Dialogue

Vocabulary (Review)

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Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
Ciao! Hello and welcome back to Italian survival phrases brought to you by ItalianPod101.com, this course is designed to equip you with the language skills and knowledge to enable you to get the most out of your visit to Italy. You will be surprised at how far a little Italian will go.
Now, before we jump in, remember to stop by ItalianPod101.com and there, you will find the accompanying PDF and additional info in the post. If you stop by, be sure to leave us a comment.
In today's lesson, we'll cover an extremely important phrase, "Where is the toilet?"
GRAMMAR POINT
In Italian, "Where is the toilet?" is Dov’è il bagno?
¿Dónde están los servicios?
Let's break it down by syllable: ¿Dónde están los servicios?
Now let's hear it once again, ¿Dónde están los servicios?
Let's look at the components. The first word Dov’è means "Where is".
Let's breakdown this word and hear it one more time. Do-v’è.
Dov’è
Dov’è
This is followed by il, which in Italian is one of the ways to say "the".
Finally comes the last word bagno which means "bathroom".
Let’s break this word down as well. Ba-gno.
Bagno
Bagno
So to recap, we have Dov’è il bagno? Literally this means "Where is the bathroom?"
There is a more formal way to ask "Where is the bathroom?", it is Dove sono i servizi? which also means "Where is the bathroom".
Let’s break it down by syllable Do-ve so-no i ser-vi-zi?.
Dove sono i servizi?
The words Dove sono mean "Where are". Do-ve so-no.
This is followed by i which is another way to say "the" in Italian.
Followed by servizi, ser-vi-zi.
Now please note that servizi is the contraction of servizi igienici that means "toilet facilities".
Cultural Insights
Now when you finally get to the bathroom there may be one last hurdle. In some instances, only Italian words are written on the doors! What to do, what to do? Well, you can stop by the website and find the words for men and women there. Find them inside the PDF or if you have an iPod, click the center button and you can find them there
The word "men" is uomini . The word for "women" is donne.
Let’s hear it once more. The word "men" is uomini . The word for "women" is donne.
When traveling there may not be so many public bathrooms for tourists to use. Which means your best option is to either stop at a cafe or a restaurant to use their bathrooms. Understandably, cafe owners aren’t too keen on having people stop in just to use their bathroom. So, to be polite, you might buy a bottle of water or order a cappuccino before asking Dov’è il bagno? or Posso usare il bagno per favore?
This last phrase means "May I please use the bathroom?"

Outro

Okay, to close out this lesson, we'd like you to practice what you've just learned. I'll provide you with the English equivalent of the phrase and you're responsible for shouting it aloud. You have a few seconds before I give you the answer, so buona fortuna, which means “good luck” in Italian.
"Where is the bathroom?" - Dov’è il bagno?
Dov’è il bagno?
Dov’è il bagno?
"Where is the bathroom?" - Dove sono i servizi?
Dove sono i servizi?
Dove sono i servizi?
"May I please use the bathroom?" - Posso usare il bagno per favore?
Posso usare il bagno per favore?
Posso usare il bagno per favore?
That’s going to do it for today. Ciao ciao!

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