Learn about Italian hospitality, what Italian nouns are capitalized, and how to ask and answer the question, "What is your nationality?"
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Cinzia: Buon giorno a tutti!! Mi chiamo Cinzia. |
| Marco: Marco here. Newbie Series, Season 1 Lesson #4. Capitalize on Italian Hospitality. |
| Cinzia: Hello and welcome to the Newbie Series of ItalianPod101.com. We are glad you could join us again. |
| Marco: We will be guiding you through basic grammar and vocabulary. |
| Cinzia: And don't forget the different aspects of the language, culture, and customs that you find in Italy. |
| Marco: Excellent, excellent. The focus of this lesson is how to ask a person’s nationality. |
| Cinzia: These conversations takes place in a café. |
| Marco: They are between Laura and John, and also between Peter and Anna. |
| Cinzia: Be sure to check out the vocabulary list in the PDF for this lesson. |
| DIALOGUE 1 |
| Laura: Ciao, sei francese? |
| John: No, non sono francese, sono americano. E tu? |
| Laura: Sono italiana. |
| Marco: one more time, slowly. |
| Laura: Ciao, sei francese? |
| John: No, non sono francese, sono americano. E tu? |
| Laura: Sono italiana. |
| Marco: This time, with the translation. |
| Laura: Ciao, sei francese? |
| Laura: Hello, are you French? |
| John: No, non sono francese, sono americano. E tu? |
| John: No, I am not French; I am American, and you? |
| Laura: Sono italiana. |
| Laura: I am Italian. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER 1 |
| Marco: Okay, so in the first dialogue that we have just seen, the question was “are you French?” So we implied a nationality. In the next dialogue, we will actually be asking “what nationality are you?” |
| DIALOGUE 2 |
| Anna: Di che nazionalità sei? |
| Peter: Sono australiano. E tu? |
| Anna: Sono spagnola. |
| Marco: one more time, slowly. |
| Anna: Di che nazionalità sei? |
| Peter: Sono australiano. E tu? |
| Anna: Sono spagnola. |
| Marco: This time, with the translation. |
| Anna: Di che nazionalità sei? |
| Marco: What nationality are you? |
| Peter: Sono australiano. E tu? |
| Marco: I am Australian, and you? |
| Anna: Sono spagnola. |
| Marco: I am Spanish. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER 2 |
| Marco: So Cinzia, concerning these two dialogs, which one would you use more often? |
| Cinzia: I think I would use the second one. |
| Marco: So you would never imply someone's nationality, you would ask him directly. |
| Cinzia: Yes, exactly. |
| Marco: So for example the French are our, let's say, cousin, right? |
| Cinzia: I would say distant cousins. |
| Marco: So what happens if that... for example, if somebody asked you "Are you French?" Sei francese? |
| Cinzia: No! Sono italiana! |
| Marco: Exactly, I mean after all, French have champagne, but we have spumante. |
| Cinzia: But we have pizza. |
| Marco: True! |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Marco: Now we’ll take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| Marco: First |
| Cinzia: francese [natural native speed] |
| Marco: French |
| Cinzia: francese [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Cinzia: francese [natural native speed] |
| Marco: Next word |
| Cinzia: americano [natural native speed] |
| Marco: American |
| Cinzia: americano [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Cinzia: americano [natural native speed] |
| Marco: Next verb |
| Cinzia: essere [natural native speed] |
| Marco: to be |
| Cinzia: essere [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Cinzia: essere [natural native speed] |
| Marco: Next word |
| Cinzia: nazionalità [natural native speed] |
| Marco: nationality |
| Cinzia: nazionalità [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Cinzia: nazionalità [natural native speed] |
| Marco: Next word |
| Cinzia: che [natural native speed] |
| Marco: what |
| Cinzia: che [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Cinzia: che [natural native speed] |
| Marco: Next word |
| Cinzia: australiano [natural native speed] |
| Marco: Australian |
| Cinzia: australiano [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Cinzia: australiano [natural native speed] |
| Marco: Next word |
| Cinzia: spagnolo [natural native speed] |
| Marco: Spanish |
| Cinzia: spagnolo [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Cinzia: spagnolo [natural native speed] |
| Marco: When talking about nationality, there are a couple more we should cover for example, let’s say, English people. |
| Cinzia: Inglesi |
| Marco: Let me repeat that, inglesi. And let’s go with German. |
| Cinzia: Tedesche |
| Marco: Tedesche. What else can we say? |
| Cinzia: Svizzeri. |
| Marco: Yes, Swiss people. Woh! There’re so many nationality around Italy and come to Italy, it will take us a while, so let's look at them in the future lessons. |
| Cinzia: Fair enough, Marco. |
| Marco: Actually, if you know how to say your nationality in Italian, come by our forum, or drop us a comment and we’ll gladly answer back. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Cinzia: Let’s have a look at the usage for some of the words. The first word we will look at is [francese]. |
