Learn about the clauses non and niente, and the usage of the word magari to express wishes and desires
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Marco: Marco here! Beginner series Season 1, Lesson 31 - Will You Find the Right Places to Shop in Italy? |
| Cinzia: Buongiorno a tutti, I’m Cinzia and I’d like to welcome you to the 31st lesson of the beginner series in ItalianPod101.com. |
| Marco: Thank you for joining us at ItalianPod101.com. We’re going to teach Italian in a fun and interesting way. |
| Cinzia: So guys, stay tuned. |
| Marco: Girls too. |
| Cinzia: In today’s lesson, we will see how to translate an English negative sentence in Italian, and how to use the closest "non" and "niente" and the usage of the word "magari" to express wishes and desires. |
| Marco: So, don’t forget to check out the PDF for today’s grammar. |
| Cinzia: Let’s jump right in. |
| Marco: In today’s dialogue, I will be Luca while Cinzia will be Elena. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Luca: Sei andata a fare shopping? |
| Elena: Sì, ma non ho comprato niente. |
| Luca: Come mai? |
| Elena: Non ho trovato nulla di carino. |
| Luca: Dovevo portarti io nei posti giusti! |
| Elena: Magari. |
| Marco: Let's hear it slowly now. |
| Cinzia: Ascoltiamolo lentamente. |
| Luca: Sei andata a fare shopping? |
| Elena: Sì, ma non ho comprato niente. |
| Luca: Come mai? |
| Elena: Non ho trovato nulla di carino. |
| Luca: Dovevo portarti io nei posti giusti! |
| Elena: Magari. |
| Marco: And now, with the translation. |
| Cinzia: E ora, con la traduzione. |
| Luca: Sei andata a fare shopping? |
| Luca: Did you go shopping? |
| Elena: Sì, ma non ho comprato niente. |
| Elena: Yes, but I didn't buy anything. |
| Luca: Come mai? |
| Luca: How come? |
| Elena: Non ho trovato nulla di carino. |
| Elena: I didn't find anything nice. |
| Luca: Dovevo portarti io nei posti giusti! |
| Luca: I should have taken you to the right places. |
| Elena: Magari. |
| Elena: I wish. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Cinzia: What’s going on here between Luca and Elena? Why is Luca so concerned about Elena’s shopping? |
| Marco: Maybe Elena really dresses weird. |
| Cinzia: She does? |
| Marco: Don’t know. Haven’t seen her picture yet. |
| Cinzia: No, never, but we don’t know, but Luca wants to take Elena shopping for some special reasons. |
| Marco: Apart from that, many Italian boys actually are fashion conscious. |
| Cinzia: Oh yes, so many. |
| Marco: I mean if you stroll down the streets of Milano, Firenze, Roma, you can see all these youngsters really dressed with the latest fashions, so really fashion conscious. |
| Cinzia: In Roma, in via Condotti. |
| Marco: Oh, nice! |
| Cinzia: And in Milano, in corso Vittorio Emanuele |
| Marco: Exactly. |
| Cinzia: So many. |
| Marco: So many, also in my small town of Sanremo. |
| Cinzia: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So many boys, so many vain boys, actually. |
| Marco: Really? |
| Cinzia: Yes, they are. |
| Marco: Big expensive sunglasses on their face. |
| Cinzia: Yes, expensive jeans. They love jeans. And you know what? |
| Marco: What, what? |
| Cinzia: They go to the beautician! |
| Marco: They do?! |
| Cinzia: Of course. |
| Marco: Okay, I never go. Do you go? |
| Cinzia: Well, sometimes, yes. |
| Marco: Okay, good. She goes to the beautician. Well, it’s normal, I think. |
| Cinzia: Well, it wouldn’t be normal if I didn’t go. So let’s take a look at today’s vocabulary please. |
| Marco: Exactly. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Marco: The first one is… |
| Cinzia: fare shopping [natural native speed] |
| Marco: go/do shopping |
| Cinzia: fare shopping [slowly - broken down by syllable] fare shopping [natural native speed] |
| Marco: Next word is… |
| Cinzia: niente [natural native speed] |
| Marco: nothing |
| Cinzia: niente [slowly - broken down by syllable] niente [natural native speed] |
| Marco: Next, we have an expression. |
| Cinzia: come mai [natural native speed] |
| Marco: how come/why |
| Cinzia: come mai [slowly - broken down by syllable] come mai [natural native speed] |
| Marco: Next word… |
| Cinzia: trovare [natural native speed] |
| Marco: to find |
| Cinzia: trovare [slowly - broken down by syllable] trovare [natural native speed] |
| Marco: And next word… |
| Cinzia: nulla [natural native speed] |
| Marco: nothing |
| Cinzia: nulla [slowly - broken down by syllable] nulla [natural native speed] |
| Marco: Next word… |
| Cinzia: portare [natural native speed] |
| Marco: to bring, take |
| Cinzia: portare [slowly - broken down by syllable] portare [natural native speed] |
| Marco: Next word… |
| Cinzia: posto [natural native speed] |
| Marco: place |
| Cinzia: posto [slowly - broken down by syllable] posto [natural native speed] |
| Marco: And today’s last word is… |
| Cinzia: giusto [natural native speed] |
| Marco: right, fair |
| Cinzia: giusto [slowly - broken down by syllable] giusto [natural native speed] |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Cinzia: And now, let’s take a look at the usage for some of the words and expressions. |
| Marco: Hooray! |
