Learn how to discuss finished actions and events using the passato prossimo (present perfect) tense of Italian verbs
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Cinzia: Buongiorno! Mi chiamo Cinzia. |
| Marco: Beginner series Season 1, Lesson 8 - What Did You Do This Weekend in Italy? My name is Marco. |
| Cinzia: And Iโm Cinzia. |
| Marco: Come stai, Cinzia? |
| Cinzia: Benissimo, Marco, grazie. Wonderful, thank you, Marco. E tu? |
| Marco: Anche io sto bene. I am also well. |
| Cinzia: So Marco, what are we talking about today? |
| Marco: In this lesson, you will learn how to discuss finished actions and events using the passato prossimo (present perfect) tense of Italian verbs. |
| Cinzia: This conversation takes place at a train station. |
| Marco: And it is between Anna and Elena. |
| Cinzia: Who are friends, so they will be speaking informal Italian. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Elena: Allora? Che cosa ha detto? |
| Anna: Mi ha chiesto cosa faccio questo fine settimana. |
| Elena: Cosa gli hai detto? |
| Anna: Che non sono sicura di essere disponibile. |
| Marco: One more time, slowly. |
| Elena: Allora? Che cosa ha detto? |
| Anna: Mi ha chiesto cosa faccio questo fine settimana. |
| Elena: Cosa gli hai detto? |
| Anna: Che non sono sicura di essere disponibile. |
| Marco: Once again, this time, with a translation. |
| Elena: Allora? Che cosa ha detto? |
| Elena: So? What did he say? |
| Anna: Mi ha chiesto cosa faccio questo fine settimana. |
| Anna: He asked me what I am doing this weekend. |
| Elena: Cosa gli hai detto? |
| Elena: What did you tell him? |
| Anna: Che non sono sicura di essere disponibile. |
| Anna: That I am not sure if I am free. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Marco: So Cinzia, what do you think? Are they dating this weekend or not? |
| Cinzia: I donโt know, Marco. I donโt think Anna is very happy to go out with Peter. |
| Marco: Why is that? |
| Cinzia: She says, non sono sicura โIโm not sure,โ which means that sheโs not really in the mood for going out with him, which, according to me, and in womenโs language means Iโm not interested. |
| Marco: Oh, you donโt know that for sure. |
| Cinzia: Yeah, well, but I know for sure that if I wanna go out with someone, I just say yes. Why should I say no? |
| Marco: Well, only the future of this story will tell us what happened, really. |
| Cinzia: Okay, so letโs see what happens. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Marco: The first word isโฆ |
| Cinzia: allora [natural native speed] |
| Marco: so, then |
| Cinzia: allora [slowly - broken down by syllable] allora [natural native speed] |
| Marco: Next |
| Cinzia: disponibile [natural native speed] |
| Marco: available, free |
| Cinzia: disponibile [slowly - broken down by syllable] disponibile [natural native speed] |
| Marco: Next |
| Cinzia: chiedere [natural native speed] |
| Marco: to ask |
| Cinzia: chiedere [slowly - broken down by syllable] chiedere [natural native speed] |
| Marco: Next |
| Cinzia: fine settimana [natural native speed] |
| Marco: weekend |
| Cinzia: fine settimana [slowly - broken down by syllable] fine settimana [natural native speed] |
| Marco: Next |
| Cinzia: dire [natural native speed] |
| Marco: to say |
| Cinzia: dire [slowly - broken down by syllable] dire [natural native speed] |
| Marco: Next |
| Cinzia: sapere [natural native speed] |
| Marco: to know |
| Cinzia: sapere [slowly - broken down by syllable] sapere [natural native speed] |
| Marco: Next |
| Cinzia: sicura [natural native speed] |
| Marco: sure, certain (feminine singular) |
