Learn how to use the imperfect tense of Italian verbs to describe someone's personality in the past
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Cinzia: Buon giorno a tutti! Sono Cinzia. |
| Marco: Marco here. Newbie Series, season 1, lesson #33 - Do You Know the Italian Athlete Fausto Coppi? Buon giorno a tutti! My name is Marco. And I’m joined here by our lovely Cinzia. Come Stai? |
| Cinzia: Benissimo, grazie, Marco. Hello and welcome to the 33rd lesson of Newbie Series. |
| Marco: Here we take a broad approach to the language, emphasizing listening comprehension |
| Cinzia: speech, grammar |
| Marco: vocabulary and usage. |
| Cinzia: So join us for this lesson of Italianpod101.com. |
| Marco: Here we take a broad approach to the language, emphasizing listening comprehension |
| Cinzia: speech, grammar |
| Marco: vocabulary and usage. |
| Cinzia: So join us for this lesson of Italianpod101.com. |
| Marco: Before we jump in, remember to reinforce your Italian by using the Grammar Bank of the Learning Center at Italianpod101.com. |
| Cinzia: In today’s lesson, we will be studying the imperfetto tense again, but… |
| Marco: This time of the second conjugation verbs. |
| Cinzia: Yes. So the description regards both irregular and regular verbs. |
| Marco: In today’s dialogue, I will be John while Cinzia will be… |
| Cinzia: Laura. |
| Marco: And they will be talking about a very famous Italian cyclist. |
| Cinzia: Fausto Coppi. |
| Marco: Yes, let’s start the dialogue. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Laura: Conosci Fausto Coppi? |
| John: No, chi è? |
| Laura: Era il più grande ciclista italiano, correva molto veloce! |
| John: Davvero? |
| Laura: Si e non beveva mai prima delle gare. |
| Marco: Let’s hear it slowly now. |
| Laura: Conosci Fausto Coppi? |
| John: No, chi è? |
| Laura: Era il più grande ciclista italiano, correva molto veloce! |
| John: Davvero? |
| Laura: Si e non beveva mai prima delle gare. |
| Marco: And now, with the translation. |
| Laura: Conosci Fausto Coppi? |
| Marco: Do you know Fausto Coppi? |
| John: No, chi è? |
| Marco: No, who is he? |
| Laura: Era il più grande ciclista italiano, correva molto veloce! |
| Marco: He was the greatest Italian cyclist; he ran very fast! |
| John: Davvero? |
| Marco: Really? |
| Laura: Si e non beveva mai prima delle gare. |
| Marco: Yes, and he never drank before races. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Marco: And there actually is a very, very famous story concerning Fausto Coppi’s habit of not drinking any alcohol before races. |
| Cinzia: That’s what any sportsperson should do. |
| Marco: Certainly, but the story goes like this. Bartelli, another famous cyclist and Coppi, they were both racing uphill on the Alps when Coppi gets very, very tired and has cramps in his legs. So Bartelli stops, goes back to him and says, |
| Cinzia: Coppi sei un acquaiolo! Ricordatelo! Solo un acquaiolo. |
| Marco: And what he meant to say is that people who don’t drink little bit of wine are worthless people and in that time, you said, acquaiolo, somebody who only drinks or sells water. |
| Cinzia: That’s a really nice story and actually I want to seize the chance and say that even if Bartelli and Coppi were, how can I say, enemies? |
| Marco: Well, competitors. |
| Cinzia: Yes. They used to… |
| Marco: Help each other. |
| Cinzia: Yes, exactly so… |
| Marco: They used to encourage one another, and in this case, Bartelli wanted to show him that he had to make more sacrifices because their family had made so many sacrifices to help him race and it was just after Second World War, I mean not even 10 years, 20 years after it. So Italy was still rather a poor country. |
| Cinzia: Yes. They are both very important characters of the Italian history. |
| Marco: They sure are, and so we’ve just seen in today’s dialogue, and in the explanation we’ve given you that we sometimes use the imperfetto to describe the personality or character of a person in the past. |
| Cinzia: Yes in fact in the dialogue, we found Laura’s line, era il più grande ciclista italiano, correva molto veloce! |
| Marco: “He was the greatest Italian cyclist. He ran very fast”. Now let’s take a look at today’s vocabulary. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Marco: Today’s first word is |
| Cinzia: conoscere [natural native speed] |
| Marco: to know |
| Cinzia: conoscere [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Cinzia: conoscere [natural native speed] |
| Marco: Next word is |
| Cinzia: ciclista [natural native speed] |
| Marco: cyclist |
| Cinzia: ciclista [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Cinzia: ciclista [natural native speed] |
| Marco: Next word is |
| Cinzia: correre [natural native speed] |
| Marco: to run |
| Cinzia: correre [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Cinzia: correre [natural native speed] |
| Marco: Next word is |
| Cinzia: veloce [natural native speed] |
| Marco: fast |
| Cinzia: veloce [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Cinzia: veloce [natural native speed] |
