, you just need to get away from places that deal with tourists!

3) Life is easier when you have basic competency in the language
Not to brag, but I did derive a rather large amount of pleasure from watching most tourists fumble around with phrase books and frustrating situations while I moved around relatively effortlessly thanks to my knowledge of the language. There were several times that I directly saw the benefit of all of the thousands of hours I've put into Italian- from being directed to the head of the line after joking with the doorman, to building a better relationship with the hotel owner resulting in a gift of tiramisu from the best shop in town- it's sometimes nice to realize why you put so much time into something. 

At any rate, these are just a few of the main things that came to mind. My goal with these 3 points was basically to teach, inform, and encourage in that order, so hopefully I was successful at least once! Please feel free to comment with any realizations or tips of your own!

Ce l'hai?

So, following up from my last post, I want to highlight a very common phrase that uses "ci" in a way that you might not expect: "ce l'hai?". When I first heard this, it really threw me for a loop. "Hai", "you have". No problem. "l'hai", you have it, great, pretty straight forward. So, something like "you have it?", but what the heck is CI doing there??? (tiny little note for those wondering: ce/ci are the same word, ci changes to ce when there's another pronoun)

It turns out that you'll often hear "ci" used with "avere" just to make things easier to say. That is, apparently "l'hai" isn't meaty enough on its own, so it's filled out into "ce l'hai". The response, "si, l'ho" becomes "si, ce l'ho". Say those out loud a few times and you'll see that it really does make things feel more complete.

All of this is true even when not using "it" (>la/lo). For example, the phrase "I have some friends". Textbook style would be "ho degli amici", but it's VERY common to hear someone say "c'ho degli amici". In my opinion (and judging by the commonness of its usage, I'm not alone in this), it's just easier to say. If you're not too sharp on pronunciation yet, it's pronounced like we would say "cho" in english. And along the lines of pronunciation, I encourage you to work on getting the difficult "degli" correct... it's kind of like "de-yee". "Gli" is a tough sound, the best I can offer is to say "li" but with the tip of your tongue anchored at the edge of your bottom gum line. You'll feel the back of your tongue rise as you say it.

Note/Bonus Phrase: While "ce l'ho" and "ce l'hai" get used a lot to just say "I have it" and "You have it", it's very important to note a situation where that type of phrase means something very different: when it's followed by "con qualcuno". In this case it means "I/You have a problem with them". For example, if I say "Ce l'ho con Mario, non mi ha pagato oggi" it means "I have a real problem with Mario, he didn't pay me today".
Another example of this that you will certainly hear at some point is "Perchè ce l'hai con me?" meaning basically "why're you mad at me?" or "what'd I do?".

The tricky "ci"

Who would think that such a small word could cause so many problems for learners? It might seem simple enough at first, but I've seen many people have a hard time when "ci" starts popping up where they don't really expect it.

In the course of thinking up ideas for blog posts, I realized that many useful phrases use "ci" in some way. So, I wanted to start with this post in order to hopefully clear things up from the start.

The problem, as I see it, is that learners are only really taught "ci"'s first and primary use, the first person plural object pronoun. As in... "ci hanno dato dei soldi" ("they gave us some money") and "ci sentiamo" ("we hear each other"). Everything else is glanced over, and the student unfortunately ends up associating "ci" purely with "us". This creates a big problem when they start seeing it in other places where it doesn't mean that, and they get confused.

So what else does it mean?

In most cases, if it doesn't mean "us", in some way or another it's standing in for something else that has already been mentioned or is understood. It's like "it" or "there" in English- meaningless words unless we already know what "it" is, or where "there" refers to.

Out of these cases, it usually just means "there", as in "the place that's already been mentioned" (not like "over there", which would be "di là"). The most common example of this is "c'è" and "ci sono"- "there is" and "there are". These phrases are usually just taught as units, though, and become second nature, so that's not much fun. Getting used to using it to mean "there" in lieu of a place name, though, is a skill that takes a little work, but is very worthwhile.

