Learn about the sentence structure in Italian
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Intro |
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| Michael: How are sentences structured in Italian? |
| Ofelia: And are the rules rigid? |
| Michael: At ItalianPod101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine the following situation: Mark Lee is talking to his wife, Karen Lee, about a movie she saw at the cinema last night. He asks, |
| "What did you see?" |
| Mark Lee: Cosa hai visto? |
| Dialogue |
| Mark Lee: Cosa hai visto? |
| Karen Lee: Ho visto un film italiano. |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Mark Lee: Cosa hai visto? |
| Michael: "What did you see?" |
| Karen Lee: Ho visto un film italiano. |
| Michael: "I saw an Italian film." |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: In this lesson, we'll focus on sentence structure in Italian. This dictates the way sentences are spoken, written, and understood. You may know that in English, the most common and widely used sentence structure is subject, verb, object, often abbreviated as S-V-O. Take the sentence, "I eat chocolate," for example. In this sentence, "I" is the subject, "eat" is the verb, and "chocolate" is the object. We see here the S-V-O sentence structure at play. |
| Michael: Luckily for native English speakers, the sentence structure in Italian is the same as in English. Let's see the same sentence in Italian: |
| Ofelia: Io mangio cioccolata. [SLOW] Io mangio cioccolata. |
| Michael: First is the subject, "I," |
| Ofelia: io, [SLOW] io, |
| Michael: next is the verb, "eat," |
| Ofelia: mangio, [SLOW] mangio, |
| Michael: and last is the object, "chocolate," |
| Ofelia: cioccolata, [SLOW] cioccolata. |
| Michael: Now, let's see how the "subject, verb, object" structure applies to the following sentence from the dialogue: |
| Ofelia: Ho visto un film italiano. [SLOW] Ho visto un film italiano. |
| Michael: or, in English, "I saw an Italian film." The word order is identical here, with a slight difference concerning the morphology, which is the formation of the words. In fact, in Italian, the subject and the verb usually merges into one word. Therefore, first, we have |
| Ofelia: Ho visto, [SLOW] ho visto, |
| Michael: which literally means "have seen," but, as we've mentioned, works as both the subject and the verb, and translates to "I saw." And last is |
| Ofelia: un film italiano, [SLOW] un film italiano, |
| Michael: which is the object, "an Italian film." |
| Michael: Other good news is that sentence structure in Italian is more flexible than in English. For example, utilizing the same sentence, we can retain the meaning but swap the word order by saying, |
| Ofelia: Un film italiano ho visto. |
| Michael: Literally, the sentence translates to "An Italian film have seen." However, the understood meaning in Italian does not change, even if it doesn't sound natural. |
| Michael: This is because Italian is a null-subject language. This means that subjects are not required before a conjugated verb, as they are in English. That's because, as we've already mentioned, the subject is already implied in Italian, based on the conjugation of the verb. For example, you can translate "I eat chocolate" as |
| Ofelia: Mangio cioccolata |
| Michael: instead of |
| Ofelia: Io mangio cioccolata, |
| Michael: since "I" is already implied based on the conjugated verb, |
| Ofelia: mangio. |
| Michael: Finally, let's talk about negation in Italian. Creating the negative verb form in Italian is incredibly easy. Simply add |
| Ofelia: non [SLOW] non |
| Michael: before the verb that is being conjugated. For example, we can convert the affirmative sentence "I saw an Italian film," |
| Ofelia: Ho visto un film italiano, |
| Michael: into its negative form by simply adding "not," which in Italian is |
| Ofelia: non |
| Michael: before the verb. This then gives us |
| Ofelia: Non ho visto un film italiano, [SLOW] Non ho visto un film italiano, |
| Michael: "I didn't see an Italian film." It's that easy and, unlike English, you don't need an auxiliary verb. |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: So far, we have learned that although the subject-verb-object structure is dominant in Italian, the words can be moved around. This is because, in Italian, we change the form of the words to convey certain meanings, rather than changing the entire sentence. |
| Expansion/Contrast |
| Michael: Now let's go back to the sentence with the inverted order, |
| Ofelia: Un film italiano ho visto. |
| Michael: This literally means "An Italian film have seen," but can translate as "An Italian film I saw." |
| Such an uncommon word order would usually be used to convey a different nuance and is not commonly used. This sentence, for example, might be a reply to the question, "What kind of film did you see?" Thus, we change the word order to emphasize a particular piece of information, or to simply change our speaking style. |
| Michael: Let's review. Respond to the prompts by speaking aloud. Then repeat after the native speaker focusing on pronunciation. |
| Do you remember how Mark Lee asks |
| "What did you see?" |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Ofelia as Mark Lee: Cosa hai visto? |
| Michael: Listen again and repeat. |
| Ofelia as Mark Lee: Cosa hai visto? |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Ofelia as Karen Lee: Cosa hai visto? |
| Michael: And do you remember how Karen Lee says, |
| "I saw an Italian film." |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Ofelia as Karen Lee: Ho visto un film italiano. |
| Michael: Listen again and repeat. |
| Ofelia as Karen Lee: Ho visto un film italiano. |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Ofelia as Karen Lee: Ho visto un film italiano. |
Outro |
| Michael: And that's it! Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Ofelia: A presto! |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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