Pacentro08's activity

According to Devoto-Oli - probably the best monolingual Italian dictionary available - 'qui' is more specific than 'qua', not the other way round, as suggested in earlier posts. There's not much in it, however. Sorry couldn't copy the entry from the dictionary app.

If the locals call them pappataci, beware! They are like midges because they're tiny and fly silently, but their bites can cause fever, fatigue, headaches and muscular pain. A doctor friend said their bites can be really nasty. Personally, I react badly if bitten by anything (including your common old UK ant!) and the best thing I've found in Italy is Autan stick - which seems to be popular because it's OK for children. I confess to stockpiling and I put it on all the time when it gets warm enough to be aware of them, and at dusk from about now onwards. I also have plug in machines all over the house. Plus After-Bite (or just plain ammonia) and antihistamines if I do get bitten. I hope you don't have as bad a summer as the one you described. It must have been awful.

When I first got my house, electricity and water were owned by the comune and they couldn't do online payments, so I had my bills sent direct to a friend in another part of Italy, gave her a UK-issued euro pre-paid card which I top-up from the UK as necessary. She texts me the amount so I have a record till I physically get the bills from her on my next visit. Works pretty well. It's another option.

The rules changed 6 weeks before I turned 60 and I now have to wait till 2014. you have to have been born before 5 July 1951 to qualify.

Ooh ooh, a friend just sent me this article on grammar rules in language learning and teaching! It's specifically about English, but has some value for Italian learners as well. In the last paragraph, the writer suggests that vocabulary is the most important thing. Is it? Just because we know the names of the pedals in a car doesn't mean we know how to drive it!! http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/sep/18/teach-grammar-rules?fb=o...

'Stand someone in front of a high mountain & they may never attempt more than a few faltering steps to the summit. Show them a modest hill, give them comfortable boots & a lightweight pack & they’ll usually get to the top of the hill pretty quickly. Then maybe the next hill, then the next. They may eventually get really keen, invest in crampons & ice-axe & go for the big one.' Love the analogy, Pilch! There are some fantastic contributions in this thread - I just hope some of it works for the OP. It's probably worth repeating that we all learn differently and so all the suggestions made here are really helpful because they provide a variety of ways of learning. I recently had a student who knew loads of grammar, but struggled to speak the language. The group he was studying with in the UK felt that learning grammar structures was the way they had learned at school and so they were in their comfort zone. While this has merit for some people, I firmly believe we have to be drawn out of our comfort zone to be able to create usable language in everyday situations. And as someone else has said, a lot depends on what you want the language for. Most of us want to be able to communicate in the spoken language, so it makes sense to concentrate on listening and spoken skills, but somewhere along the line some kind of structure needs to be identified so that it can be built on in the future. I also find that even though many adult learners say they want 'conversational Italian' and don't want to do grammar, sometimes they ask for an explanation precisely because they are adults and want to understand the reason behind a particular usage. While I adore grammar personally, I don't refer to structures as a default position in my teaching. I suppose I'm saying I don't think we can have fixed ideas but need to be very flexible both as learners and as teachers. Sorry I got drawn into the past tenses aside, but Ram, I've had a look at articles on regional Sicilian and Sicilian dialect and can't find anything to suggest the imperfetto is used instead of the passato prossimo/remoto. BUT I did find that there are some forms of the passato remoto in Sicilian dialect that look like imperfetto forms. Lifelong learning - isn't it great!? The post on pronunciation was another goody. If we can get rid of the most non-Italian features, such as the English pronunciation of the vowels and [t] and [d], we make ourselves more easily understood by Italians and believe it or not, it's easier for us to understand them. Onward and upward, folks!!

Hate to say it Ram, but I think you're completely wrong :-( The passato prossimo is for a single completed action in the past, eg Sono andato in Germania la settimana scorsa / a giugno / due anni fa. The imperfetto relates more to repeated actions, an action that was going on when another action interrupted it, descriptions etc. Here's Susanna Nocchi's explanation from Grammatica pratica della lingua italiana: L'imperfetto si usa normalmente: a) in una descrizione fisica o atmosferica     -    da bambina avevo i capelli biondi                                                                      -    faceva così freddo ieri! b) per indicare una ripetizione o un'abitudine     -    d'estate andavamo al mare tutti i giorni c) per una descrizione psicologica, una sensazione o un sentimento  -  Ieri ero depresso d) all'inizio di una favola               -      C'era una volta un re che aveva una figlia bellisssima.... e) con le espressioni   stare + gerundio,  stare per    -   stavate mangiando?                                                                                    -    stavano per uscire quando siamo arrivati f) dopo la parola  mentre                    -   mentre guardavamo la TV è saltata la luce g) quando si esprime un'azione continuata, che non è finita o non è stata limitata nel tempo    -                               -   aspettavo l'autobus da mezz'ora quando è passato mio padre in macchina                               -    Anna era in casa e leggeva il giornale .... With the exception of 'faceva così freddo ieri' you couldn't substitute the imperfetto with a passato prossimo in any of the above examples. In the faceva freddo instance it's possible but it changes the meaning just a tad. Does this help? They really are for two different uses. As for the Dante comment... well in one sense they're right because the standard language was based on 14th century Florentine dialect, BUT there are plenty of regional forms spoken in Tuscany that are most definitely NOT standard Italian. Just one example is the [x] sound instead of a [k] sound between vowels as in 'una coca cola' which sounds a bit Spanish on first hearing (una hoha hola)! But Tuscany's not in the north... (maybe it's north of where you are, but it's not linguistically or geographically :-)) If you want to chat more on this... (!) let's start a new thread, huh? Salutoni

