Learn how to order at a deli or grocery store using a formal conversation as an example
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Brandon: Hi everyone! This is Lower Intermediate Season 3 Lesson 6, Visiting Your Local Italian Deli. I’m Brandon! |
| Ofelia: Ciao. I'm Ofelia. |
| Brandon: Ofelia, what are we going to learn in this lesson? |
| Ofelia: In this lesson you will learn how to order food at a shop counter. |
| Brandon: The conversation takes place in an Italian delicatessen. |
| Ofelia: The conversation is between Maria and a delicatessen worker. |
| Brandon: The speakers are a customer and a shop assistant; therefore, the speakers will be using formal Italian. Okay, let's listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Salumiere: Buongiorno! |
| Maria: Salve. |
| Salumiere: Dica! |
| Maria: Un attimo, vorrei dare un'occhiata... |
| Salumiere: Certo! Oggi abbiamo le olive ascolane in offerta. Prego ne assaggi una! |
| Maria: Grazie! che buona!...vorrei trecento grammi di Parmigiano. |
| Salumiere: Tre etti di Parmigiano! Subito! (Pausa) Poi? |
| Maria: Cento grammi di ricotta sfusa. |
| Salumiere: Mi dispiace, ma non ne abbiamo. C'è confezionata. |
| Maria: ...sì va bene anche confezionata, grazie. |
| Brandon: Listen to the conversation with the English translation |
| Salumiere: Buongiorno! |
| Delicatessen worker: Hello! |
| Maria: Salve. |
| Maria: Hi. |
| Salumiere: Dica! |
| Delicatessen worker: Tell me, how may I help you? (Lit. Tell me!) |
| Maria: Un attimo, vorrei dare un'occhiata... |
| Maria: One second, I'd like to have a look... |
| Salumiere: Certo! Oggi abbiamo le olive ascolane in offerta. Prego ne assaggi una! |
| Delicatessen worker: Sure! Today we have olives from Ascoli on sale. Please taste one (of them)! |
| Maria: Grazie! che buona!...vorrei trecento grammi di Parmigiano. |
| Maria: Thank you! So delicious!...I'd like three hundreds grams of Parmigian. |
| Salumiere: Tre etti di Parmigiano! Subito! (Pausa) Poi? |
| Delicatessen worker: Three hectograms of Parmigiano! Immediately! (Pause) What else? |
| Maria: Cento grammi di ricotta sfusa. |
| Maria: One hundred grams of unpacked ricotta cheese. |
| Salumiere: Mi dispiace, ma non ne abbiamo. C'è confezionata. |
| Delicatessen worker: I'm sorry, but we don't have that. There is some of the packed kind. |
| Maria: ...sì va bene anche confezionata, grazie. |
| Maria: ...Yes, packed is also ok. Thank you. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Brandon: Ofelia, can you explain about delicatessen shops, like the ones we had in the dialogue? |
| Ofelia: In Italian, it’s called "Il pizzicagnolo." Italian delicatessen shops can be a real food "cabinet of curiosity." |
| Brandon: I think some of people might not be used to this kind of shop, especially people visiting the country. What can we buy in the stores? |
| Ofelia: They usually have a big glass counter, where not only ham and cheese are located, but also ready-made dishes, for example, appetizers, pasta, and meat, which can be ordered in small quantities. |
| Brandon: And they have another name, right? |
| Ofelia: Yes. These shops are usually called bottega, meaning "small shop,” but as we mentioned before, sometimes you will also hear pizzicagnolo, from the verb pizzicare.That word can mean "to taste spicy.” |
| Brandon: That must be a reference to the food sold there, which, having already been cooked, is also spicy. |
| Ofelia: I always go to this kind of little shop when I want to get the best quality. These retailers always take a lot of care when they choose their products. |
| Brandon: I guess they have to to be able to survive the competition from big supermarkets. |
| Ofelia: I also go there when I don't have much time for lunch. A "pizzicagnolo" usually has everything to make a delicious panini, with fresh ingredients and the best prices. |
| Brandon: Sounds delicious! That’s good to know. Okay, now onto the vocab. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Brandon: Let’s take a look at some of the vocabulary used in this lesson. The first word is.. |
| Ofelia: Dica! [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: Tell me! |
| Ofelia: Dica! [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Ofelia: Dica! [natural native speed] |
| Next we have.. |
| Ofelia: occhiata [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: quick look |
| Ofelia: occhiata [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Ofelia: occhiata [natural native speed] |
| Next we have.. |
| Ofelia: ascolano [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: from Ascoli |
| Ofelia: ascolano [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Ofelia: ascolano [natural native speed] |
| Next we have.. |
| Ofelia: assaggiare [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: to taste, to sample, to nibble |
| Ofelia: assaggiare [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Ofelia: assaggiare [natural native speed] |
| Next we have.. |
| Ofelia: in offerta [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: on sale |
| Ofelia: in offerta [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Ofelia: in offerta [natural native speed] |
| Next we have.. |
| Ofelia: grammo [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: gram |
| Ofelia: grammo [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Ofelia: grammo [natural native speed] |
| Next we have.. |
| Ofelia: etto [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: one hundred grams |
| Ofelia: etto [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Ofelia: etto [natural native speed] |
| and last we have.. |
| Ofelia: sfuso [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: unpacked |
