Learn how to use the little Italian word ci
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Intro |
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| Hi everybody! Marika here. Welcome to Ask a Teacher, where I’ll answer some of your most common Italian questions. |
| The Question |
| The question for this lesson is: How can I use the particle ci? |
| Explanation |
| The little Italian word ci can have different roles and thus, different meanings. |
| It can be a personal pronoun for the first person plural. In this case, it means “us.” Here are some examples: |
| Paolo ci ha invitato alla festa. |
| “Paolo invited us to the party.” |
| La nonna ci leggeva dei libri. |
| “Grandma used to read us books.” |
| You have to use ci with reflexive and reciprocal verbs, when referring to the first person plural “we.” |
| Let’s consider the reflexive verb svegliarsi, “to wake up.” “We wake up at six.” In Italian that’s Ci svegliamo alle sei. |
| Here’s another example with iscriversi, which means “to enroll.” |
| Ci siamo iscritti all’università. |
| “We enrolled at the university.” |
| An example of ci used with a reciprocal verb is the well-known expression Ci vediamo! This stands for “See you soon!” but literally means “We’ll see each other.” |
| Ci can also be an adverb of place, meaning “there.” Let’s see a couple of examples: |
| Someone asks you, Quando vai in biblioteca? (“When do you go to the library?”). You could answer, Ci vado tutti i giorni. This means “I go there every day.” |
| Another example: |
| Ci sono molte regole in italiano. |
| “There are a lot of rules in Italian.” |
| Lastly, sometimes ci takes the place of noun phrases introduced by the preposition a, especially with certain verbs. Let’s see a few examples. |
| First let’s consider pensare a..., which means “to think about…” |
| You may hear: Non ci pensare, meaning “Don’t think about it.” |
| Here ci may stay for a quel problema, “about that problem.” |
| Next is credere a, “to believe in.” |
| You may hear: Ci credo. This means “I believe in that.” |
| Here ci may stand for a Dio, “in God,” or alla notizia, meaning “in the (piece of) news.” |
| Last let’s see giocare a, “to play (at).” |
| Ci hai mai giocato? means “Have you ever played at it?” |
| Here ci may stand for a questo gioco, “(at) this game.” |
Outro |
| It’s not as difficult as you thought, right? |
| If you have any more questions, please leave a comment below! |
| Ci vediamo! “See you soon!” |
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