| Cinzia: sicura [slowly - broken down by syllable] sicura [natural native speed] |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Cinzia: Letโs have a look at the usage for some of the words. The first word we will look at is allora. |
| Marco: Cinzia, can you give us an example sentence, please? |
| Cinzia: Allora? Che cosa ha detto? |
| Marco: โSo, what did he say?โ |
| Cinzia: Okay. The next vocabulary word is - volere. |
| Marco: Letโs have an example. |
| Cinzia: Peter vuole una mela. |
| Marco: โPeter wants an apple.โ |
| Cinzia: Okay. The next vocabulary word is - disponibile. |
| Marco: One example please, Cinzia. |
| Cinzia: Forse, Anna non รจ disponibile. |
| Marco: Maybe, Anna isnโt available. |
| Cinzia: Next, we have an expression and itโs - fine settimana. |
| Marco: One example, please. |
| Cinzia: Cosa fai questo fine settimana? |
| Marco: โWhat will you do this weekend?โ This wraps it up for the vocabulary usage. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Cinzia: In order to express past actions and events, Italian language has a very rich and detailed variety of verbal modes and tenses. |
| Marco: In the dialogue, both Anna and Elena used a past verbal tense called passato prossimo (present perfect). |
| Cinzia: The passato prossimo is a compound tense composed of two words; the auxiliary verb and the past participle. It is used to express finished actions and events at the time of speaking. |
| Marco: This tense, Cinzia, corresponds to two different tenses in English, right? Itโs a bit complex. |
| Cinzia: Yes, it is complex, Marco. |
| Marco: Now, it corresponds to the simple past, for exampleโฆ |
| Cinzia: I visited Italy last year. |
| Marco: And the present perfect, for exampleโฆ |
| Cinzi: I have visited Italy for a month. |
| Marco: So, the English "I visited" and "I have visited" are the same in Italian, isnโt it? |
| Cinzia: Yes! I would say that the translation in Italian is the same, but obviously, the meanings are different. |
| Marco: Now, auxiliary verbs are avere "to have" and essere "to be." |
| Cinzia: In todayโs lesson, we will see the passato prossimo of transitive verbs (verbs that transfer action to a direct object). |
| Marco: Yes! And remember that all transitive verbs require the auxiliary, avere. |
| Cinzia: Donโt forget it. |
| Marco: To make the passato prossimo, you need the present tense of avere followed by the past participle of the verb you want. |
| Cinzia: You should already know the present tense of avere (Io ho, tu hai, etc.), so you now need to learn how to make the past participle. |
| Marco: Exactly. Now, it sounds so complex. All these words weโve seenโ |
| Cizia: Oh no, come on, Marco. Donโt frighten our students. |
| Marco: No, no. |
| Cinzia: Please. |
| Marco: Just the opposite. What I want to say is that weโve spent so many words, but in a few examples here, we will make it all so clear. |
| Cinzia: Yes, donโt worry because with us, everything is gonna be much easier. |
| Marco: Yes, with Cinzia, itโs always soโฆ |
| Cinzia: Funny? |
| Marco: Easy. Yeah, funny, funny, true. Okay, so, as alway, please check the PDF, because it may help you better understand written Italian, but here, weโll try and make the explanation as painless as possible. So, this is how it works, verbs for the first conjugation. For exampleโฆ |
| Cinzia: parlare |
| Marco โTo speak,โ for the past participle, changing toโฆ |
| Cinzia: parlato |
| Marco. Perfect. Instead, verbs of the second conjugation that is, for exampleโฆ |
| Cinzia: ricevere |
| Marco: โTo receive,โ for the past participle, changing toโฆ |
| Cinzia: ricevuto |
| Marco: And lastly, verbs of the third conjugation, for exampleโฆ |
| Cinzia: finire |
| Marco: โTo finish,โ for the past participle, changing toโฆ |
| Cinzia: finito |