| Ofelia: sfuso [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Ofelia: sfuso [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Brandon: Let's have a closer look at the usage of some of the words and phrases from this lesson. The first word is,, |
| Ofelia: ascolano |
| Brandon: meaning "from Ascoli" This is an ethnic adjective. Like many other city's ethnic adjectives, it is formed by using the name of the city first, without the last letter. |
| Ofelia: In this case we have Ascol- and the suffix ano. Other similar examples are Romano, which refers to Rome, or Pisano, which refers to Pisa. |
| Brandon: You can use this word when referring to something or someone coming from Ascoli, a city located in the center of Italy. This word doesn't refer exclusively to food. Being an adjective, I think it doesn't need an upper-case letter at the beginning, right? |
| Ofelia: Yes, that’s correct. An upper-case letter is necessary only when you are referring to the inhabitants of Ascoli, because in that case it will become a noun, as is also the case for all other Italian cities. |
| Brandon: Can you give us an example using this word? |
| Ofelia: Sure. Piero è ascolano. |
| Brandon: meaning "Piero is from Ascoli." |
| Ofelia: In the dialogue the word ascolano refers to olives. The city of Ascoli is very famous for this delicious dish. Olive ascolane are deep fried big and juicy olives filled with a mix of bread crumbs, egg and cheese. |
| Brandon: Okay, what’s the next word? |
| Ofelia: Next we have.. etto |
| Brandon: which means “hectogram" or “one hundred grams.” |
| Ofelia: This word is a shortened version of the word ettogrammo. |
| Brandon: This word is usually used in everyday life instead of its longer version and it is very common when talking about food quantities. |
| Ofelia: That’s right. It’s better to avoid the shortened version of ettogrammo when speaking in a scientific context, for example, at school during a chemistry lesson. |
| Brandon: Also, as with its longer version, this word is almost never used when referring to liquids. |
| Ofelia: As the Italian word ettogrammo is shortened to etto, similarly we often use chilo instead of chilogrammo to mean "kilogram." On the other hand the word chilometro, meaning "kilometer," is never shortened. |
| Brandon :Ofelia, can you give us an example using this word? |
| Ofelia: Sure. Per questa ricetta sono necessari tre etti di zucchero. |
| Brandon: meaning.. "Three hectograms of sugar are necessary for this recipe." Okay, now onto the lesson focus. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Brandon: In this lesson, you'll learn about "Ne" as a partitive pronoun. Ofelia, we used this word in the dialogues, right? |
| Ofelia: Yes, we had.. Prego ne assaggi una! |
| Brandon: meaning “Please taste one of them.” |
| Ofelia: In Italian, the particle ne, as a partitive pronoun, can mean "any," "some," "of it," or "of them" when replacing nouns introduced by a number or an expression of quantity. |
| Brandon: Can you give us some examples? |
| Ofelia: Sure. We have.. Quante borse hai? Ne ho solo tre. We had the word Ne here. |
| Brandon: It means "How many purses do you have? I only have three of them."* You can also translate it as “I have only three.” |
| Ofelia: And we also have.. Vuoi dello zucchero nel caffè? Sì, ne vorrei due cucchiaini. |
| Brandon: "Would you like some sugar in your coffee? Yes, I would like two spoons of it.” Or you can just translate it as “I would like two spoons” without saying “of it.” |
| Ofelia: In a sentence, we usually position ne before the conjugated verb, and in negative statements it is always between the negation “non” and the verb. In addition, we can attach it to an infinitive or a gerund. |
| Brandon: Can you give us some examples? |
| Ofelia: Vuoi un altro bicchiere di spumante? No, non ne voglio. |
| Brandon: "Do you want another glass of sparkling wine? No, I don't want one." |
| Ofelia: Non voglio più berne, grazie. |
| Brandon: "I don't want to drink anymore, thank you." |
| Ofelia: In compound tenses like the passato prossimo, when ne replaces the direct object, the past participle agrees in gender and number with the object. |
| Brandon: Some examples are.. |
| Ofelia: Hai comprato i piatti? Sì, ne ho comprati sei. |
| Brandon: "Did you buy dishes? Yes, I bought six,” or you can translate it to “I bought six of them.” |
| Ofelia: Quante rose hai piantato? Non so, ne ho piantate un po'. |
| Brandon: "How many roses did you plant? I don't know. I planted some of them." |
| Ofelia: Listeners, be careful because as a partitive pronoun, ne can not only refer to a part of the whole quantity but also to nothing from an entire quantity. |
| Brandon: For example.. |
| Ofelia: Quanti pomodori hai comprato? - Non ne ho comprati. |
| Brandon: "How many tomatoes did you buy? - I didn’t buy any." |
| For more examples, check the lesson notes! |
| MARKETING PIECE |
| Ofelia: Listeners, do you know the powerful secret behind rapid progress? |
| Brandon: Using the entire system. |
| Ofelia: Lesson notes are an important part of this system. |
| Brandon: They include a transcript and translation of the conversation... |
| Ofelia:...key lesson vocabulary... |
| Brandon: and detailed grammar explanations. |
| Ofelia: Lesson notes accompany every audio or video lesson. |
| Brandon: Use them on the site or mobile device or print them out. |
| Ofelia: Using the lesson notes with audio and video media will rapidly increase your learning speed. |
| Brandon: Go to ItalianPod101.com, and download the lesson notes for this lesson right now. |
Outro |
| Brandon: Okay, that’s all for this lesson. Thank you for listening everyone. See you next time! |
| Ofelia: A presto. |
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