Learn about the particle ci and also continue practicing using the hypothetical period
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Cinzia: Buongiorno a tutti. |
| Marco: Marco here. Lower intermediate series, season 1, lesson 17. Don’t Make Your Italian Friends Wait! Hello and welcome to the Lower intermediate series at italianpod101.com where we study modern Italian in a fun educational format. |
| Cinzia: So brush up on the Italian that you started learning long ago or start learning today. |
| Marco: Thanks for being here with us for this lesson. Cinzia, what are we looking at in this lesson? |
| Cinzia: In this lesson, we will learn about the particle CI and also continue practicing using the hypothetical period. |
| Marco: This conversation takes place in Giulia’s car. |
| Cinzia: And it’s between Giulia and Manuel. |
| Marco: And because they are friends, they will be speaking informal Italian. |
| Cinzia: Listeners, I have a question. |
| Marco: A question? |
| Cinzia: Yep. I want to know when was the last time you commented. |
| Marco: Ah yes, great question. |
| Cinzia: Stop by italianpod101.com, leave us a comment or just say hi. |
| Marco: Okay you heard Cinzia. Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Manuel: Dove ci aspetta Marcella? |
| Giulia: Ci aspetta in Piazza San Babila. |
| Manuel: È un po' tardi per incontrarla. |
| Giulia: Già, se fossimo andati a cenare prima, ora saremmo già arrivati. |
| Manuel: Hai ragione, ma non sapevo che avremmo incontrato Marcella. |
| Giulia: Scusami, lo sai che è la mia migliore amica. Volevo vedere anche lei stasera. |
| Marco: Let’s hear it slowly now. |
| Manuel: Dove ci aspetta Marcella? |
| Giulia: Ci aspetta in Piazza San Babila. |
| Manuel: È un po' tardi per incontrarla. |
| Giulia: Già, se fossimo andati a cenare prima, ora saremmo già arrivati. |
| Manuel: Hai ragione, ma non sapevo che avremmo incontrato Marcella. |
| Giulia: Scusami, lo sai che è la mia migliore amica. Volevo vedere anche lei stasera. |
| Marco: And now, with the translation. |
| Manuel: Dove ci aspetta Marcella? |
| Manuel: Where is Marcella waiting for us? |
| Giulia: Ci aspetta in Piazza San Babila. |
| Giulia: She's waiting in Piazza San Babila. |
| Manuel: È un po' tardi per incontrarla. |
| Manuel: It's a bit late to meet up with her. |
| Giulia: Già, se fossimo andati a cenare prima, ora saremmo già arrivati. |
| Giulia: That's right, if we had gone to dine sooner, we would have been already there. |
| Manuel: Hai ragione, ma non sapevo che avremmo incontrato Marcella. |
| Manuel: You are right, but I didn't know we would have met up with Marcella. |
| Giulia: Scusami, lo sai che è la mia migliore amica. Volevo vedere anche lei stasera. |
| Giulia: Forgive me, you know she's my best friend. I wanted to see her as well this evening. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Cinzia: Marco, it’s true. Italians often take their cars when going out. |
| Marco: We sure do, although I think it depends on the city. |
| Cinzia: How about Sanremo? |
| Marco: Well having a car in my city isn’t essential but well it is useful when going to France or Montecarlo. What about Napoli? |
| Cinzia: Well, we do have at least two cars. In our small towns, we need a car to reach the main city centers. Unfortunately transportations are not that good you know. |
| Marco: Yeah I can understand that. Instead if you live in Venice, you really don’t need a car. Do you? |
| Cinzia: Sure you don’t, but it might be nice to own a boat in Venice. |
| Marco: Or a Gondola. |
| Cinzia: Of course. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Marco: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. The first word is |
| Cinzia: Aspettare. |
| Marco: To wait. |
| Cinzia: Aspettare. Aspettare. |
| Marco: Next word |
| Cinzia: Pò. |
| Marco: Bit, little. |
| Cinzia: Pò. Pò. |
| Marco: Next word |
| Cinzia: Cenare. |
| Marco: To have dinner, to dine. |
| Cinzia: Cenare. Cenare. |
| Marco: Next word |
| Cinzia: Arrivare. |
| Marco: To be there, get there. |
| Cinzia: Arrivare. Arrivare. |
| Marco: Next word |
| Cinzia: Sapere. |
| Marco: To know |
| Cinzia: Sapere. Sapere. |
| Marco: And last word |
| Cinzia: Incontrare. |
| Marco: To meet. |
| Cinzia: Incontrare. Incontrare. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Marco: And now, let’s have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Cinzia: The first word we will look at is aspettare. |
| Marco: And the sample sentence is |
| Cinzia: Sono in ritardo. Mi aspetti? |
| Marco: I am late. Would you wait for me? |
| Cinzia: The next word we will look at is pò. |
| Marco: And the sample sentence is |
| Cinzia: La questione è un pò complicata. |
| Marco: The matter is a bit complicated. |
| Cinzia: Next word cenare. |
| Marco: And the sample sentence is |
| Cinzia: Ceno normalmente alle 8. |
| Marco: I normally dine at 8 PM. |
| Cinzia: The next word we will look at is arrivare. |
| Marco: And the sample sentence is |
| Cinzia: A che ora arrivi? |
| Marco: At what time will you be here? |
| Cinzia: Next, sapere. |
| Marco: And the sample sentence is |
| Cinzia: Sai che ore sono? |
| Marco: Do you know what time it is? |
| Cinzia: Yeah what’s the time Marco? |
| Marco: Now it’s about... |
| Cinzia: It’s late. I have to go back home, sorry. |
| Marco: No come on. Non è tardi. It’s not late. |
| Cinzia: Okay. |
| Marco: Abbiamo quasi finito. We have nearly finished. |
| Cinzia: Okay because we are at the last word which is incontrare. |
| Marco: And the sample sentence is |
| Cinzia: Ieri ho incontrato Luisa. |
