(Coming soon!)
You’re so tired that you’re falling asleep. Your stomach is growling at you, you haven’t eaten all day. Your throat is as dry as sandpaper. But your Italian friends don’t seem to notice; they haven’t found your hike through the hills of Tuscany tiring at all, and after a short rest, they pick up their packs and continue on. You sigh, stand up and continue on. You can’t blame your friends for their apathy though, you haven’t actually told them of your discomfort. The problem is that they don’t speak any English… if only you knew how to let them know how you felt…
The ability to express basic needs like hunger or thirst is one of the most useful skills you can learn in a new language. Although you may not want to be quite so complaining as Luca, in this lesson, he shows us how to do just that. For more info on Italy and the Italian language, come to ItalianPod101.com!
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This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 12th, 2008 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Beginner Lessons. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
20 Responses to “Beginner Lesson #5 - Luca, are you okay?”
ItalianPod101.com says:
March 12th, 2008 at 11:26 am
One of the most useful Italian phrases is Ho fame! “I am hungry!”. It’s like a magic word, say it politely and your Italian friends will cook a tasty meal for you!
Ciao
markystar says:
March 15th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
hahahahahaha, cinzia is hilarious!
questa lezione e` magnifico! 
Marco says:
March 16th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
Grazie markystar!
Continua a seguirci per favore
Keep following us please
Gustavo Enrique says:
March 17th, 2008 at 2:34 am
È possibile che alcuni italiani dicono “tengo fame” invece di “ho fame” a causa di un’influenza della lingua spagnola sopra gli anni?
Molti dei miei compagni di classe che parlano lo spagnolo anche l’italiano dicono “tengo fame” invece di “ho fame” perché si sono abituati dire il verbo “tengo”.
Anche se è inesatto, nel’lo spagnolo il verbo “tenire” vuol dire “avere.” È possibile che lo spagnolo così la prossimità geografica e le radici vicine delle lingue potrebbero essere la causa per quest’anormalità. Questa è la mia teoria.
Ciao e mi dispiace se è un post molto “boring!”
Gustavo
Marco says:
March 17th, 2008 at 9:08 am
Il tuo post non è boring (noioso) per nulla!
Non ho mai cercato le ragioni per l’uso di “tengo”, ma il tuo ragionamento è molto giusto.
Infatti è nelle regioni del sud Italia che si usa “tengo” e queste regioni sono state dominate dalla Spagna per molti anni, durante il Regno delle due Sicilie.
Ciao
Marco
Cinzia says:
March 18th, 2008 at 11:42 am
per Gustavo
Caro Gustavo,
la verità è che non solo gli spagnoli lo dicono, a Napoli, in seguito alla dominazione spagnola, il dialetto napoletano ha preso molto dallo spagnolo arcaico, perciò anche io … con la mia famiglia spesso ho usato “tengo fame”!
Grazie infinite per i tuoi ottimi commenti!
Cinzia
Rene says:
March 31st, 2008 at 6:28 am
Question about pronunciation. (questo è un post noiso) 
Is the Italian ’s’ pronounced as /z/ (as in English ‘zebra’)?
For example: is ‘cosa’ pronounced /koza/, cosi pronounced /kozi/?
Grazie mille,
Renato
Peter says:
March 31st, 2008 at 7:16 am
You introduce “stanco” but don’t appear to mention that this should change with gender if I remember correctly.
Cinzia says:
March 31st, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Ciao Renato,
si hai ragione!
You are right! in some words the S in italian sounds like a Z (like in ZEBRA in eng)
and the weird thing is that this word in particular -ZEBRA- in Italian has to be read with a strong sound like in ZATTERA (punt)
in fact in LATIN the Z was a sonorous variant of the S.
So good point!
Thank you very much
Grazie mille!
C!
Marco says:
March 31st, 2008 at 7:22 pm
Dear Peter,
You are right we should have mentioned it.
Adjectives were covered the previous week in Newbie lesson #4.
Please take a look.
A presto
Marco
Peter says:
April 1st, 2008 at 8:05 am
Dear Marco,
Can you please explain more fully the interconnection between Newbie and Beginner lessons?
I have sent an email to the site but have not received a reply.
I don’t find it entirely satisfactory that there are two introductory series running together-the difference between them unexplained - but apparently not being self contained.
Sorry to be critical but if I am learning a language at an elementary level I don’t think that I should need to run two courses together.
Marco says:
April 1st, 2008 at 9:28 am
Dear Peter,
I have sent an email reply yesterday.
Please check your spam filter to see if it has been blocked.
Ciao!
Rene says:
April 26th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Ciao Cinzia e Marco:
Cinzia ha scritto:
> You are right! in some words the S in italian sounds like a Z (like in ZEBRA in english)
I have a question: each time I learn an Italian word do I need to memorize in which words the S sounds like Italian SS and in which words the S sounds like the English Z in Zebra?
Grazie!
Renato
Rene says:
April 26th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Ciao Marco,
I, too, am interested in knowing the difference between the Newbie course and the Beginner course. Would you please email me the information?
Grazie mille,
Renato
Cinzia says:
May 1st, 2008 at 12:53 am
Ciao Renato!
Come stai?
Si, io ho studiato le ligue straniere e anche giapponese - I have studied the foreign languages,and also japanese.
For your studies I can give you some advices; the sound “Z” can be usually found in the last syllable of the words like
“casa” - house
“mese” - month
instead you have the “SS” in words like
“insalata” - salad
“salto” - jump
I hope it’s clear, but the best way is the constant practice with the various sounds!
Thank you again for joining and following us.
Ciaoooo
Cinzia 
Marco says:
May 1st, 2008 at 11:39 am
In the next we days we are going to have a nice page with detailed explanations to how to best approach the various lesson levels we have published and also the lessons that we are going to!!!
A presto
Marco
Marco says:
May 8th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Here is the page with all the information about the current and some of the future series!
http://www.italianpod101.com/help-center/the-courses/
Ciao
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Category: Beginner Lessons |
Grammar: avere+noun | Function: greetings | Topic: asking if someone is fine | Politeness Level: informal
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