Learn how to communicate with a receptionist when you are late
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Eric: Hi everyone, and welcome back to ItalianPod101.com. This is Business Italian for Beginners Season 1 Lesson 19 - Arriving Late to an Appointment and Notifying the Receptionist. Eric Here. |
| Ofelia: Ciao, I'm Ofelia. |
| Eric: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to communicate with a receptionist about being late. The conversation takes place at reception. |
| Ofelia: It's between a Receptionist and Linda. |
| Eric: The speakers are strangers, so they will use formal Italian. Okay, let's listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Receptionist: Buonasera. |
| Linda: Buonasera, sono Linda Baker della ABC. Avevo un appuntamento con il signor Leonardi alle 15. |
| Linda: Lo ho già avvisato del mio ritardo. |
| Receptionist: Sì, mi faccia controllare. Si accomodi pure sul divano. |
| Eric: Listen to the conversation one time slowly. |
| Receptionist: Buonasera. |
| Linda: Buonasera, sono Linda Baker della ABC. Avevo un appuntamento con il signor Leonardi alle 15. |
| Linda: Lo ho già avvisato del mio ritardo. |
| Receptionist: Sì, mi faccia controllare. Si accomodi pure sul divano. |
| Eric: Listen to the conversation with the English translation |
| Receptionist: Good evening. |
| Linda: Good evening, I'm Linda Baker from ABC. I had an appointment with Mr. Leonardi at 3 o'clock. |
| Linda: I've already let him know about my delay. |
| Receptionist: Yes, let me check. Please take a seat on the couch. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Eric: Ofelia, is it common for Italian companies to have receptionists? |
| Ofelia: In Italy, only big companies or public facilities such as hospitals or hotels have receptionists, whose job is mainly aimed at receiving people and helping them, or at receiving phone calls. |
| Eric: What about medium-small companies? |
| Ofelia: In general, medium-small companies have employees who look after many other tasks, aside from receiving people and phone calls. Usually it’s the accounting staff. |
| Eric: And is it common for a man to work as a receptionist in Italy? |
| Ofelia: Yes, even if some years ago, it was mainly a job done by women. |
| Eric: What’s the Italian word for “reception?” |
| Ofelia: You can use the English word reception or you can say accoglienza. |
| Eric: Okay, now onto the vocab. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Eric: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary from this lesson. The first word is.. |
| Ofelia: appuntamento [natural native speed] |
| Eric: appointment, date |
| Ofelia: appuntamento[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Ofelia: appuntamento [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Ofelia: controllare [natural native speed] |
| Eric: to check |
| Ofelia: controllare[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Ofelia: controllare [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Ofelia: già [natural native speed] |
| Eric: already, formerly |
| Ofelia: già[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Ofelia: già [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Ofelia: accomodarsi [natural native speed] |
| Eric: to make oneself comfortable, to take a seat |
| Ofelia: accomodarsi[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Ofelia: accomodarsi [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Ofelia: pure [natural native speed] |
| Eric: too, also |
| Ofelia: pure[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Ofelia: pure [natural native speed] |
| Eric: And last.. |
| Ofelia: divano [natural native speed] |
| Eric: couch |
| Ofelia: divano[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Ofelia: divano [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Eric: Let's have a closer look at the usage of one of the words from this lesson. That is.. |
| Ofelia: pure |
| Eric: meaning "please,” or “go ahead." This is a conjunction and it usually means "too," |
| Ofelia: Right, but in this dialogue we can see a specific and colloquial usage of pure, preceded by an imperative. |
| Eric: This way, the imperative sounds more exhortative. You could also translate it as "without standing on ceremonies," or "without worries." |
| Ofelia: In informal situations, it can be also used with a sarcastic intonation. |
| Eric: Can you give us an example using this word? |
| Ofelia: Sure. For example, you can say.. Andate pure a casa, qui finiamo noi! |
| Eric: ..which means "Please go home, we'll get it finished here!" Okay, now onto the lesson focus. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Eric: In this lesson, you'll learn how to communicate with a receptionist about being late. |
| Ofelia: At this point in the series, it shouldn’t be difficult for you to introduce yourself and say that you have an appointment to a receptionist in Italian. |
| Eric: So in this lesson, we’ll take a look at how to do that in the specific case that you are late. |
| Ofelia: In a normal situation, after introducing yourself, you’d usually say that you have an appointment with someone, using the present tense of avere un appuntamento con… |
| Eric: which means “to have an appointment with…,” |
| Ofelia: for example, Ho un appuntamento con l’avvocato Marni. |
| Eric: meaning “I have an appointment with lawyer Marni.” If, as Linda was, you happen to be late, then you can use the imperfect past instead. |
| Ofelia: Right, Linda says Avevo un appuntamento con il signor Leonardi alle 15. |
| Eric: “I had an appointment with Mr. Leonardi at three o'clock." Having an appointment is not an instantaneous action, so the imperfect tense is used in this case. Let’s quickly review how the imperfect is usually formed. |
| Ofelia: It’s usually formed with the stem of the verb followed by regular suffixes. |
| Eric: Which is the example in the sentence we just saw? |
| Ofelia: ave-vo, where ave- is the stem of the verb avere, “to have,” and -vo is the suffix of the first person singular. |
| Eric: So we can use the same suffix to form the imperfect past of another verb? |
| Ofelia: Right. For example, let’s consider andare which means “to go,” the first person singular of the imperfect past is andavo. |
| Eric: Listeners, even if the suffixes never change, be careful, because many verbs have an irregular stem. |
| Ofelia: For example, dire meaning “to say,” becomes dicevo. So D-I-R changes into D-I-C. |
| Eric: What about the verb “to have,” which is in the dialogue? |
| Ofelia: Even if avere is an irregular verb, in the case of the imperfect, it keeps its original stem and behaves like a regular verb. |
| Eric: Let’s give the entire conjugation. |
| Ofelia: Okay. ave-vo |
| Eric: I had |
| Ofelia: ave-vi |
| Eric: You had |
| Ofelia: ave-va |
| Eric: He, she, it had |
| Ofelia: ave-vamo |
| Eric: We had |
| Ofelia: ave-vate |
| Eric: You had |
| Ofelia: ave-vano |
| Eric: ”They had” |
| Ofelia: Here are some other examples of useful sentences, Avevamo un appuntamento a mezzogiorno, ma il mio treno ha ritardato. |
| Eric: “We had an appointment at noon, but my train was delayed.” |
| Ofelia: Avevano un meeting con l’avvocato, ma è stato annullato. |
| Eric: “They had a meeting with the lawyer, but it was cancelled.” |
| Ofelia: On the other hand, when Linda needs to say that she has already called, an action that ends within a certain time, she uses the perfect past or passato prossimo. She says Lo ho già avvisato. |
| Eric: “I've already let him know” |
| Ofelia: Please note that if we were referring to a woman instead of a man, we would have to change lo into la, and the past participle avvisato into avvisata. |
| Eric: But the general rule is that the past participle never changes when the auxiliary verb is “to have.” |
| Ofelia: That’s right, except in the case when there’s a third person pronoun such as lo, la, le, or li. |
| Eric: Those indicate the object of the action, not the subject. |
| Ofelia: For example, La ho chiamata un’ora fa. |
| Eric: Meaning “I called her one hour ago.” |
| Ofelia: Li ho avvisati ieri. |
| Eric:“I let them know yesterday.” |
Outro |
| Eric: Okay, that’s all for this lesson. Thank you for listening, everyone, and we’ll see you next time! Bye! |
| Ofelia: A presto! |
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