| Marco: And the next word is |
| Cinzia: bere [natural native speed] |
| Marco: to drink |
| Cinzia: bere [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Cinzia: bere [natural native speed] |
| Marco: And next word |
| Cinzia: prima [natural native speed] |
| Marco: before, earlier |
| Cinzia: prima [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Cinzia: prima [natural native speed] |
| Marco: Today’s last word is |
| Cinzia: gara [natural native speed] |
| Marco: competition, contest, race |
| Cinzia: gara [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Cinzia: gara [natural native speed] |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Cinzia: And now let’s have a look at the usage for some of the words and expressions. The first word we will look at is conoscere. |
| Marco:And the first sample sentence is, |
| Cinzia: Conosci il mio amico Mario? |
| Marco: Do you know my friend Mario. |
| Cinzia: Next we have a noun ciclista. |
| Marco: And the sample sentence is, |
| Cinzia: Il ciclista si è rotto una gamba. |
| Marco: The cyclist broke his leg. |
| Cinzia: Next, we have a verb correre |
| Marco: And the sample sentence is |
| Cinzia: Ho corso per due ore. |
| Marco: I ran for 2 hours. |
| Cinzia: Next, we have an adjective, veloce. |
| Marco: And the sample sentence is, |
| Cinzia: La nuova Ferrari corre molto veloce. |
| Marco: The new Ferrari runs very fast. |
| Cinzia: Yes. Do you like Ferrari? |
| Marco: I do like Ferrari, but I don’t think I’d ever drive one. I will be too scared. |
| Cinzia: Really, why? |
| Marco: There is too much money around me. |
| Cinzia: So what? It’s a Ferrari. |
| Marco: It scares me. |
| Cinzia: Oh, come on. |
| Marco: Too much power in that car. |
| Cinzia: What about Lamborghini? |
| Marco: Well, I like Lamborghini’s design also. |
| Cinzia: What about Porsche? |
| Marco: Talk about Italian brands. I like Alfa Romeo. |
| Cinzia: Me too. |
| Marco: I like the police cars we have in Italy. The Alfa Romeo they have, they are wonderful. |
| Cinzia: But have you heard that the Italian police owns now two models of Lamborghini? |
| Marco: Oh yes, they use these Lamborghini for high speed pursuits on our Italian highways and also for ceremonial purposes. |
| Cinzia: Next we have a verb bere. |
| Marco: And the sample sentence is, |
| Cinzia: Beviamo un tè? |
| Marco: Shall we drink tea? |
| Cinzia: And the last word we will look at is gara. |
| Marco: And the last sample sentence is, |
| Cinzia: Hai vinto la gara? |
| Marco: Did you win the race? |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Marco: As we saw before, in today’s lesson, we use the imperfetto to describe the personality or character of a person in the past, but now we should see the… |
| Cinzia: Second conjugation verbs. |
| Marco: Perfect. And as with the first conjugation verbs, we just drop the stem for the infinitive and add the appropriate endings for the imperfetto. |
| Cinzia: What is the appropriate ending for the second conjugation? |
| Marco: It is -evo, -evi, -eva, -evamo, -evate, -evano. |
| Cinzia: Now let’s see it in the verb’s conjugation. |
| Marco: And today’s first verb is |
| Cinzia: spegnere |
| Marco: “to switch off" |
| Cinzia: Io spegn-evo |
| Marco: "I switched off" |
| Cinzia: Tu spegn-evi |
| Marco: "You switched off" |
| Cinzia: Lui/lei spegn-eva |
| Marco: "He/she/it switched off" |
| Cinzia: Noi spegn-evamo |
| Marco: "We switched off" |
| Cinzia: Voi spegn-evate |
| Marco: "You switched off" |
| Cinzia: Loro spegn-evano |
| Marco: "They switched off" |
| Cinzia: Next we have the verb correre |
| Marco: "to run" |
| Cinzia: Io corr-evo |
| Marco: "I ran" |
| Cinzia: Tu corr-evi |
| Marco: "You ran" |
| Cinzia: Lui/lei corr-eva |
| Marco: "He/she/it ran" |
| Cinzia: Noi corr-evamo |
| Marco: "We ran" |
| Cinzia: Voi corr-evate |
| Marco: "You ran" |
| Cinzia: Loro corr-evano |
| Marco: "They ran" |
| Cinzia: These verbs follow the regular conjugation. |
| Marco: As is with the majority of verbs in the imperfetto tense. Instead, now let’s take a look at the verb of the second conjugation that is actually irregular also in the imperfetto tense. |
| Cinzia: And it’s an exception. So let’s see its conjugation. It’s the verb bere. |
| Marco: "to drink" |
| Cinzia: Io bev-evo |
| Marco: "I drank" |
| Cinzia: Tu bev-evi |
| Marco: "You drank" |
| Cinzia: Lui/lei bev-eva |
| Marco: "He/she/it drank" |
| Cinzia: Noi bev-evamo |
| Marco: "We drank" |
| Cinzia: Voi bev-evate |
| Marco: "You drank" |
| Cinzia: Loro bev-evano |
| Marco: "They drank". And just as we saw with the verb fare in the last lesson of the newbie series, also bere follows, just as fare, its Latin root, in this case bev. And after bev we just attach the normal infinitive tense endings for the second conjugation. That’s it. |
Outro |
| Cinzia: After this very, very easy lesson, I think that’s all and see you next time. |
| Marco: Yes! Ciao ciao, a presto. |
| Cinzia: Ciao, a presto! |
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