Some examples:
"Sei mai stato a Roma?" - Have you ever been to Rome?
"Si, ci sono stato due volte." - Yes, I've been there two times.

"Vai al concerto stasera?" - Are you going to the concert tonight?
"No, non ho voglia di andarci" - No, I don't feel like going there.

When it's not used for a location, it's usually a shortening of "ciò", a small word for "that/it". For example, one very common phrase (that I was going to do as a separate post) is "ci penso io" - "I'll handle it" (though the verb, of course, it's literally "I think"). In this case, "ci" is short for "a ciò". The inversion of "io", putting it on the end, is for dramatic effect. So, we have something like "I'll think to that", meaning "I'll take care of it".

Finally, there's another class of usage where it's mostly just there for sound. This usage is mostly constrained to speaking... so if you're listening to someone speaking and it sounds like they've just thrown in a "ci" for no reason, it's possible they have! One common example of this is with "avere", where it's normal to hear something like "C'ho un amico". I'll talk about this some more in future posts.

All of this might seem a bit confusing, but don't worry - it's not my intention in this post to teach you exactly how to use "ci" correctly all of the time. Instead, I just want to give you a heads up to some very important usages that I don't think are highlighted enough in most Italian courses. As always, please feel free to comment with questions or other uses that you might know of. I think in the next post I'll highlight the most common phrases employing "ci" in a colloquial manner.

Alla prossima...

Riesco a spiegare?

I was talking with someone a while ago, and in discussing my wife (who hasn't studied italian), I said: "ma riesce a capire bene".

The person I was speaking to didn't understand "al volo" (on the fly, right away), so I said "Cioè, può capire un po' di italiano", which they understood immediately.

The thing is, in this case "riesce", coming from riuscire/to succeed, is the more "proper" thing to say in Italian.  

As English speakers, we almost never say "I succeed in doing something", even though that might be what we really mean. We use "can" for nearly everything, ignoring the subtle differences in meaning that can be achieved with other words. I'm always reminded of the classic grammar school situation:

"Mrs. X, can I go to the bathroom???"

"I don't know, can you?"

"Arg! Fine, may I go to the bathroom?"

These nuances exist in Italian as well, it just that they tend to actually use them more, at least in the case of riuscire vs. potere. Riuscire is to succeed or be successful in doing something. Potere, generally, is more about being physically capable of it. It's a style point that takes some getting used to for English speakers, which really just means that it takes practice. I suggest keeping your ears open now that you're aware of it, and looking for examples. Over time, start to critique yourself when you want to use "potere"- are you talking about succeeding in something? If so, you might sound better using "riuscire".

The title of this post is a great example. In english, I would say "Can I explain (...this topic)?". But what I really mean to ask is not whether I can physically explain it, but whether I'll be successful in conveying the information. Therefore, "riesco a spiegare?" is the better way to go.

Allora, ci ho riuscito?

Strange singles

There are a few times when Italian uses the singluar when we, as English speakers, would use or expect the plural. This can be counter-intuitive, and like anything counter-intuitive, often leads to mistakes/difficulties for us.

Like most things I do around here, I'm not going to list off every possible example, just the ones that come to mind or prompt me to write an article. If you guys know of any examples, please feel free to comment. I say this because there are really only 2 examples that I want to talk about, which are VERY common:

1) Qualche - always takes the singular. It means "some" in the sense of "some thing", not as a quantity (like "some food", which would be "del cibo"). You might not think this is so strange, but I promise you that once in a while when you go to use it you'll catch yourself wanting to use the plural for whatever word comes next, and will have to go to the "grammar bank" to explicitly think of the "only singular" rule.

For a handy example, we can go to the title of a 1965 film, which I would translate to "For a few more dollars": "Per qualche dollaro in più". Note that "dollaro" is singular, though you would almost certainly translate it in the plural in english.

