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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