| Marco: Yesterday I met Luisa. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Cinzia: And now let’s take a look at today’s grammar. The particle CI may be used in two different fashions. |
| Marco: The first one regards it’s used as the direct object pronoun as shown in the dialogue. |
| Cinzia: Dove ci aspetta Marcella? |
| Marco: In this case CI stands for Noi, as direct object, and it always precedes the verb it is attached to. |
| Cinzia: For example, the sentences Marcella aspetta noi in Piazza San Babila, and Lei ci aspetta in Piazza San Babila, are literally equivalent. |
| Marco: Although using the direct object noi is theoretically correct, it is normally used when we wish to stress the object over any other element of the sentence. For example, in the sentence provided by Cinzia, the fact that Marcella is waiting for us and us alone, not someone else is stressed. The second case in which we use CI concerns it’s used as a locative adverb which substitutes Là, there. Please note that the place we refer to has to be mentioned earlier in the discourse. For instance |
| Cinzia: Vorrei tanto visitare Venezia. Ci vuoi andare sul serio? |
| Marco: I would much love visiting Venice. Do you really want to go there? |
| Cinzia: CI as pronoun and CI as adverb are never used together within the same sentence in order to avoid confusion. |
| Marco: When mentioning the dinner she had with Manuel, Giulia uses a type 3 hypothetical period. This is the only if clause that refers to a past occurrence where the condition conveyed in a subordinate clause did not take place. |
| Cinzia: This kind of hypothetical period always refers to the past. It often, though not always, expresses regret about something that didn’t happen because its condition was not satisfied. |
Outro |
| Marco: That just about does it for today. Okay some of our listeners already know about the most powerful tool on italianpod101.com |
| Cinzia: And it’s our line by line audio. |
| Marco: The perfect tool for rapidly improving listening comprehension |
| Cinzia: By listening to lines of the conversation again and again. |
| Marco: Listen until every word and syllable becomes clear. Basically, we break down the dialogue into comprehensible bite size sentences. |
| Cinzia: You can try the line by line audio in the premium learning center at italianpod101.com |
| Marco: A presto. |
| Cinzia: Ciao a tutti e grazie. |
18 Comments
HideHi Guy,
you can read about the imperfect Subjunctive (fossimo) here:
https://www.italianpod101.com/lesson/lower-intermediate-lesson-s2-7-i-thought-you-were-buying-shoes-in-italy-today/
In this dialogue, the tense used is pluperfect Subjunctive (fossimo stati), which you can read about here:
https://www.italianpod101.com/lesson/lower-intermediate-lesson-s2-8-i-didnt-know-you-had-brought-other-girls-in-italy/
Thank you for your comment!
Valentina
Team ItalianPod101.com
Hi there, thank you for the lesson.
Where can we learn more about 'fossimo' ?
Ciao Simon,
Good question!
In this case "già" is used as an interjection. The meaning is "You are right", but be careful because sometimes it can be used ironically.
You can recognize this usage, because usually the word is isolated.
I hope this helps!
If you have more questions, please let us know!
Grazie,
Ofelia
Team ItalianPod101.com
Ciao tutti,
Ho una domanda piccola su questa lezione. Nel dialogo, Giulia ha detto 'già', e la traduzione inglese è 'you are right', ma io solo uso 'già in senso di 'already', per esempio 'ho già mangiato cena'. Come usiamo già nel modo del dialogo?
Grazie!
I have a small question on this lesson. In the dialogue Giulia said 'già', and the English translation is 'you are right', but I only use 'già' in the sense of 'already', for example 'ho già mangiato cena'. How do we use già as it is in the dialogue?
Thanks!
Simon
Hi Sara,
When the grammar gets more complicated we try to give a literal translation, but for sure the best translation for that sentence is "I didn’t know we were going to meet Marcella."
Thank you for your feedback and understanding,
Grazie,
Ofelia
Team ItalianPod101.com
I don't think any English speaker would say "I didn't know hat we would have met up with Marcella." I think we would say "I didn't know we were going to meet Marcella."
Ciao Michele Massa,
Grazie per il commento! Thank you for posting!:smile:
If you want to type vowels with accent, you have to set up the Italian Keyboard in your device. It's usually already included, you have only to set it up from the keyboard settings.
...or, as a secondary option, you can copy and paste :sweat_smile: à è é ì ò ù
A presto!
Ofelia
Team ItalianPod101.com
Ciao Tutti! Spero che tutto vanno bene per voi. Grazie a Marco, Cinzia e gli altri maestri per le lezione interresante!:thumbsup: Mi dispiace che non ho scritto troppo. Non ho nemmeno buona scusa :open_mouth: ma sono stato molto occupato. Se ho scritto di piu, la mia italiana miglioro! Scrivero di piu, presto!
Hi everyone! I hope that all is going well for You. Thanks to Marco, Cinzia and the other teachers for the interesting lessons! :thumbsup: I'm sorry that I havent writen a lot. I don't even have a good excuse :open_mouth: but I've been very busy. If I wrote more, my italian would improve! I will write more, soon!
P.S. C'e' un modo per fare le accenti delle parole mentre scrivere?
P.S. Is there a way to make the accent mark for words while writing?
A presto!
Michele (Michelina)
Ciao Pablo!
Grazie a te!
Continua a seguirci!
Arrivederci!:smile:
Ofelia
Team ItalianPod101.com
Ciao Cynthia e Marco!
Molto grazie pero queste lezione! Davvero sono molto divertente e utile. Ogni giorno sento un paio o più. Da ora in poi commenterò più spesso.
Grazie mille!
Pablo