| Hi guys, welcome back to ItalianPod101. |
| My name is Desyrée, mi chiamo Desyrée, but you can call me Desy, ma potete chiamarmi “Desy”, potete chiamarmi Desy, |
| and today, we're going to learn about frequency adverbs in Italian, avverbi di frequenza. |
| First of all, let's say that as in English, you can use them with the present tense and starting with the highest level of frequency, we have sempre, which is "always." |
| For example: |
| Io faccio sempre colazione alle 8, "I always have my breakfast at eight." |
| Position wise, you put them after the verb, sometimes, maybe you wI'll hear |
| Io faccio colazione alle 8 sempre. |
| But that's just a way to put emphasis on the last part of the phrase, so sempre, but usually it goes after the verb. |
| Sometimes this adverb has the meaning of "usually". |
| Let's say, for example, |
| Faccio sempre colazione alle otto, ma nel weekend alle 9. |
| Literally means "I always have my breakfast at eight, but during the weekend at nine". |
| So its not always, of course, its just like five days out of seven and in that case you would probably translate that as "I usually have breakfast at eight but during the weekend at nine but yeah its stI'll sempre". |
| So if you do something always but not really kind of always, you can also say: quasi sempre, "almost always." |
| Spesso |
| If you want to say "often" we use spesso. |
| Faccio spesso colazione al bar. |
| "I often have my breakfast at the bar." |
| Another way to say "often" is frequentemente, but it's a bit more formal, I would say. |
| If I talk to my friends I would just use spesso, and be careful because sometimes you hear the same word, spesso, but it also means "thick." |
| For example, "this book is really thick." |
| Questo libro è molto spesso. |
| It’s exactly the same word, it just has two meanings, ok? |
| A funny way of saying, I mean it's not funny, it's just something that I like, is spesso e volentieri, which literally means "often and gladly," "often and happily." |
| And yeah, it does mean that you do that happily but I would translate it more as “more often than not”, so something that happens more than often but not always. |
| For example: |
| Vado spesso e volentieri al bar Rosso. |
| "I go more than often to bar Rosso" or "I go to bar Rosso often and gladly," if you prefer to think like that. |
| Guardo spesso e volentieri i video di Desyrée. |
| "I often watch Desyrée's videos and I enjoy them." |
| Moving on to "sometimes." We have different ways to say that but one of the most common is ogni tanto, literally means "every now and then." |
| Ogni tanto faccio colazione al bar. |
| So "sometimes I have breakfast at the bar." |
| And "ogni" is really a useful word because you can combine it with everything, as every in English. |
| Ogni giorno, "every day." |
| Vado al mare ogni estate. |
| "I go to the sea every summer." |
| While if something happens less than every now and then, I would say raramente, "rarely." |
| Raramente. |
| Perfect example for spesso e volentieri, combined with "rarely." |
| Faccio raramente colazione a casa, vado spesso e volentieri al bar. |
| "I rarely have breakfast at home, I often go to the bar." |
| Meaning that going to the bar happens more often than being at home for breakfast. |
| While if you "never" do something then you have to use: mai. |
| mai |
| But be careful, because mai has to be used in a negative sentence: |
| Non faccio mai colazione. |
| "I never have breakfast" |
| So literally, its "I don't ever have breakfast at the bar." |
| Io non faccio mai colazione al bar. |
| Io non vado mai in vacanza al mare. |
| "I never spend my holidays at the sea." |
| Non vado mai al mare. |
| Non guardo mai video. |
| "I never watch videos." |
| And even when you use "almost never," so quasi mai: |
| Non vado quasi mai al bar. |
| StI'll a negative sentence, okay? |
| Non faccio quasi mai colazione al bar, |
| solo ogni tanto... |
| "only sometimes..." |
| quando sono stanca. |
| "when I'm tired." |
| which is always, sempre. |
| Okay, so to sum up, going to the most frequent to the least one, we have Sempre, "always," Spesso, "often," Ogni tanto, "sometimes," or Raramente, "rarely," and Mai, "never." |
| Or quasi mai, "almost never," and quasi sempre, "almost always," if you wanna add a slight possibility that it doesn't always happen. |
| One last thing, I have a question for you and I also want to tell you how to ask how often. |
| So my question is: |
| Quanto spesso studi italiano? |
| "How often do you study Italian?" |
| Or |
| Ogni quanto studi italiano? |
| Same meaning. |
| Quanto spesso/ Ogni quanto? |
| So yeah, let me know in the comments how often you study Italian, how often you watch our videos, and if you liked this and want to learn more about Italian language, then like and subscribe. |
| Thank you, I'll see you soon. Ciao ciao! |
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