Learn how to ask what is near you with the Italian phrases "there is" and "there are"
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| Ciao a tutti! Sono Consuelo. Hi everybody! I’m Consuelo. |
| Welcome back to ItalianPod101.com’s Italiano in tre minuti: the fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Italian. |
| In the last lesson, we learned what to say in an Internet café. Today, we’re going to learn two very useful expressions: c’è, "there is," and ci sono, "there are." |
| So, when asking ‘is there a place near here’, please use the singular form ‘there is’, c’è, followed by a place, for example a bar, and the two words ‘near here’, which we say in Italian in the opposite order, quì vicino. |
| Let’s look at the sentence: |
| C’è un bar qui vicino? |
| (One more time, slowly: c’è un bar qui vicino?) |
| C’è sounds like a single word, but it’s actually made up of two: ci and è. Ci drops the -i and takes the apostrophe because is followed by the vowel -è. |
| (Here a slide with written ci è→c’è could help) |
| Now to ask for a different place, we can just replace the word bar with any other word and the phrase works just fine. |
| So let’s imagine you need to buy something in a pharmacy. What would you say? |
| Scusi, c’è una farmacia qui vicino? |
| (One more time, slowly: scusi, c’è una farmacia qui vicino?) |
| Let’s look for another place.... mmmmm let’s see. When you need bus tickets in Italy you can find them at a newsstand. What is the Italian word for newsstand? That’s edicola! |
| So, on the street you can ask someone: |
| Scusi, c’è un’edicola qui vicino? |
| (One more time, slowly: scusi, c’è un’edicola qui vicino?) |
| However, when we want to ask a more generic question like ‘are there some stands in this area?’ or ‘are there good restaurants near here?’ we should use ci sono, there are. |
| For example... |
| Scusi, ci sono delle bancarelle in questa zona? |
| Scusi, ci sono dei buoni ristornati qui vicino? |
| Please pay attention to the articles. They always change according to the noun, feminine or masculine, singular or plural. For this reason, you better look the nouns up in your dictionary or travel guide before asking! |
| While you're learning Italian, you’ll see how c’è and ci sono are used in different situations. This was just the beginning! It wasn’t that hard, was it? |
| Now it’s time for Consuelo’s tips. |
| Now I want to give you the Italian translation for some of the most common places you can look for on the streets of Italy. |
| Summarizing, we already saw: |
| bar→ bar |
| farmacia→pharmacy, chemist |
| edicola→newsstand |
| bancarelle→stands |
| ristoranti→restaurants |
| Let’s now see: |
| stazione→station |
| ufficio postale→post office |
| internet point→internet café |
| fermata dell’autobus→bus stop |
| bancomat→atm |
| and finally one thing you’ll definitely be looking for is…. |
| bagno→toilet |
| Why don’t you watch this lesson again and practice what you’ve just learned with these new words? |
| Get ready for the next lesson because…we get on the bus! Yep, we’ll learn many useful phrases you can use while riding Italian buses! |
| We’ll be waiting for you in our next Italiano in tre minuti lesson. |
| Ciao, alla prossima lezione!! |
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