Learn how to introduce yourself
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 |
| Ciao! Hello and welcome back to Italian survival phrases brought to you by ItalianPod101.com, this course is designed to equip you with the language skills and knowledge to enable you to get the most out of your visit to Italy. You will be surprised at how far a little Italian will go. |
| Now, before we jump in, remember to stop by ItalianPod101.com and there, you will find the accompanying PDF and additional info in the post. If you stop by, be sure to leave us a comment. |
| Whatever the reason for travelling to Italy, you won’t leave the country without having met people, so it’s a must to learn how to introduce yourself and how to respond to people introducing themselves. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| The best way to introduce ourselves is maybe by reviewing the parts of a conversation. As you know we have a polite version, the one where we use the formal level of speech, and the other one where we use the informal level. |
| Let’s cover the formal version first. |
| In Italian, “How do you do?” is come sta? |
| come sta? |
| Let’s break it down by syllable and hear it one more time: come sta? |
| come sta? |
| The first word come means “how”, co-me come. |
| This is followed by sta, which in English literally means “you stay.” |
| Sta, sta. |
| So all together, we have: come sta? which literally means “How do you stay?” and it’s translated as “How do you do?” |
| After come sta, we will cover “My name is…” and we will use my name this time, so “my name is Cinzia” is mi chiamo Cinzia. |
| mi chiamo Cinzia. |
| Let’s break it down by syllable: mi chiamo Cinzia. |
| Now let's hear it once again: mi chiamo Cinzia. |
| The first word mi means “me,” and it’s followed by chiamo which in English is “call." |
| Chiamo |
| And, chiamo |
| So to recap here we have mi chiamo, which literally means “I call myself.” |
| Then you have the name, in this case, Cinzia. |
| All together, we have: mi chiamo Cinzia, which literally means “I call myself Cinzia." |
| After that, we will cover “Nice to meet you,” which in Italian is piacere di conoscerla. |
| piacere di conoscerla. |
| Let’s break it down by syllable and hear it once again: piacere di conoscerla. |
| Now piacere di conoscerla. |
| The first word, piacere, literally means “pleasure." |
| Then you have di “of.” |
| Let's hear it one more time: di |
| And finally you have conoscerla which in English is “know you." |
| All together, we have: piacere di conoscerla which literally means “pleasure of knowing you." |
| Let’s look over the informal level now. It’s very straightforward because you need to change just few things. |
| Come sta? "How do you do?" becomes come stai? |
| Since you are using now the second person singular in place of the third person singular of the formal level. |
| Let’s break it down by syllable and hear it one more time: come stai? |
| come stai? |
| The second part doesn’t change at all, in fact we have also in the informal level mi chiamo Cinzia. "My name is Cinzia". |
| Instead, in place of piacere di conoscerla “nice to meet you”, in the informal level we have piacere di conoscerti. |
| piacere di conoscerti |
| So the only thing that changes is once again the verb, the first part piacere di is the same, then you have conoscerti in place of conoscerla. |
| So all together, we have: piacere di conoscerti. |
Outro |
| Okay, to close out this lesson, we'd like you to practice what you've just learned. I'll provide you with the English equivalent of the phrase and you're responsible for shouting it aloud. You have a few seconds before I give you the answer, so buona fortuna, which means “good luck” in Italian. |
| “How do you do?“ - Come sta? |
| Come sta? |
| Come sta? |
| "My name is ..." - Mi chiamo. |
| Mi chiamo. |
| Mi chiamo. |
| "Pleased to meet you." - Piacere di conoscerla. |
| Piacere di conoscerla. |
| Piacere di conoscerla. |
| "How do you do?" - Come stai? |
| Come stai? |
| Come stai? |
| "Pleased to meet you." - Piacere di conoscerti. |
| Piacere di conoscerti. |
| Piacere di conoscerti. |
| That’s going to do it for today. Remember to stop by ItalianPod101.com and pick up the accompanying PDF. If you stop by, be sure to leave us a comment. Ciao ciao! |
Comments
Hide