Review imperfect tense
Now Playing: Lesson Audio
Get a breakdown of the dialogue and translations instantly with the Premium line-by-line Audio. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
| INTRODUCTION |
| Marco: Marco here. Newbie Series, season 1 , Lesson 35 - Tell Me in Italian about How You Spent Your Summer. Hello and welcome to ItalianPod101.com. My name is Marco and I am joined here by Cinzia. Come stai Cinzia? |
| Cinzia: Sto bene grazie, Marco. Today we have the 35th lesson of our Newbie Series. |
| Marco: This series focuses on the essentials of Italian for anyone who wants to start learning. |
| Cinzia: Yes, join us for this lesson on Italianpod101.com. |
| Cinzia: Before we start, be sure to check out the vocabulary lists and the PDF for this lesson. |
| Marco: In today’s class, we shall see in more depth the usage of the imperfetto of the three conjugations, regular and irregular verbs. In the PDF, we shall have a review of their conjugation along with the correct stress to employ with six persons. |
| Cinzia: In today’s dialogue, I will be Laura and Marco will be John. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Laura: Quando eri in America, cosa facevi d’estate? |
| John: Andavo al mare, poi la sera mangiavo e bevevo con gli amici. |
| Laura: Avevi delle vacanze molto lunghe? |
| John: No, solo un mese. |
| Marco: Let’s hear it slowly now. |
| Laura: Quando eri in America, cosa facevi d’estate? |
| John: Andavo al mare, poi la sera mangiavo e bevevo con gli amici. |
| Laura: Avevi delle vacanze molto lunghe? |
| John: No, solo un mese. |
| Marco: And now, with the translation. |
| Laura: Quando eri in America, cosa facevi d’estate? |
| Marco: When you were in America, what did you do in the summer? |
| John: Andavo al mare, poi la sera mangiavo e bevevo con gli amici. |
| Marco: I used to go to the beach, then in the evening I ate and drank with friends. |
| Laura: Avevi delle vacanze molto lunghe? |
| Marco: Did you have long vacations? |
| John: No, solo un mese. |
| Marco: No, only one month. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Cinzia: Did you notice that in English, we say “in summer”, “in winter”, “in spring” or “in Autumn” and in Italian, we have two different ways. |
| Marco: We say in primavera, and in autunno. |
| Cinzia: “In spring” and “in autumn”, but we say d'estate and d’inverno. |
| Marco: “In summer” and “in winter”. |
| Cinzia: Yes. That d’ it’s made up of one D and the apostrophe, coming from the preposition di, “of”. It’s very strange, isn’t it? |
| Marco: Yes hmm… who knows why, but no time for that. |
| Cinzia: Yes. Let’s take a look at today’s vocabulary then. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Marco: Today’s first word is |
| Cinzia: America [natural native speed] |
| Marco: United States, America |
| Cinzia: America [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Cinzia: America [natural native speed] |
| Marco: Next word is |
| Cinzia: estate [natural native speed] |
| Marco: summer |
| Cinzia: estate [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Cinzia: estate [natural native speed] |
| Marco: And the next word is |
| Cinzia: poi [natural native speed] |
| Marco: then |
| Cinzia: poi [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Cinzia: poi [natural native speed] |
| Marco: And the next word is |
| Cinzia: mangiare [natural native speed] |
| Marco: to eat |
| Cinzia: mangiare [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Cinzia: mangiare [natural native speed] |
| Marco: Next word |
| Cinzia: vacanza [natural native speed] |
| Marco: vacation, holiday |
| Cinzia: vacanza [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Cinzia: vacanza [natural native speed] |
| Marco: Today’s last word is |
| Cinzia: mese [natural native speed] |
| Marco: month |
| Cinzia: mese [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Cinzia: mese [natural native speed] |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Marco: And now let’s have a look at the usage for some of the words and expressions. |
| Cinzia: The first word we will look at is America. |
| Marco: And the sample sentence is |
| Cinzia: Sei mai stato in America? |
| Marco: Have you ever been to the US? |
| Cinzia: Have you? |
| Marco: Never. Have you? |
| Cinzia: No, never. |
| Marco: Somebody should invite us. |
| Cinzia: Yes, please invite us. |
| Marco: Invitarci, “invite us”. |