| Cinzia: The first word we will look at is come mai. |
| Marco: And the example sentence is… |
| Cinzia: Come mai non vieni stasera? |
| Marco: "Why aren't you coming tonight?" |
| Cinzia: The next word we will look at is trovare. |
| Marco: And the sample sentence is… |
| Cinzia: Non trovo le chiavi. |
| Marco: "I can't find my keys." This kind of expression, I mean non trovo followed by the thing you can’t find, is very common in Italian. For example, “I can’t find the dog.” |
| Cinzia: Non trovo il cane. |
| Marco: “I can’t find the wallet.” |
| Cinzia: Non trovo il portafoglio. “I can’t find my head.” |
| Marco: Non trovo la mia testa. Well, this isn’t that often used, but yes, it can happen. |
| Cinzia: This is my case, maybe. |
| Marco: Yes, I left it in the drawer, maybe. |
| Cinzia: Okay, okay. Let’s take a look at the next word please. |
| Marco: That is… |
| Cinzia: nulla |
| Marco: And the example sentence is… |
| Cinzia: Non voglio nulla da te. |
| Marco: "I want nothing from you." |
| Cinzia: So, the usage of nulla and niente is exactly the same, right? |
| Marco: Yes, it is. |
| Cinzia: Maybe nulla can just be used more often in the formal language. |
| Marco: Yes, but meaning is the same. |
| Cinzia: And the next word is portare. |
| Marco: And the sample sentence is… |
| Cinzia: Portami al mare domani! |
| Marco: "Take me to the beach tomorrow!" |
| Cinzia: Portare can mean “to bring” but also to take. If I say to you, portami dell’acqua per favore. |
| Marco: “Bring me some water, please.” |
| Cinzia: Portami a ballare. |
| Marco: “Take me dancing.” Because we have that portami so it means “take me” (somewhere). |
| Cinzia: Next word is posto. |
| Marco: And the example sentence is… |
| Cinzia: Che posto è questo? |
| Marco: "What kind of place is this?" |
| Cinzia: The last word we will look at is giusto. |
| Marco: And the last example sentence is… |
| Cinzia: Non è il momento giusto. |
| Marco: It’s not the right moment, but it is the right moment for grammar, ma è il momento giusto per la grammatica. |
| Cinzia: Oh, c’è sempre il momento giusto per la grammatica in ItalianPod101. |
| Marco: There is always the right moment for grammar in ItalianPod101. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Cinzia: Today’s first topic regards the verb “to wish” and its Italian translation. |
| Marco: In the dialogue, Elena says “I wish” but in informal Italian would be magari. But actually behind this magari, there is a little bit more grammar because what she’s actually omitting is magari l’avessi fatto. |
| Cinzia: “I wish you did it.” Because you can use magari in both formal and informal level, we can have - Hai vinto alla lotteria? Magari. |
| Marco: "Did you win the lottery? I wish." Well, in the formal speech, you would have… |
| Cinzia: Ha vinto alla lotteria? Magari avessi vinto! |
| Marco: "Did you win the lottery? I wish I did." |
| Cinzia: In the formal level of speech, we don’t omit avessi vinto. |
| Marco: Exactly. Always remember, in the majority of languages, the shorter it is, the more informal it is, while the longer it is, the more formal it is. |
| Cinzia: True. |
| Marco: And in this case, the verb avessi, the verb would be avere, the infinitive form, it’s conjugated… |
| Cinzia: In the congiuntivo mode, subjunctive mode |
| Marco: So that is something that we still haven’t seen, but we will see very soon. |
| Cinzia: A second topic we have a particular way to express negations. |
| Marco: In English, we have two options to express a negation. The first one might be "He didn’t understand anything," while the second one might be “He understood nothing." |
| Cinzia: In Italian, we convey the negation by adding the negative clause non between the subject and the verb and employing the pronoun niente (or nulla in formal Italian). So this sentence would be translated as - Non ha capito niente. First, we have non then passato prossimo and then the pronoun niente, which literally means “He understood nothing.” |
| Marco: Yes. One more example about this topic, “I did nothing” and “I didn’t do anything” would both be translated in Italian as… |
| Cinzia: Non ho fatto niente. |
| Marco: Or certainly - Non ho fatto nulla in formal speech. But as you see, the construction is the same in both sentences. |
| Cinzia: Please just note that the double negation is in Italian just as a stylistic method to reinforce the negation itself. |
| Marco: It does not mean an affirmation. |
| Cinzia: As in English. And lastly, we have the expression come mai, which can be used as perché, exactly with the same meaning. So, if you want to ask “How come?” or “Why?” you can also use come mai. For example - Come mai hai fatto tardi? |
| Marco: "Why were you late?" |
| Cinzia: Or Sono andata dal dottore - Come mai? |
| Marco: "I went to the doctor - How come?" |
Outro |
| Cinzia: Dear listeners, we hope you enjoyed this lesson and if you have any doubts, any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us by… |
| Marco: email |
| Cinzia: forum |
| Marco: And comments. |
| Cinzia: Thank you all and see you next time. Ciao! |
| Marco: Ciao ciao! |
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