| Marco: Now, this is the easy part. Weโve said so many things, but itโs just very, very simple, because -are becomesโฆ |
| Cinzia: -ato |
| Marco: -ere becomesโฆ |
| Cinzia: -uto |
| Marco: And -ire becomesโฆ |
| Cincia: -ito |
| Marco: Very simple! So, the vast majority of Italian verbs follow the rules we have just explained, donโt they? |
| Cinzia: Yes, Marco, youโre right. But dear listeners, please be careful because itโs not always like this. Because, Marco, tell us, what did we have in the dialogue? |
| Marco: Yes, yes, in the dialogue, sorry, listeners, we had two irregular verbs, I mean two verbs with an irregular past participle, and the verbs areโฆ |
| Cinzia: chiedere |
| Marco: โTo askโ andโฆ |
| Cinzia: dire |
| Marco: โTo say.โ So, chiedere โto ask,โ how does it become when it changes to past participle? |
| Cinzia: It becomes chiesto. |
| Marco: Perfect. And what about dire? What is the past participle of dire? |
| Cinzia: Itโs detto. |
| Marco: Perfect. So, chiedere becomesโฆ |
| Cinzia: chiesto |
| Marco: And dire becomesโฆ |
| Cinzia: detto |
| Marco: Well, we hope we made it easier. |
Outro |
| Cinzia: Be sure to check out the vocabulary list with audio in the Learning center at ItalianPod1010.com. Also, ask us a question in the forum or leave us a comment. Thank you, everyone and a presto! Ciao ciao! |
| Marco: Ciao a tutti! |
Comments
HideCosa fai questo fine settima? What are you doing this weekend?
Hi Janka,
thanks for posting.
The past participle is the same for all persons. It only aligned to the 3rd person, but it applies to all the others as well.
io ho chiesto / io ho detto
tu hai chiesto / tu hai detto
lui ha chiesto / lui ha detto
and so on.
I hope this helps! Let us know if you have any questions.
Valentina
Team ItalianPod101.com
Ciao tutti,
there is missing past participle for other persons - only one displeyed is the singular 3rd person, for both chiedere and dire,
thank you for fixing it,
BR,
Janka
Ciao Michelle,
Che bello! Wow!
Spero che vi siate divertiti. I hope you had fun.
Please check the correct spelling for your sentence :wink:
Io sono andata a casa di mia figlia, Lindsay. Sono una nonna e la mia nipotina ha due anni. Abbiamo festeggiato il suo compleanno.
Auguri! :smile:
Ofelia
Team ItalianPod101.com
Io andati a casa di figlia, Lindsay. Sono una nonna e mia nipotina lei e due anni. Abbiamo festeggiato la sua compleanno.
Ciao Peter,
It should be "Faccio volare il mio aliante" or in the future "farรฒ volare il mio aliante."
"Volare" is never transitive in Italian, so "to fly something" = "fare volare qualcosa".
A presto! :smile:
Ofelia
Team ItalianPod101.com
Volo il mio aliante. I fly my glider (don't know the future tense yet!)
Hi Peter,
When the subject in the 2 sentences is the same, and the first verb is a "thinking verb," you can use the infinitive in the second sentence.
Ex.
Non sono sicura di partire. = "I'm not sure if I leave."
Non siete sicuri di partire. = "You are sure if you leave."
If you choose the conjugated form instead, you should use the subjunctive:
Ex.
Non sono sicura che io parta.
Non siete sicuri che voi partiate.
However the second option has a more complicated grammar and sounds wordy.
I hope this helps! :smile:
Grazie,
Ofelia
Team ItalianPod101.com
"Che non sono sicura di essere disponibile" means "That I am not sure if I am available". Why is the infinitive "essere" used rather than "sono"?
Ciao Mike,
"sicuro" is an adjective and if it refers to a man it ends by -o, if it refers to a woman it ends by -a.
I hope this helps!
Ofelia
Team ItalianPod101.com
When I searched for how to say "Are you sure?" I found "Sei sicuro?" Is this because sicuro is a noun in this use and the noun ends with "o"?
