more, what is “it was” in Italian?
Era
(air-ah)
Now, “era” can be used in Italian to mean both “it was” and also just “was”. “The weather” in Italian is:
il tempo
(eel tem-poe)
So how would you say “the weather was…”?
il tempo era…
(eel tem-poe air-ah)
Now again, what was “fantastic” in Italian?
fantastico
(fan-tass-teek-oh)
And so how would you say “the weather was fantastic”?
Il tempo era fantastico.
(eel tem-poe air-ah fan-tass-teek-oh)
And how would you say “I spent the weekend in Rome. The weather was fantastic.”?
Ho passato il weekend a Roma. Il tempo era fantastico.
(o pass-art-oh eel weekend a roam-er. eel tem-poe air-ah fan-tass-teek-oh)
If you want to show that you’re amazed or impressed by something in Italian, you can, just as in English, say “wow”.
So, just to make this clear, what is “wow” in Italian?
wow
(wow)
Good.
The word for “and” in Italian is:
e
(ay)
So, how would you say “…and wow…”?
…e wow…
(ay wow)
Putting what you’ve learnt together, say “I spent the weekend in Rome – and wow, it was fantastic.” Take your time to work this out, bit by bit, there’s no rush.
Ho passato il weekend a Roma – e wow, il tempo era fantastico.
(o pass-art-oh eel weekend a roam – er ay wow, eel tem-poe air-ah fan-tass-teek-oh)
You can now construct the sentence with which we started the chapter – and, as you will soon discover, this is just the very beginning of your journey into Italian!
Building Blocks
You just learnt how to say (amongst other things) “I spent the weekend in Rome – and wow, the weather was fantastic”.
Now that you can do this, you are going to move on to expand what you can say through the use of additional “building blocks”.
The new building blocks you are going to learn will allow you to begin instantly expanding your range of expressions in the Italian language.
So far, some of the building blocks you have already learnt include:
You already know how to use these building blocks to construct a sentence. Once again, how would you say “I have spent the weekend in Rome”?
As you can see, you already know how to build the four building blocks above into a sentence. Take a look now at the six new building blocks below. Just have a glance over them and then I’ll show you how you’re going to add these into the mix of what you’ve learnt so far.
Okay, first things first: please don’t to try to memorise them. No, no, no! Instead, I simply want you to play with your building blocks. After all, that’s what building blocks are for, isn’t it?
The way you’re going to play with them is like this: on the next page, they have been put into four piles and all I want you to do is to make sentences with them. You’ll do this by using one building block from the first pile, one from the second, one from the third and one from the fourth.
You will find that you can say a lot of different things using them in this way and it’s up to you what sentences you make. The only thing I want you to make sure you do is to use every building block at least once. Also, please don’t bother writing down the sentences you make. Instead, say them out loud. Or, if you’re not in a place where you can do this, say them in your head. Now, off you go; make as many sentences as you can!
* Remember, of course, that “ho passato” means “I have spent”, “I spent” and “I did spend”. And this means, of course, that “ha passato” means “you have spent”, “you spent” and “you did spend”. And therefore “abbiamo passato” means not only “we have spent” but also “we spent” and “we did spend”. Don’t forget, you get three English past tenses for the price of one in Italian and this applies whether you’re saying “I…”, “you…”, “we…” or whatever.
The Checklist
You have now reached the final part of Chapter 1. Once you have finished this short section you will not only have completed your first chapter but you will also understand how this book works. All the other chapters follow the same pattern, with your Italian becoming ever more sophisticated as you complete each chapter.
The section you are now on will be the final part of each chapter and is what I call “The Checklist”. It involves nothing more than a read-through of a selection of words or expressions you have so far encountered.
You will actually see The Checklist twice. The first time you will see that the Italian words are written in black (on the left-hand side) and that the English words are written in green (on the right-hand side) – and you know what green means… cover up!
So, what I want you to do here is to cover up the English words (which are written in green on the right-hand side) while you read through the list