2) Gente - is a singular noun, even though it means "people", which is an inherently plural noun in english. This is always very tough for me, and it's one of several cases where I must "fly by grammar"- that is, do what I know is correct based on grammar knowledge instead of what I feel is correct. This really comes into play when "la gente" is the subject of a sentence, and does something, because that noun must, of course, be singular.

I could give some examples, but I suggest you head over to "google.it" and search for "la gente". You'll immediately see what I'm talking about. A few of the results that stood out to me:

«Pantheon chiude» concerto interrotto e la gente viene cacciata - "Pantheon Closed", concert interrupted and people chased out. "Chased out" might be a bit aggressive, but the point here is that you use the singular "la gente" instead of the plural that we'd use in english

"Spero che la gente torni ad esserci vicina" - "I hope that people come back to support us" - This phrase comes from a soccer player about a victory. My translation obviously isn't literal, but captures the sentiment. "Torni" is the singular, 3rd person, subjunctive of "tornare". It's subjunctive because it follows "spero che". The important part, though, is how "la gente" is used.

These are just a few small examples of this. I encourage you to explore by typing different phrases into google.it and see what shows up, or investigating more by searching the excellent forums at wordreference.com.

Alla prossima...

Filler word of the day: insomma

Continuing with the idea of filler words, today I want to highlight a simple but very useful one: insomma.

It came to mind today because I was listen to Radio24 this morning (Focus Economia, I think) and the guy kept using it over and over again.

As a filler, it can be used much like we would use something like "kind of", or "sort of" or "pretty much" when explaining something. Like most good filler words, the meaning isn't so definite, it's just wasting time so you can think of what you really want to say.

Esempio:

A: Allora, secondo te, quando migliorerà la situazione economica?

B: Insomma, ci vorrà del tempo, forse un anno. Sai, la situazione.... insomma... non cambierà velocemente.

Bonus usage: The word "insomma" can be a single word response to a question, indicating a generally positive but mostly "so-so" answer:

A: Come va?

B: Insomma...

In this example, it basically means "not great, but could be worse".

Fill'r up!

Filler words - as I call them - are an extremely important part of making your Italian seem natural and fluent. Building a good repertoire of these types of words can dramatically affect how your speech flows, and how people respond to you.

First, a better definition of what I'm talking about. Think about how you speak english, or perhaps try to be conscious of it the next time you talk to someone. How many words do you say that don't actually contribute to what you're trying to express? Probably more than you'd think. Here's something that I'd easily say:

"So, you know, with the way things are going... basically... I don't know what to do".

In that sentence "so", "you know", and "basically" really don't have any purpose besides giving me time to think, and helping things flow. These are what I call "filler words".

Italian, like any language, has the same things. However, it's an area that I've never seen explicitly explained to new learners, and that you probably don't think about much, because you don't really notice doing it in English. In this post, and in future posts with the 'filler words' label, I try to introduce phrases and expressions that fit this role, and that I've found extremely useful.

First up, one of the kings: Allora. This word is used a LOT in Italian. If you haven't already noticed that, you will now. The definition of the word is technically "then", but in conversation it most commonly functions as something like "So..." or "So then...". It is very often used at the start of the sentence.

It's so common and natural in Italian speech that, in fact, I often tell people this: Just start every response with "allora", and you'll instantly go from a beginner to an intermediate speaker. Native speakers will respond differently. At least for that single word to start the sentence, you'll be a perfectly fluent speaker- because it's a natural way to start to say something. 

In the sake of full disclosure I'll say that there are other ways to start sentences, and using "allora" every time might get a bit tedious, but I'm trying to prove a point. Give it a shot next time you're speaking to someone, and see how it goes.

Here are some common examples to help you see in context what I mean:

A: Da quanto tempo studi l'italiano?

B: Allora, ho cominciato 6 anni fa, più o meno

A: Che vuoi fare oggi?

B: Allora... prima mangiamo qualcosa, ho fame!

And it's a great way to just say "well then", like when everyone is just standing around and you want to say...

"Allora, che facciamo ragazzi?"