| Marco: [Cinzia], one example sentence please? |
| Cinzia: [Sono francese]... Uhm... wait... sono italiana |
| Marco: Yes ok... |
| Cinzia: Sono francese. |
| Marco: [I am French.] |
| Cinzia: The next word we're going to look at today is [americano]. |
| Marco: [Cinzia], let’s have an example with "americano"? |
| Cinzia: [Mike è americano] |
| Marco: [Mike is American] |
| Cinzia: These first 2 words we have seen are both adjectives. |
| Marco: Now what would happen if we had Michelle instead of Mike? |
| Cinzia: Well, we would have [Michelle è americana] |
| Marco: [Michelle is American] please note that in English there is no change, but in Italian we have to change the ending to match the gender of the noun to which the adjective refers. |
| Marco: For example, I would say. [Io sono italiano]. Ending with an o. |
| While Cinzia would say… |
| Cinzia: [Sono italiana] ending with and a |
| Marco: We'll continually visit this topic throughout our studies. |
| Cinzia: The next vocabulary word is [Essere]. |
| Marco: [Cinzia], would you give us an example with "Essere", please? |
| Cinzia: [Siamo italiani] |
| Marco: [We are Italians] |
| Marco: [Cinzia], next word? |
| Cinzia: [nazionalità] |
| Marco: One example please. |
| Cinzia: [Di che nazionalià sei, Marco?] |
| Marco: [What nationality are you, Marco?] |
| Cinzia: OK. The next vocabulary word is [che]. |
| Marco: Let’s have an example |
| Cinzia: [Che cosa fai?] |
| Marco: [What are you doing?] |
| Cinzia: Like we have seen [che] can have many other meanings. |
| Marco: For now let us just remember [what]. |
| Marco: Bene, good; this wraps it up for the vocabulary usage. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Marco: In the dialogs we have seen how to ask one’s nationality. |
| Cinzia: The construction of Ciao, sei francese? is the same of ”Hello, are you French?” with two exceptions. |
| Marco: First, as we have seen in the previous lesson, there is no tu (Italian for “you”), because there is no need to specify the subject since sei can only indicate “you” second person singular. |
| Cinzia: Second, when expressing nationalities, Italians do not use capital letters. |
| Marco: If you don't know what we're talking about, please click the center button on your ipod. |
| Cinzia: Or stop by the site and check out the pdf. |
| Marco: Perfect. Now back to the topic, yes, Italian does not use capitals as often as English. Please remember the following rules |
| Cinzia: proper names (Luca, Laura, Marco), town names (Milano, Roma, Napoli), countries, lakes, rivers etc. are written with a capital. |
| Marco: In headings/titles only the first word has a capital letter and the rest of the title is in lowercase. For example Il signore degli anelli = “The Lord of the Rings” only has the first letter of the sentence in upper case. |
| Cinzia: Days of the week/seasons/months are always in lowercase. |
| Marco: Words such as English, Italian, Japanese, which in English are always written with a capital, are always written in lowercase letters in Italian. |
| Marco: now on with something a little boring, sorry. |
| Cinzia: but necessary. In future lessons we shall see in more detail Italian adjectives, for now please remember two points. |
| Marco: One, they have feminine, masculine, singular and plural meaning, all realized by changing the ending. Two, in the case of adjectives of nationality there are only two types, one that follows both gender and number and one that only follows number. |
| Cinzia: Here is the adjective conjugation. |
| Italiano (Masculine singular) |
| Italiana (Feminine singular) |
| italiani (Masculine plural) |
| italiane (Feminine plural) |
| Marco: Now, let’s look at the next set. |
| francese (Masculine singular) |
| francese (Feminine singular) |
| francesi (Masculine plural) |
| francesi (Feminine plural) |
| Cinzia: So I would say Sono italiana, and you Marco would say... |
| Marco: Sono italiano. |
| Cinzia: But what should we say about both of us? |
| Marco: Well, in Italian there is this little rule that even if it's even a boy and a girl, or a boy and a boy, masculine has more real power, not in real society, don't get angry, Cinzia... |
| Cinzia: Uhmm... Ok Marco. |
| Marco: Just on a grammar point of view, so in our case, male and female, we should use siamo italiani, while if it's Cinzia and another girl she would say... |
| Cinzia: Siamo italiane. |
| Marco: Perfect, so remember, these are the couples, these are the set. Male-male we use masculine, male-female, we still use masculine, female-female you use? |
| Cinzia: Feminine. |
| Marco: Perfect. |
Outro |
| Cinzia: This wraps up today's lesson. |
| Marco: Don't forget to try out the Italian Review in the Learning Center, where you'll find test questions, answers and comments on the answers. |
| Cinzia: It's a great way to start practicing on your own. |
| Marco: Ok then. See you again. |
| Cinzia: Arrivederci. |
| Marco: Arrivederci. |
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