Learn how to introduce other people in Italian both formally and informally
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Cinzia: Buongiorno! Mi chiamo Cinzia. |
| Marco: Marco here! Beginner series Season 1, Lesson 3 - An Italian Dilemma: To Kiss or Not to Kiss. Buongiorno tutti! |
| Cinzia: Buongiorno! Come stai Marco oggi? |
| Marco: Bene, tu? |
| Cinzia: Io bene, grazie. |
| Marco: Benessimo. |
| Cinzia: Thank you for joining us at ItalianPod101.com, we are going to learn Italian in a fun and interesting way. So join us for this lesson on ItalianPod101.com |
| Marco: In this lesson, we will prepare you to introduce other people in Italian both formally and informally. |
| Cinzia: This conversation takes place at a bowling alley. |
| Marco: And it is between Peter, Elena, and Anna. |
| Cinzia: And they will be speaking both formal and informal Italian. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Elena: Peter, ti presento Anna. |
| Anna: Ciao, Peter. È un piacere conoscerti. |
| Peter: Ciao. Altrettanto. Di dove sei? |
| Anna: Sono di Firenze. Siamo tutte e due di Firenze. |
| Marco: One more time, slowly. |
| Cinzia: Ancora una volta, lentamente. |
| Elena: Peter, ti presento Anna. |
| Anna: Ciao, Peter. È un piacere conoscerti. |
| Peter: Ciao. Altrettanto. Di dove sei? |
| Anna: Sono di Firenze. Siamo tutte e due di Firenze. |
| Marco: Once again, this time with the translation. |
| Cinzia: Questa volta con la traduzione. |
| Elena: Peter, ti presento Anna. |
| Elena: Peter, this is Anna. |
| Anna: Ciao, Peter. È un piacere conoscerti. |
| Anna: Hello, Peter. Nice to meet you. |
| Peter: Ciao. Altrettanto. Di dove sei? |
| Peter: Hello, nice to meet you, too. Where are you from? |
| Anna: Sono di Firenze. Siamo tutte e due di Firenze. |
| Anna: I’m from Florence. We’re both from Florence. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Cinzia: Marco, I think there’s something new in here. |
| Marco: What do you mean? Where is it? I can’t actually see it. |
| Cinzia: Didn’t we have something similar to è un piacere conoscerti in the past lessons? |
| Marco: Oh, yes, yes. In the past lessons, we saw piacere di conoscerti “pleased to meet you.” Instead, how could we explain è un piacere conoscerti? |
| Cinzia: Mm, good question, Marco. Do you think there is a big difference between the two? |
| Marco: Not such a big difference. Maybe, the biggest difference is that in this case, è un piacere conoscerti could be literally translated, “It’s a pleasure meeting you.” |
| Cinzia: Oh, yes! |
| Marco: But in any case, in English, it would be easier to just translate to “Nice to meet you.” |
| Cinzia: So, Marco, I think they’re both interchangeable, aren’t they? |
| Marco: Very true, very true. Which one would you use more? |
| Cinzia: Mm, well, um, I think I would use piacere di conoscerti. |
| Marco: So, è un piacere conoscerti is not so common, but you can hear it, right? |
| Cinzia: Yes, of course, you can hear it, but you can hear it more often in the formal dialogue and you would find it as è un piacere conoscerla. |
| Marco: Perfect. More on the formal dialogue in the bonus track, so let’s keep focus on the informal now. |
| Cinzia: Okay. |
| Marco: Now, we’ll take a look at the vocab and phrases for this lesson. So, first… |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Cinzia: ti presento [natural native speed] |
| Marco: This is… (literally, I present to you.) (informal) |
| Cinzia: ti presento [slowly - broken down by syllable] ti presento [natural native speed] |
| Marco: Next |
| Cinzia: di dove sei [natural native speed] |
| Marco: where are you from |
| Cinzia: di dove sei [slowly - broken down by syllable] di dove sei [natural native speed] |
| Marco: Next |
| Cinzia: tutte e due [natural native speed] |
| Marco: both |
| Cinzia: tutte e due [slowly - broken down by syllable] tutte e due [natural native speed] |
| Marco: Next |
| Cinzia: Firenze [natural native speed] |
| Marco: Florence |
| Cinzia: Firenze [slowly - broken down by syllable] Firenze [natural native speed] |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Marco: Okay, Cinzia, about tutte e due, there’s also a masculine version. |
| Cinzia: Correct, Marco. |
| Marco: But we’ll talk about this in the next vocabulary section. |
| Cinzia: Now, let’s have a look at the usage for some of the words. The first expression we will look at is ti presento. |
| Marco: Cinzia, can you give us an example sentence, please? |
| Cinzia: Ti presento Francesco. |
| Marco: “This is Francesco.” And we’re always talking about my girls. What about this Francesco, who’s he? |
| Cinzia: Francesco, hmm, he’s no one. It’s just my imaginary friend. |
| Marco: Well, we all have a few imaginary friends, that’s true. Be careful because Francesco is a male name, while… |
| Cinzia: Francesca is a female one. |
| Marco: Now, let’s go back to ti presento. |
| Cinzia: Which works just as the English, “this is.” |
| Marco: But we should see it in more depth in the grammar section. |
| Cinzia: The next expression we’re going to look at today is di dove sei. |
