Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

Hi guys! Ciao ragazzi! Sono Desiree. I'm Desiree. And today I'm gonna tell you 10 phrases to amaze native speakers.
1. Grazie, ma in realtà io non sono un madrelingua. "Thank you, but I'm not a native speaker actually."
So it probably means that someone complimented you on your Italian, like,
Wow, il tuo italiano è perfetto! “Wow, your Italian is perfect!”
“Yeah, thank you, but I'm not a native speaker.” Si, grazie, ma non sono un madrelingua.
If people tell you something and you answer in this way, it means you have a high level, like high proficiency level of Italian. Good job!
2. Ho capito completamente tutto quello che hai detto. "I completely understood everything you said."
Actually maybe it's better to say, ho capito tutto quello che hai detto. “I understood everything you said.” Because if you add completamente, “completely,” it's kind of too much. So, yeah.
Ho capito tutto quello che hai detto.
They would be amazed, like, wow! you're great! But then people will expect that you know everything, really everything, and maybe use also different words. I would stay humble, like, “yeah, I got the sense of what you said.” Si, ho cpaito il senso di quello che hai detto.
So you can always surprised people, and not make them expect that you know everything. But that’s my personal opinion.
3. Ho studiato italiano per 10 anni. "I've been learning Italian for 10 years."
Well that's amazing, when I think that you did that for so long, 10 years is really long. But it's not really something to be proud of if you're still not able to talk a lot. So yeah, be careful with this phrase, because you can amaze people because they would, like, admire you for how much effort you put in your study, but, yeah, if you have a high level or you feel confident in Italian or whatever language you're learning, you can say Ho studiato italiano (or some other languages) per 10 anni.
It’s amazing, but, just be careful, not to make the other person expect that you know everything, and then you don’t, it's completely understandable, but yeah people would be amazed because you had such a long passion, basically. Your passion had started so long.
If you haven't been learning Italian for 10 years, but less, you just say the number and then add anni, like due anni, tre anni, quattro anni.
uno, “one,” would be un anno, not anni.
Or probably something that would amaze even more, is when you say Ho studiato l'italiano per neanche un anno. ”I’ve been learning Italian for not even a year.“
And you know how to speak that, that's amazing and people would be amazed.
4. L'italiano è divertente e facile da imparare. "Italian is fun and easy to learn."
I can believe that it's fun for people to learn that, but I wouldn't say that it's easy, so if you tell a native speaker that you find it easy I will be impressed. Because we have so many verbs, so many irregular verbs, and we have articles, like feminine and masculine. I understand it's really hard to understand, like who start or finish with feminine and what's masculine, but it's a secret.
So “if you find Italian fun and easy…” Se trovi l'italiano divertente e facile... You amaze me.
5. Mi ci è voltuto solo un anno per diventare fluente. "It took me only one year to become fluent."
That's amazing, for real! As I was saying before, I know Italian isn’t easy. But you know that actually, I didn't know that, I just learned that, like I was reading an article, and it says that Italian is the fourth most learned language in the world. So we have English, Spanish, Chinese, and then Italian. I was really surprised about that, I don't know why so many people learn Italian, but if you find that fun and easy, you're welcome.
6. Oltre a conoscere l'italiano, so parlare anche alcune altre lingue. "Apart from knowing Italian, I can speak a few other languages."
Yeah, that's great, but it always depends on, like, you can say “how are you” in 20 languages, it's amazing, but to amaze people you need to have a high level. So my opinion, at least in my case, I would say that studying two languages at a time, is already a lot.
7. Parlerò italiano come un madrelingua in tre anni. "I will speak Italian like a native speaker in 3 years."
But if you're not that confident, maybe don't say that, because people will expect you to do that, maybe we will be like skeptical, and be like, oh really, and how are you going to do that? How you master, to master. If you really know you can do that, like, maybe you are going to study abroad in Italy, staying there, spending there 2 years, also maybe 1, if you studied a lot before, I’m sure you would be fluent. So you can say that but don’t use it too much, and don't be overwhelming. If you want to say something not so strong maybe you can say
Vorrei parlare italiano come un madrelingua in 3 anni. “I would like to speak Italian like a native speaker in 3 years.”
And that’s more acceptable, people would like it more. So I suggest "I would like,” vorrei, instead of parlerò.
Parlerò is ”I would speak;” vorrei is "I would like to.”
So, keep it up!
8. Posso guardare i film italiani senza sottotitoli. "I can watch Italian movies without subtitles."
That's amazing for real! How many times did I say amazing in this video?
Anyways, well, actually maybe you can, it can be helpful to do that because you pay more attention to what they do and you're not like oh, it's ok, I can read the subtitles. No, you need to focus on what they say, and especially for Italian movies, like, I mean Italian movies made by Italian actors, maybe that's also a good way to learn Italian because they use a lot of gestures and you can learn, like, how to say “I’m hungry,” you do this on your stomach, and it means “I’m hungry.” Or this “can we go?”
Yeah, so if you watch Italian movies it's a good way to learn fun things actually, and to learn Italian idiomatic expressions, maybe. So that's a good phrase to amaze people, but also a good phrase, a good thing to do to learn actual Italian.
9. Posso memorizzare circa 50 nuove parole italiane al giorno. "I can memorize about 50 new Italian words a day."
That’s a lot! Like 50! Who! No, I would never be able to, but if you can do that and yeah tell to people but it means that like in one week you will have 350 new words. If you don't manage to memorize so many words in a day, maybe you can change the number, and say for example,
Posso memorizzare circa 10 nuove parole italiane al giorno. "I can memorize around 10 new Italian words a day."
And that's cool too, I mean as long as you can keep it every day, it's great. I would say it's not about how many words you learn, but how many times you do that. But if you really managed to do that everyday you're basically done, you would manage to be fluent in no time. Keep it down and then if you can make more that's even great, better, but still, be humble if you manage to.
10. Sto imparando l'italiano tutto da solo. "I'm learning Italian all by myself."
Wow! Again! wow! How do you learn a language by yourself? If you're not attending lessons, you can watch videos online, like you are doing now, or read books, grammar books, but also normal books, and watch movies, listen to songs, try to speak it with person, like, the other people maybe a native speaker will be better that will correct you, or even if they would not, because they're not teachers, but just people you want to talk to, like, friends, at least you can see if they really understand what you want to say, and that's a good way to check the improvement you have done.
That was it for the 10 phrases to amaze native speakers, I hope you get to the point where you can say one of them proudly soon. And I’m happy if I can help you just a little. So comment if you want to tell me something, and remember to subscribe. Bye bye! See you soon! Ci vediamo!

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