2468 Italian Verb Conjuagations

I will add
[url]http://www.logosconjugator.org/owa-v/verba_dba.verba_main.create_page?lang=en[/url]

Hope it helps!

Hello Neilmcn,
thanks for that link, I shall have fun clicking away!!
But tell me, how are you meant to remember all the different combinations? Or does it all make sense when you are actually speaking the language, say on an everyday basis?
I say this because I am taking an Italian beginner's language course, and am finding it all most confusing at present:o
Does it mean that I should try and learn it all "parrot fashion"?
Hope that you can help me in some way, by giving me any learning tips. Thanks.
Francesca

Thank you, signori, for the links... as Francesca said - should be fun to click away at our leisure! :)

Francesca, it's a lot to do with learning conjugations off by heart. What I used to do when learning Latin at school (for 4 long years!) was that whenever I was moping round the house clearing up or going for a walk etc I would go through the conjugations of various verbs in various tenses. That was the best way to remember... from the first person singular to plural. Shere willpower hehe...

But I think talking in class will help. We've recently done lots of exercises after learning the imperfetto - and comparing its use with the passato prossimo. Can't say I'm 100% sure what to use when but getting there! Main thing is you remember at all...

Stephanie

[QUOTE=Francesca]Hello Neilmcn,
thanks for that link, I shall have fun clicking away!!
But tell me, how are you meant to remember all the different combinations? Or does it all make sense when you are actually speaking the language, say on an everyday basis?[/QUOTE]

It is very difficult to remember all the different combinations. Most native Italians can't do it any more than more native Brits or Americans can conjugate English verbs perfectly in all modes and tenses.

The online resource on the LifeInItaly website is aimed as more of a reference guide than as a dedicated learning/teaching tool.

The best way to learn Italian vocabulary is not to read an Italian dictionary, and the best way to learn verb conjugations is not read a book of 501 Italian verbs (or to visit the websites listed on this thread).

However, when you are learning Italian there will be many occasions when you will want to confirm the conjugation of a verb - particularly for the irregular verbs which you just have to learn and memorize. This is where these sites come in particularly useful and they are much faster and easier to use than a book of verbs (assuming of course that you are by a computer).

I personally spent a lot of time with my head in "Verbi Italiani - Tutti i verbi regolari e irregolari" published by Avallardi, a pocket-sized snip at 14.000 Lire a few years back. I'm not sure how much that helped me in hindsight.
I think that my reading of the Italian newspapers online before I moved to Italy was the biggest help to learning and understanding the Italian verbs and their conjugations. By using a simple monolingual Italian dictionary and my verb book, my daily online reading brought my Italian on as fast as I could have managed without the benefit of real Italian conversation.
I was also able to follow Italian current affairs at the same time which was a great side benefit.

As a language teacher, German and French with occasional Italian, I would heartily agree that READING (whatever the journal) is the best way to improve understanding/vocabulary/grammar. I buy the Rome Messagero which would send me bananas if in English and I note any words which are ESSENTIAL for understanding and learn them. For my kids I try to buy magazines which will appeal to them - none of us want to wade through pages of stuff which we are not interested in. Once the vocab is there, the confidence to speak out in the language will take off...

[QUOTE=F Bower]As a language teacher, German and French with occasional Italian, I would heartily agree that READING (whatever the journal) is the best way to improve understanding/vocabulary/grammar. I buy the Rome Messagero which would send me bananas if in English and I note any words which are ESSENTIAL for understanding and learn them. For my kids I try to buy magazines which will appeal to them - none of us want to wade through pages of stuff which we are not interested in. Once the vocab is there, the confidence to speak out in the language will take off...[/QUOTE]

Great idea. Just bought the Oxford Italian Grammar & Verbs book and it seems good value for money. Must find magazines in Italian though... Agree that reading in a foreign language helps alot - just keep your dictionary close by! :)

Stephanie

Hello Neilmcn,
thanks for the info. It looks like I shall just have to sit down and get my head stuck into my notes and just try and learn a little at a time.
I have also got a couple of old Italian newspapers from my last holiday, so may try and start reading little bits of those as well.
I find that listening to tapes, the people seem to talk so fast, that I have to listen to them over and over again.
I think I need to give my brain cells a bit of a boost!!
Francesca

Grazie Neil e Francesco

They are both saved as favourites. They will be of enormous help, particularly with the irregular verbs - of which there do seem to be a helluva lot!

I would suggest some karaoke in Italian. There are many websites offering midi tracks for this purpose.

Aliena what are you doing here?
Although I speak and understand Italian, I am not very good at writing letters in Italian, so rely on my husband for help. However I saw that I had translation on my new computer, and wrote a letter to the guy who fitted all our windows and doors .I wrote in iEnglish and pressed the button and hey presto, Italian. Waited for my husband to get home and showed him the letter ( pretended I had wrote it ). He fell about and nearly died laughing. When we went through it together,I also finished up on the floor rolling with laughter. Moral of the story do not trust these translation packages. Probably far better to try and battle along under your own steam.

Pamela Catalano

Ok, so you've all studied very hard and you now know ALL the conjugations of ALL the Italian verbs. Well done!

Not a lot of help without a little vocabulary though, so I've added an all new Italian vocabulary learning tool to my website here:
[url]http://www.lifeinitaly.co.uk/Italian-Vocabulary/Vocabulary-Builder.htm[/url]

It's free to use and if I do say so myself, it's great! It records all of your test results and then automatically generates a list of ALL the words you have learned in order of how well/badly you managed to learn them. Print out that word list, study the ones you can't remember and you'll be fluent by next Tuesday.

Happy studying.

[QUOTE=pamela catalano]Moral of the story do not trust these translation packages. Probably far better to try and battle along under your own steam.[/QUOTE]

Pamela - I could not agree more. Tools like Babelfish, Dictionary.com have their uses, but not to translate whole passages. I've done it, just to get the gyst of something and finished up helpless with laughter. You certainly learn more if, as you put it, you battle along under your own steam, and not be afraid to make mistakes.

[QUOTE=pamela catalano]..... However I saw that I had translation on my new computer, and wrote a letter to the guy who fitted all our windows and doors .I wrote in iEnglish and pressed the button and hey presto, Italian. ....
Pamela Catalano[/QUOTE]

Pamela,

These programmes are great fun if you take time out to play around with them! Last year my partner wrote a letter to me and happily had it translated by Babelfish into German thinking I assumed he translated it himself ... it was hilarious and he ended up being most embarrassed!! ...:D Lesson learned!!

For any Italian phrases, etc, I usually just pick the (many) words I don't know and fill in the gaps... it still sounds very basic but at least it gets you to know the vocabulary a bit better.

Enjoy! :)

Stephanie