Learning Italian: Lesson One Audio
This is a crude first attempt. In future I hope to insert the audio into the lesson text
If you have any questions, please ask them in the comments section.
Thomas Fleming
Thomas Fleming is president of the Fleming Foundation. He is the author of six books, including The Morality of Everyday Life and The Politics of Human Nature, as well as many articles and columns for newspapers, magazines,and learned journals. He holds a Ph.D. in Classics from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and a B.A. in Greek from the College of Charleston. He served as editor of Chronicles: a Magazine of American Culture from 1984 to 2015 and president of The Rockford Institute from 1997-2014. In a previous life he taught classics at several colleges and served as a school headmaster in South Carolina
Glad for the clarification for di and da – but just so I get it: Sono di Roma means something along the lines of where you live, even going back to where you are from. But Vengo da Roma means literally where you last were – or does it also mean where you are from, equivalent to di? If you were talking to someone in Florence and they asked where you were traveling from and you said I come from Rome, is that when you would use Vengo da Roma? I think I am still confused. And Ger-ah-chee!!!
When for the many sins for which I have never atoned, I first met Bob at the Grand Hotel del Gianicolo in Rome, he introduced himself as Bob Geraysi. I therefore reserve thw right to pronounce his name as he then preferred–maybe it is the Calabrian pronumciation.
The simple answer to the question is: Both yes. If someone asked you where you come from in English, you might answer with the city, where you were born, the city where you live, or your most recent stop. Depends on context. On the other hand, if asked, in English, where you are from, or in Italian, Di dov’è lei? You would probably say, depending on your attitude, the place where you were born or the place you grew up, or the place where you have been living–but NOT your previous temporary stop. When I am asked, I answer something like, “Habito in Illionoise, vicino a Chicago, ma sono di Charleston.
So Il Calabrese Bob risponerebbe, “Sono di Brooklyn, ma habito da multi anni in Siracusa. Sono di origine Calabrese, sebbene io dica che sono Siciliano.
Si, sono di Brooklyn, e habito da multi anni in Siracusa, New York. Ma la famiglia di mio padre di Sicilia. Mai sentito di Calabria. Also, you are half right about when you first met me. We always pronounced the name as Jer (as is proper Italian) – “ah” – (short a which is also proper – but instead of “chi” we said the American pronounciation “see”. Dov’è questa Calabria? Andiamo a Calabria!
Bob, sempre i verbi. Per esempio, l familglia….è di Sicilia. Non ho mai sentito di (perhaps better: No ho sentito mai parlare di. I used to have a good friend from Calabria [Avevo un buon amico Calabrese), un professore al liceo in Lombardia. Mi ha invitato parecchie volte (several times) a l’accompagnare in un viaggo a Calabria. C’è un bel libro inglese, da George Gissing, Sulle Rive del Mar Ionio [By the Shores of the Ionian Sea].
Io ho letto quel libro – è stato molto bello!
I think the past tense is a bit confusing – correct me if I am wrong, but in English we say: “I read (not “reed” but “red”)” to express a past activity . In Italian we must say I have read. Correct?
Bob, you are running ahead with a haste hardly typical of the Calabresi. The simple answer is no and yes. Italian has several past tenses. For continuous or repeated past action, one uses the imperfect: Parlavo, I was reading or used to read; For an historical narrative or in formal writing, a simple an completed action is represented by the passato rimoto, Parlai, I read or did read. In every day speech North of Naples, roughly, this is replaced by the passato prossimo- = perfect: Ho parlato, I have spoken or spoke. Sicilians use the passato rimoto as the preferred simple past and even for the perfect, while other South Italians use the PR only for simple actions in the past. In Milan, you typically only hear the PR in formal lectures and sermons. We shall clarify this in the future. Right now, though, we first have to consider the imperfect and PP which are the two most commonly used past tenses in conversation from Rome to Venti Miglia.
Thanks – makes sense. The remoto used in writing but not generally in speaking is interesting. Haste? La famiglia anche di Napoli!
I might add an anecdote. The first time I went to Italy, I got myself a dictionary and listened to two elementary tape series. I had also gone through in a hurry, a pamphlet, with an optimistic title something like, “If you know Latin, you can learn Italian.” I was terrible but found that if I wrote out what wanted it to say and handed it to a cabdriver or hotel clerk without any English, I could get somewhere.
Upon returning to my office I found an invitation to give a lecture at a conference center in Northern Italy. They said I could present it in English and they would translate it for their annual volume of Transactions. Not me. So I set out to learn Italian. I told my new friend Ernest Van Den Haag, a once famous conservative intellectual at NR, what I was doing and he ridiculed me mercilessly. Ernie had lived in Venice for quite some time. I, nonetheless, persevered and got some help from friends, whose advice was very helpful but somewhat led me astray. I deliberately avoided the passato rimoto, which I barely knew, and did my best to avoid all but the simplest subjunctive constructions–rather as in French
So there I am the first day, bewildered, jetlagged, speaking my pig-Italian all day and all evening long with Italians, Germans, and a helpful French lady who taught Italian in France. I listened to astonishment to the speakers whose lectures might have been delivered 100 years earlier. I returned to my room after too much wine, and systematically changed my verbs. The next day, I received a standing ovation, but I believe it was more out of pity or, as Dr Johnson said of the woman preacher: It was like a dog standing on its hindlegs. It is not that it did well but that it did it at all.
So the lessons? First: Write a lot. When I correspond with friends collegues, hotels, etc, I always do it in Italian. It keeps me, if not sharp at least not as dull as I would become, and writing letters you learn to say the things you like to say as opposed to what an Italian teacher may think you want to say. I can talk about tennis in four languages but since I would never talk about tennis in English, it hardly matters. Second, just keep plugging away. Third, overprepare your knowledge of granmar.
PS on the Passato Rimoto, we watched a Montalbano episode last night, and they routinely used it.