| Marco: Cinzia, let’s have an example with di dove sei. |
| Cinzia: Di dove sei, Marco? |
| Marco: Where are you from, Marco? |
| Cinzia: The best answer would be one’s home city or nearest important city in order to let the speaker easily understand. |
| Marco: Exactly. So, Cinzia, let’s say that you live in a small city near Los Angeles. What would you answer to, di dove sei? |
| Cinzia: I would answer, sono di Los Angeles. |
| Marco: Because, certainly, maybe I don’t know which small city it is, but in this case, I quickly understand the region and the location of your house. |
| Cinzia: Exactly. |
| Marco: Okay, moving on. Cinzia, would you give us the next expression? |
| Cinzia: Tutte e due. |
| Marco: One example with tutte e due, please. |
| Cinzia: Io e Marco siamo tutti e due Italiani. |
| Marco: “Me and Marco, we are both Italians.” Be careful, because in this case, we were one male and one female, so we use the masculine. But in the case of two girls, like in the dialogue, we have to use… |
| Cinzia: Siamo tutte e due Italiane. |
| Marco: This is because tutti e due refers to male-male or male-female cases, while tutte e due refers to female-female cases only. So basically, if it was me and a friend, let’s say, Peter, it would be tutti e due (masculine). While if it was me and Cinzia, male and female, it would still be tutti e due. Instead, Cinzia, in the case of two girls, maybe you and… |
| Cinzia: Elena. |
| Marco: What would it be? |
| Cinzia: Tutte e due, tutte e due (feminine). Now, let’s jump back to the sample sentence. |
| Marco: Which was, siamo tutti e due Italiani. |
| Cinzia: Be careful because there is one more change here. Italiani is masculine plural, which is different from Italiane, which is feminine plural, which we had in the conversation. |
| Marco: So, let’s compare them side by side, one more time. In the conversation, we had siamo tutte e due Italiane, while the male version would be… |
| Cinzia: Siamo tutti e due Italiani. |
| Marco: And another useful trick to know is that you can also transform this phrase to mean all of any number of people. |
| Cinzia: So, for example, to say all three, you just change due to tre, tutte e tre. |
| Marco: “All three.” What about four? |
| Cinzia: Tutte e quattro. |
| Marco: And five? |
| Cinzia: Tutte e cinque. |
| Marco: And we could go on forever, but let’s stop here for now. And the last word is… |
| Cinzia: Firenze |
| Marco: “Florence.” This wraps it up for the vocabulary usage. |
| Cinzia: Marco, have you ever been to Florence? |
| Marco: I have, actually, nice city! Well, food is great. It’s a bit snowy when I went there, but nice. |
| Cinzia: What did you eat, Marco? |
| Marco: Well certainly, I ate Bistecca alla Fiorentina. |
| Cinzia: Mm, che buona. |
| Marco: And how can we translate that in English? |
| Cinzia: Fiorentina steak. |
| Marco: Mm, I’m so hungry now. Okay then, let’s move on. Let’s start with the grammar point. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Marco: While in English, we usually say “this is,” the Italian version ti presento is literally translated, “I present to you.” |
| Cinzia: If introducing someone to a group of people, the indirect object pronoun ti becomes vi. Marco: For example, vi presento Anna. |
| Cinzia: In a formal setting, le, a lei, is used. |
| Marco: Le presento Anna. The indirect object pronoun is to whom or for whom the action of a verb is performed. Cinzia, let’s take a look at the various cases. |
| Cinzia: Oh, Marco come on! Are you trying to scare our listeners? |
| Marco: Why? It’s actually interesting. |
| Cinzia: If we lose one listener, Marco, I will… I would beat you. |
| Marco: Okay then, let’s leave it to the PDF. So, please, if you wanna see the various cases of the indirect object pronouns, please check the PDF. |
| Cinzia: That’s better, Marco. |
| Marco: But let’s see today’s verb, please. Presentare “to present.” First person singular. |
| Cinzia: Presento. |
| Marco: “I present.” Second person singular. |
| Cinzia: Presenti. |
| Marco: “You present.” Third person singular. |
| Cinzia: Presenta. |
| Marco: “He/she presents.” And we’ll stop here only with the first, second, and third person singular. I think listeners should actually check the PDF today. We have- we have so many interesting grammar topics and stop, stop laughing, Cinzia. You never like grammar. |
| Cinzia: I’m sorry, Marco. To me, grammar is just pretty boring. |
| Marco: We’ll, it’s actually boring for me too, but it’s interesting to check the grammar when you’re starting to learn a language. |
| Cinzia: Yes, and it’s a part they have to know. |
| Marco: Otherwise, Cinzia will beat them too. |
Outro |
| Marco: Okay then, this will conclude this Italian lesson. |
| Cinzia: Be sure to pick up the PDF at ItalianPod1010.com. |
| Marco: Also, if you have any questions, feel free to use our forum or comment on today’s lesson. |
| Cinzia: See you again tomorrow! |
| Marco: Ciao! A domani! |
| Cinzia: Ciao ciao! |
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