I don't want to be 'pignola' or end up going off topic, but I feel it's important to respond to Ram's second post on the passato remoto. Maybe our posts crossed in the ether or maybe we are talking at cross purposes, but we could easily cause people to go down the wrong road with these tenses. I think, from what you said elsewhere, that you're in Sicily, Ram, and what I was saying in my previous post agrees, not disagrees, with you. They use the passato remoto in speech for all completed actions, and at the expense of the passato prossimo. And as a result, we hear it used in Montalbano. Where I have to take issue is your assertion that the north uses the imperfect for 'everything other than Cesare fu imperatore'. It's not the imperfect (imperfetto - mangiavo / andavo) but the passato prossimo (ho mangiato / sono andato). Forgive my use of the Italian names for tenses, it's not for effect but rather because it is clearer than using some not entirely equivalent English name. The imperfetto is used throughout the country in the relevant context, but it's not an alternative to the passato remoto or passato prossimo (apart from a very small number of situations and even then there's a slight shift in meaning). I'm intrigued by your 'in the north, where Dante's Italian is king' but I suspect that really is a completely new thread!! Anyway, good luck to the original poster

Have to pick you up on the past tenses comment, Ram, as it's not quite as you suggest. The imperfect - andavo, parlavamo, scrivevano etc - is used everywhere because it relates to description (in the past) or repeated actions in the past, among other uses. What you may be thinking of is the use of the Passato Prossimo, which equates to both the simple past and the perfect of English, depending on the context. This tense is, as the name suggests, used to refer to completed actions in the past that still have some relationship with the present, ie prosssimo to the present. In the north, it is used in speech and the Passato Remoto (see below) is never used in speech. The Passato Remoto is also used to refer to completed actions in the past, but their effect is considered remote from the present. This remoteness can be in actual time - a long time ago, or psychologically, ie it is felt by the speaker to have little significance now. The standard language uses both the Passato Prossimo and the Passato Remoto and speakers in central and most of southern Italy will use both in the spoken language. Don't be fooled into thinking it is just a written form (like the equivalent past anterior in French is). When you get to the extreme south - the southern part of Calabria and Sicily - the Passato Remoto is used in speech and the Passato Prossimo is not. However, this is changing very slowly. The reasons for the different usage come from the influence of the dialects on the regional spoken form of Italian. From a foreign learner's point of view, you can get by quite happily without ever using the Passato Remoto is you're living in/visiting the north, but if you're anywhere else it would be sensible to at least learn to recognise it. Not high on your list of priorities though!! Hope this is useful SGH

Been in the UK for the weekend so just picking this up now, and though I posted in the thread Gala pasted in, there are a few things to add since 2010. Firstly, have a look at the BBC's newish beginners video course, which is interactive, sort of... It's lovely. http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/italian/lamappa/ Secondly, it sounds like focussing on grammar is not the way forward for you. If you hate it and only do homework because you have to before the next lesson, you will never get beyond feeling it's a chore. If you're happy to chunter on to people when you meet them, this is where your strength lies, so develop your language skills from there. Some people would kill for the confidence to just babble on whether correct or not! IMHO you need to find a teacher to have 'conversations' with, and who will correct you and explain any grammar bits as they crop up. There are tons of materials out there which any teacher worth their salt will know about, be happy to use and be flexible enough to work in the way that suits you. All of the above posts have good advice that you can pick and choose from and find bits that work for you. I'm always banging on about publications by Alma Edizioni, which are excellent and you could very usefully simply download the samples of their books and audio materials and play around with them. There are sample chapters of course books with games and audio, sample chapters of short stories with accompanying audio, games, puzzles etc. If you really want a grammar book, the best one I have ever seen in 40 years of teaching is Susanna Nocchi's Grammatica pratica della lingua italiana and I know they've done a version with explanations in English, though I've never used it. Finally, at the start of this year, I set up a new website because I'm covering English as well, and the website needed to reflect that. More importantly for those who are learning, is that I put tips about learning Italian (and English, but irrelevant for this thread), with links to video and audio material as well as online exercises, which are intended to help anyone who wants a bit of additional input. The posts are actually on my Facebook page but they appear on the website pages so you never need to go near FB to get the information. I'm always happy to find materials for specific requests because they're bound to benefit someone! And before anyone starts questioning my motives, yes I'm in business, but the posts are something I can do to help anyone interested in Italian, not just people I work with. Have a look (www.susangirellihill.eu) and maybe you'll find something useful. As someone else said - don't give up! The rewards you will reap from learning to speak the language well, will be worth their weight in gold. All good wishes SGH