Hi primus val,
Thank you for the question.
Here is a simple question:
"Marco mangia la mela." "Marco eats the apple".
The structure is SVO.
As for adjectives in Italian they usually follows the noun they modify and so do adverbs with verbs.
In some cases you can find adjectives that precede the nouns, but those are special cases, and the context should help you to understand the meaning. Basically we can say that in such cases, the adjective describes the noun in a subjective and connotative way.
I hope this helps to understand better!
If you have more questions, please leave a comment!
Ofelia
Team ItalianPod101.com
what is the sentence structure in italian language. most of the time i get confused on the placement of the words. which word comes first in a sentence, and which one follows. like in english we have sentence structure, like subject verb and object. then adjective follows the noun it qualifies, the same is applicable to verb and adverbs.
Hi Mehdi,
In Italian "dire" ("to tell," "to say") needs the preposition "a" ("to") before the name of the person who is asked, so "gli"="a lui" or "a Peter".
I hope this helps! If you have more questions, please leave another comment!
Grazie,
Ofelia
Team ItalianPod101.com
Ciao,
I have a question. I don't understand the structure of following sentence.
Cosa gli hai detto?
What did you tell him?
The problem is about using "gli" which refers to him. Is there any general rule for that in making questions?!
Regards,
Mehdi
Ciao Briana,
Grazie mille per il tuo commento. Thank you very much for your comment.
We agree with what you say, though the lessons are written by Italian native speakers and English is often used as a mere means to explain Italian grammar (forgive us for that!).
We often choose a literal translation, which is nearer to the Italian grammar, to better show the difference between Italian and English grammar, though in English is not correct.
Thank you for your understanding and keep up the great work!
If you have other questions or feedback, feel free to let us know!
Ofelia
Team ItalianPod101.com
Ciao!
First I'd like to say that I enjoy learning here very much--thank you for the entertaining lessons. I have already taken a quick trip to Italy and the basics have paid off :)
I did want to comment though, that there seems to be some confusion about the English verb tenses as described in the lesson. (Please forgive me, I am very particular about grammar!!!) Perhaps someone has mentioned it before, but during the lesson you say that in English one would say "I have visited Italy for a month."
This is an incorrect use of the English present perfect verb tense, because you should not put a specified time period on the present perfect http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/presentperfect.html.
A better example of the present perfect would be something like "I have visited Italy many times," or "I have visited Italy in the past." (unspecified time period with completed action).
Of course, if you are referring to a continuous action (not completed in the past), then the correct way to say this would be using the present perfect continuous "I have been visiting Italy for a month." http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/presentperfectcontinuous.html
However, you state in the lesson that the passato prossimo is for actions completed in the past, so I believe one of the examples I listed for the present perfect above would be better illustrations of English use.
If I am misunderstanding the lesson, again, excuse me for that and please let me know what I am missing.
I realize that re-recording things is complicated and I don't think it's a serious problem. I just wanted to bring this to your attention so that you may also be aware of the difference.
Grazie ancora per tutto quello che fate! (Thanks again for all that you do!)
Briana :)
Hi Melissa,
Yes, that -to put the adjective after the noun, is a general rule that works almost always! :thumbsup:
I think you can find more information in this lesson https://www.italianpod101.com/2010/08/23/all-about-3-painless-italian-grammar/
Thank you!
Ofelia
Team ItalianPod101.com
This doesn't have anything to do with the lesson, but I have never understood how to speak "backwards" in Italian. The only thing I understand about it is if there is an adjective before a noun, for instance, "the italian doctor", in Italian you would say "il dottore italiano". Am I right? Do you know where I could learn more about this subject?
Ciao ciao!
Hi Haiteng,
Maybe you wanted to say "Come stai in Italia?", "How are you in Italy?".
Grazie
A presto!
Ofelia
Team ItalianPod101.com
come sei in italia๏ผ