Lesson Transcript

Hi everyone, welcome back to ItalianPod101.com.
My name is Desy, mi chiamo Desy, mi chiamo Desy, and in this video we're going to talk about
how to start a conversation.
Come iniziare una conversazione?
Come iniziare, how to start, una conversazione, a conversation, basically conversation starters.
And as in English, we also say to break the ice and that's rompere il ghiaccio, rompere,
to break, il ghiaccio, the ice.
To break the ice, we can say, the basic one is, hi, how are you?
Ciao, come stai?
Ciao, come va?
How is it going?
Come stai?
Come va?
Now this is tricky because it can end badly, meaning, bene, tu?
I'm fine and you?
Yeah, me too.
And that's it, bene, tu?
Anche io.
But no, we want to keep going, right?
So what you have to say is, bene, oggi ho fatto, I'm fine.
Today I did, oggi ho fatto, and then you say what happened, oggi ho fatto sport con gli amici.
Today I played sports with my friends.
And then the other part can say, oh really?
Che sport?
Quale sport?
Which sport do you play?
Right?
Another thing that you can ask, seen in general, is, cosa mi racconti?
Cosa mi racconti?
And this is a pretty open question, so it can be anything from the other part.
You're not asking anything specific, they're free to tell you what they want.
Here too, if they say niente di che, not much, nothing really, niente di che, or nulla
di nuovo, nothing new, no news, then it's up to you to keep the conversation going and
tell something about what you did or what happened to you.
But let's see some phrases that you can use in different scenarios.
For example, let's assume you're at a party and you want to talk to someone, you can start
by saying, ti piace questa canzone?
Do you like this song?
Ti piace questa canzone?
Or in general, ti piace questa musica?
Do you like this music?
And then depending if it's yes or no, you can pretend that that's also your opinion
and just keep going, right?
So for example, if the other one says no, then you can ask, quale genere ti piace?
Which genre do you like?
Which kind of music do you like?
Quale genere di musica ti piace?
Or cosa ascolti di solito?
What do you usually listen to?
Cosa ascolti di solito?
Usually.
Solitamente.
It's another way to say di solito.
Cosa ascolti solitamente?
Moving on, let's assume you're at a bar, a pub or anyway you're somewhere where you
can drink something and even better maybe the other one is drinking something already,
you can ask, cosa stai bevendo?
What are you drinking?
Cosa stai bevendo?
Be careful because if you ask cosa bevi, what do you drink, cosa bevi?
That can be if they have the glass in their hand already, that can be what are you drinking
but also what are you going to drink, cosa bevi?
What can I get you basically?
So I would say, cosa stai bevendo?
What are you drinking?
Also cosa bevi could be a bit in general like what you drink usually, what can you
drink.
So yeah, cosa stai bevendo?
Or cosa mi consigli?
What do you recommend me?
Maybe you're in line waiting for your turn to order a drink, so you can ask, cosa mi
consigli?
What do you recommend me?
Cosa, what, me, to me, consigli, recommend.
And then if you want to be the one who recommends something instead, you can say, io ti consiglio,
I recommend you, io ti consiglio questo cocktail, this cocktail.
Mali bucola for me.
If, for example, you're at the gym, you can ask, fai altri sport?
Do you play other sports?
Fai, we use the verb to do, fare, fai altri sport?
Do you play other sports?
Or quante volte a settimana ti alleni?
How often, how many times in a week do you train?
Quante volte a settimana, how many times in a week a settimana ti alleni?
Do you train?
Possiamo allenarci insieme?
Can we train together?
Possiamo allenarci insieme?
Together?
In case the person you're talking to or that you're going to talk to is a common friend,
then maybe you can ask, how do they know your friend?
Come conosci Luca?
Come, how, conosci, do you know Luca?
Come conosci Luca?
And likewise, you can ask other things as well, right?
For example, how do you know about this party?
Come conosci questo evento?
How do you know about this event?
Come conosci questa festa?
Come conosci questo evento?
Come conosci, how do you know?
And then it can be a person or a thing, or a language even.
Come conosci l'inglese?
How do you know English?
If we're talking about someone of the neighbourhood, del vicinato, then for example you're in
or something, you can ask, conosci?
Again, do you know un buon ristorante?
A good restaurant?
Conosci un buon ristorante qua vicino?
Do you know a nice restaurant here nearby?
Or conosci un buon supermercato?
Let's assume you just moved to the neighbourhood.
Conosci un buon supermercato?
Do you know a nice supermarket?
In this case can also mean convenient, as in cheap.
So, buon always saves you.
You just have to decide what to ask for.
Conosci una buona palestra?
Do you know a nice gym?
If it's someone that you know from your office or that you work with together, maybe you
can ask, che programmi hai per il weekend?
What are your programs for the weekend?
Per il weekend?
For the weekend?
Cosa fai nel weekend?
What are you doing during the weekend?
Cosa fai nel weekend?
No matter the situation or the place, something that always helps can be a compliment.
So, pick something out from the outfit of the person that you want to talk to and say
Che bella maglia!
Che belle scarpe!
Che bei pantaloni!
What a nice shirt!
Che belle scarpe!
Nice shoes!
Che bei pantaloni!
Trousers!
Che bella borsa!
What a nice bag!
Dove l'hai comprata?
Hai qualche app divertente sul telefono?
Hai qualche app interessante sul telefono?
Che app usi di più ultimamente?
Che app usi di più ultimamente?
Which app, application, are you using more recently?
Quale app usi di più, more, the most, recently, recentemente or ultimamente, lately?
Che app usi di più recentemente?
That could be a long conversation if the other person is into technology, for example.
And this is about situations that can happen anytime but my personal tip is to focus on
the season and on celebrations that are coming.
For example, if it's summer.
Dove sei stato quest'estate?
Where have you been this summer?
Dove sei stato quest'estate?
This summer, quest'estate.
It would be questa estate, but two vowels together.
Dove sei stato quest'estate?
It doesn't really mean what have you been up to, I haven't seen you recently.
It just asks if you went somewhere for the summer.
So the other person could tell you about what they did or
Non sono andato in vacanza.
I didn't go on vacation, I didn't have a break.
And then you can talk about why, what happened, how's the work going, etc.
In autumn, do you like pumpkin?
Ti piace la zucca?
Ti piace la zucca?
Hai già comprato i regali di Natale?
Have you already bought the Christmas presents?
Have you already bought Christmas presents?
Hai già comprato i regali di Natale?
Sei allergico al polline?
Are you allergic to pollen?
I hope these phrases can be helpful to
attaccare un bottone with someone.
Literally, it means to attach, to sew, to put a button to its place, right?
Attaccare un bottone to someone con qualcuno.
It's a way of saying an idiomatic expression that means to start talking to someone, to approach someone.
So let me know in the comments which one is your best way to attaccare un bottone
and I'm not talking about sewing skills.
So yeah, let me know if you have any particular phrase that you would like to know.
I hope this video was useful. Thank you for watching.
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in order to improve your Italian even more.
I'll see you soon! Bye bye! Ciao ciao!

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