Learn how to place your meal order
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| Ciao a tutti! Sono Consuelo. Hi everybody! I’m Consuelo. |
| Welcome back to ItalianPod101.com’s Italiano in tre minuti, the fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Italian. |
| In the last lesson, we learned how to get a table at a restaurant. Today, we are going to learn how to order your food and drinks. |
| Normally, to get the waiter’s attention, you can just raise your hand and simply say Scusi! excuse me, and then ask for a menu: Un menù per favore. A menu, please. |
| (One more time, slowly: scusi, un menù per favore.) |
| Please memorize these words: per favore, it means please. |
| Now you should choose your: |
| antipasto, appetizer |
| primo, first dish, usually pasta |
| secondo, second dish, which can be fish or meat |
| contorno, side dish |
| …and finally, dolce, the dessert! |
| Hey, don’t worry, you don’t have to eat all of these if you don’t want to! |
| Usually the waiter will begin by asking: posso portarvi da bere? Can I bring you drinks? |
| (One more time, slowly: posso portarvi da bere?) |
| …And leave you time to choose your dishes. |
| When he or she comes back with your drinks, you will be asked: Cosa desidera ordinare? What would you like to order? |
| (One more time, slowly: cosa desidera ordinare?) |
| Cosa is the Italian for ‘what’ and it’s followed by desidera, the third singular person of the verb desiderare which in English literally means ‘to wish.’ Please note that it is used in a formal level of speech. Then you have ordinare ‘to order’. |
| Okay, now here you have basically two options: you can say vorrei or per me followed by the name of the food. Vorrei means ‘I would like’ and per me means ‘for me’. If you go for two things, you should use the conjugation e, meaning "and." Let’s now see some practical examples. |
| Here background changes and I am sitting with someone at the table, voice over of the waiter out of the camera: |
| Consuelo: Scusi! Un menù per favore! |
| Waiter: Sì, subito! |
| [...] |
| Waiter: Posso portarvi da bere? |
| Consuelo: Sì, acqua naturale e vino rosso per favore. |
| [...] |
| Waiter: Cosa desidera ordinare? |
| Consuelo: Vorrei spaghetti alla carbonara. |
| Guy: Per me bistecca fiorentina e insalata, grazie. |
| Did you see? That’s super easy!! |
| Now it’s time for Consuelo’s tips. |
| In many tourist cities, restaurants have English menus. If you need one, just ask un menu in inglese, per favore! If, unfortunately, the restaurant doesn't have one, first try to read the menu in Italian and if you don’t know what a dish is, try to ask cosa c’è in…? What’s inside…? |
| Ah, and if you are with Italians, please don’t forget to say buon appetito, enjoy your meal, before eating. Everybody in Italy uses this expression every time we eat meals! |
| In this lesson, we learned how to order food and drinks. Next time we’ll learn the phrase il conto per favore. Do you know what that means? Next time you’re going to learn this and other phrases we use when leaving a restaurant. |
| We’ll be waiting for you in our next Italiano in tre minuti lesson. |
| Ciao, alla prossima lezione!! |
17 Comments
HideTalking about food... Let's suppose you're in an Italian restaurant.
Cosa desidera ordinare?
Ciao Morgie,
I would recommend to go to the Vocabulary Lists section and put "school" in the search field: you'll see we have some very useful lists of school-related vocabulary.
As for conversation, here are some useful lesson series:
[Italiano in 3 minuti] https://www.italianpod101.com/lesson-library/master-italian-with-3-minute-video-lessons/
[Survival Phrases] https://www.italianpod101.com/lesson-library/before-you-travel-to-italy-survival-italian-phrases/
[Absolute Beginner Italian for Every day] https://www.italianpod101.com/lesson-library/absolute-beginner-italian-for-every-day/
Hope this is helpful!
Valentina
Team ItalianPod101.com
Ciao,
i am going to italy for school and i was wondering what do you think would be most useful to know as i will be speaking italian everyday. also do you have anything on how to have a conversation?
Grazie,
Hi Lyle Power,
Yes, that is correct: "siamo vegetariani."
In the last years, in Italy restaurants offering vegetarian options have increased, so I think you won't have too many troubles.
Please know that cheese and other dairy products are very common and if you can't eat them neither, be sure to let the person in charge know, by saying "Non mangiamo latticini."
Buon viaggio!
Ofelia
Team ItalianPod101.com
Ciao! Graze mille! :heart:
I'm going to Italy in February and I'm vegetarian, so I was wondering how you would say "We're Vegetarian" in Italian? Would it be something like "Siamo Vegetariani"?
Thanks! :)
Hi Nea!
Thank you for your comment!
I hope you enjoy learning with us :smile:
Engla
Team ItalianPod101.com
Grazie tanto
Hi Raul and Allen,
Thank you for your feedback.
Raul, we couldn't find any issue with the video.
Please make sure to have a QuickTime player installed -> www.apple.com/quicktime/download/ and have the latest updates of your browser.
Alternatively can you try with a different browser or to download the video in your device and view it from there.
If you still experience the same problem, please let us know!
Grazie,
Ofelia
Team ItalianPod101.com
Lesson is interrupted quite often...stop and go.
It helps a lot! Grazie!!
Hi Allen,
Question in Italian is feminine singuar and translated as 'domanda'. Questione is translated as matter or issue.
Your guess is right: thrid-singular person is used for formal situation and formal language.
Hope this helps.
Chiara
Team ItalianPod101.com