| Cinzia: Sì, America. Next word. |
| Marco: Next word. |
| Cinzia: estate |
| Marco: And the sample sentence is |
| Cinzia: L'estate in Italia è molto calda. |
| Marco: Summer in Italy is very hot. |
| Cinzia: And yes it is, we can confirm. Next word we will look at is poi. |
| Marco: And the sample sentence is |
| Cinzia: Ho aspettato per un'ora, poi sono andata via. |
| Marco: I waited for an hour, then I left. |
| Cinzia: Next we have a verb. |
| Marco: And the verb is |
| Cinzia: mangiare |
| Marco: And the sample sentence is, |
| Cinzia: Hai mangiato bene? |
| Marco: Did you eat well. |
| Cinzia: The next word we will look at is vacanza. |
| Marco: And the sample sentence is, |
| Cinzia: Le vacanze estive sembrano sempre troppo brevi. |
| Marco: Summer vacations always feel too short. |
| Cinzia: That is so true. |
| Marco: Maybe because usually students wait till last day to do all the homework. |
| Cinzia: Marco, you always think about homework. They seem to be too short because we can never get enough of the beach, barbeques in the gardens… |
| Marco: Okay, okay so… |
| Cinzia: Parties. |
| Marco: So you mean la spiaggia, barbecue in giardino, feste... |
| Cinzia: Sì. |
| Marco: That’s what summer is all about. |
| Cinzia: Oh yes, but let’s take a look at the last word. |
| Marco: That is |
| Cinzia: mese |
| Marco: And the sample sentence is, |
| Cinzia: Tra un mese parto. |
| Marco: I am leaving in a month. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Cinzia: As we already stated, the imperfetto tense is one of the most frequently used Italian tenses. It refers to both distant and recent past occurrences, and it can describe the traits, characteristics, frequency, repetition of situations or beings. |
| Marco: While completed actions are expressed using the passato prossimo or passato remoto tenses. |
| Cinzia: Let’s see the four cases when we use the imperfetto. The first one is... |
| Marco: to express the traits of environment, situations or beings, providing information related to the narration's frame. So for Example, |
| Cinzia: C'era il sole e i bambini giocavano allegramente. |
| Marco: "It was sunny and the kids were playing cheerfully." |
| Cinzia: La collina era tranquilla mentre scendeva lenta la pioggia. |
| Marco: "The hill was quiet, while the rain was slowly falling." |
| Cinzia: The second case is to describe a repetition, a recurrence of an action, and a past habit. Marco: These semantic values in English with the auxiliary verb "used to”, followed by the thing you used to do. |
| Cinzia: Quando ero giovane, mi svegliavo piuttosto tardi. |
| Marco: "When I was young, I used to wake up quite late." |
| Cinzia: Note that "being young" is a trait of the subject, so the habit of waking up late is a recurrent action. |
| Marco: And next example is? |
| Cinzia: Mia nonna preparava la torta di mele ogni domenica mattina. |
| Marco: "My grandmother used to make an apple pie every Sunday morning." |
| Cinzia: The third case is to describe the personality or character of a person in the past. |
| Marco: For example |
| Cinzia: Napoleone era tanto intelligente quanto cauto. |
| Marco: "Napoleon was as intelligent as he was cautious." |
| Cinzia: Cesare era il più abile stratega e diplomatico romano. |
| Marco: "Caesar was the most skilled Roman strategist and diplomat." |
| Cinzia: And finally, we have the fourth and last case, which is to express an ongoing action in the past before it was interrupted. |
| Marco: For example |
| Cinzia: Stavo passeggiando quando ti ho visto arrivare. |
| Marco: "I was walking when I saw you coming." |
| Cinzia: Please note that the interrupting action is expressed in passato prossimo tense. |
| Marco: Next example |
| Cinzia: Guardavo la TV quando ha squillato il telefono. |
| Marco: "I was watching the TV when the telephone rang." I think this explanation is enough regarding the usage of the imperfetto in the four cases but in today’s PDF, we have another very interesting topic that concerns the correct stress, I mean pronunciation stress to employ when conjugating verbs in the imperfetto tense. All the conjugation of the verbs we have seen in the past four lessons with the accent clearly marked on the tonic vowel. |
Outro |
| Cinzia: And thank you very much Marco. Thank you very much listeners, and ci vediamo la prossima volta, grazie. |
| Marco: Ciao! |
| Cinzia: Ciao ciao! |
Comments
Hide