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Level: Lower Intermediate Lessons
In today’s class we will study the functioning of a + infinitive as an alternative way to realize subordinate clauses in Italian hypothetical periods.
The friends are at Manuel’s place and are cooking some pasta for a late night or early morning meal. What sauce is Giulia going to prepare?
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This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 26th, 2008 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Lower Intermediate 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.
10 Responses to “Lower Intermediate Lesson #22 - The pasta should be ready in five minutes”
Wednesday at 6:30 pm
Thursday at 3:23 am
Hello
A question about today’s lesson. A have a Skype conversation with a friend in Salerno 3 times a week. He has told me that in Italian it is incorrect to say “in” referring to future events. For example, he has told me it is incorrect to say something like “in 20 minuti”, instead you must say “tra 20 minuti”
But in today’s lesson I found “La pasta dovrebbe essere pronta in cinque minuti.”
Would “La pasta dovrebbe essere pronta TRA cinque minuti” be better?
I did a Google search for phrases like “in 5 minuti” and I did find things:
Come fare il pane in 5 minuti di lavoro
BUT, almost all of these sentences involve doing something WITHIN a period of time, within 5 minutes and these sentences are not future-oriented.
I have also seen this point made in various Italian grammar books.
I’d appreciate a quick answer on this as it is confusing.
Grazie e ciao
Greg
Thursday at 9:35 pm
You are absolutely right about the use of “in” or “tra”. When used in time clauses, “in” (or “entro”) normally implies that an action should be completed within the time period indicated after the preposition, whereas “tra” indicates the action will happen at that period, not before.
Manuel’s statement means that the pasta will be ready WITHIN 5 minutes. If we wish to say “The pasta will be ready in five minutes” we have to employ “tra”: “La pasta sarà pronta tra cinque minuti”.
If you have further questions, please feel free to ask.
Gianluca
Sunday at 10:20 am
What’s the deal with lower intermediate lesson #16 and accidenti
Monday at 9:55 am
Dear Ryan,
Are you referring to the English translation of “Accidenti”?
If so it is just a common exclamation used to add emphasis.
Please let us know if you meant something else.
Saturday at 1:56 am
Hey — in this lession’s vocabulary examples you say:
Antonio ha sempre paura d’ingrassare — Antonio is always afraid of putting on weight.
Should this be “Antonio è sempre paura d’ingrassare/Antonio is always afraid of putting on weight” instead?
Saturday at 5:53 pm
Salve!
In the lesson, it is written that we must use “ad” instead of “a” when the following verb starts with “a”, but I thought we must use “ad” before every vowels, am I wrong?
Grazie
Tuesday at 5:32 pm
@Jeff
Ciao Jeff,
“Antonio è sempre paura d’ingrassare” is not grammatically correct, since we use the verb “avere”, to have instead of the verb to be as happens in English.
@Elaine
Ciao Elaine, thank you very much for your comment. We must use “ad” instead of “a” when the following word starts with a vowel. Good clarification.
Grazie a tutti!!!!
Consuelo
Monday at 10:27 pm
Possiamo vedere una ricetta per “sugo Giulia”? Dovrebbe essere buono!
Tuesday at 6:05 pm
Ciao Chuck,
.
“sugo Giulia” is one of the secret of Italian Pod 101
And you? Do you have your-own “sugo” for pasta?
Consuelo
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