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Italiano e spagniole

pepe
New in Town
Posts: 2
Joined: February 5th, 2008 1:11 am

Italiano e spagniole

Postby pepe » September 28th, 2008 7:06 pm

Since Spanish is my second language, much of what I learn of Italian happens through Spanish, even though English is my native language. I thought I would open this thread to help distinguish some of the principle differences which often confuse us hispanohablantes.

One thing I've noticed in the short amount of time that I've been studying Italian is that the so called "preterit Perfect" takes the place of the simple preterit in most occasions. This is a little hard for me to grasp, since in Spanish, these two tenses have different meanings.

For example, in Spanish I would say "he trabajado todo el día" (I have worked all day), which implies that I am still working. Let me gamble a translation to Italian: "ho laborato tutto il giorno" (passato prossimo). Yet, I can also say "trabajé todo el día" (I worked all day), which implies that I have stopped. So, in Italian would the "passato remoto" be used "lavorai tutto il giorno"...?

Grazie mille a voi,
Joseph

roma55
Been Around a Bit
Posts: 29
Joined: February 22nd, 2008 3:41 pm

Postby roma55 » November 14th, 2008 10:51 pm

Ciao Joseph,

in Italian passato remoto is not use much these days. It looks like Spanish is closer to English in your examples.

To distinguish between finished action and continuing action we use idiomatic expressions and context such as:

Ho lavorato tutto il giorno (said in the office) = I have been working all day and still going..
Ho lavorato tutto il giorno (said while sipping wine sitting on the sofa)= I worked all day

E' tutto il giorno che lavoro=I have been working all day and still going..
Sto lavorando da stamane...= I have been working since this morning...

ecc..

In general the context is the most important pointer and we would use the passato prossimo for most cases referring to the past

Buono studio!

roma55
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