Learn Italian language: La società italiana de TSR

PJ991

I don't know the names of tenses in Italian (or english for that matter, even though I should), so I need to ask this in english really.

I know there's a few past tenses. But the difference between something like 'ho comprato' and 'compravo' sometimes confuse me. When am I meant to use which tense? I wrote an essay: 'intascavano i soldi' in reference to politicians and that they used to do it and over a period of time.

But I've seen it used in situations where my (possibly made up) definition doesn't fit.

I don't want to muck up my 2 essays in the A2 exam :p:

Help would be greatly appreciated.

The difference between the perfect (ho comprato) and imperfect (compravo) is tricky and is something we used to spend a lot of time on at uni! It is in French too.

For me, I use the imperfect like you have suggested - to represent something that happened in the past over a period of time, or something that describes a situation e.g. the weather, your mood, what you looked like.

The perfect is used for a specific action at a specific time (implicit or explicit) e.g. "ieri ho comprato una pizza" or "ho comprato una pizza".

"Ho comprato una pizza" - a one off thing- clearly means something different to "compravo una pizza (regularity is implied, you could add something like "ogni giorno" here and the sentence would still make sense).

I hope this helps, people feel free to correct me/add stuff to my explanination!

Reply 982

Becca's explained it really well. I'll just add what my sheet says about the imperfect in other scenarios. You use the imperfect for:

An action which took place in the past, but is talked about as if it is ongoing. -
"What were you doing yesterday at half eleven?" "I was watching the football on TV"
(NOTE: This is like English- the phrasing of the question is key. "What did you do last night at 11pm?" would invoke the response "I watched football on TV" in the passato prossimo/remoto, because you're being asked about a finished action)

An action taking place in the past, but which is interrupted by another event. The event doing the interrupting is in the passato remoto/prossimo, but the action being interrupted should be in the imperfect.
Mentre guardavo il televisone, e' andata via la corrente
Quando e' arrivata la sua madre, Luca dormiva.

Simultaneous actions going on in the past.
Mentre lui guardava la TV, sua moglie leggeva un libro e il piccolo dormiva.

The adverb "mentre" always takes the imperfect. It's like English- grammatically speaking we should say things like "His mother came home while he was sleeping". Although we might say in speech that "his mother came home while he slept", it's apparently not formally grammatically correct.

Hope that helps :smile:

Reply 983

Lizia

Becca's explained it really well. I'll just add what my sheet says about the imperfect in other scenarios. You use the imperfect for:

An action which took place in the past, but is talked about as if it is ongoing. -
"What were you doing yesterday at half eleven?" "I was watching the football on TV"
(NOTE: This is like English- the phrasing of the question is key. "What did you do last night at 11pm?" would invoke the response "I watched football on TV" in the passato prossimo/remoto, because you're being asked about a finished action)

An action taking place in the past, but which is interrupted by another event. The event doing the interrupting is in the passato remoto/prossimo, but the action being interrupted should be in the imperfect.
Mentre guardavo il televisone, e' andata via la corrente
Quando e' arrivata la sua madre, Luca dormiva.

Simultaneous actions going on in the past.
Mentre lui guardava la TV, sua moglie leggeva un libro e il piccolo dormiva.

The adverb "mentre" always takes the imperfect. It's like English- grammatically speaking we should say things like "His mother came home while he was sleeping". Although we might say in speech that "his mother came home while he slept", it's apparently not formally grammatically correct.

Hope that helps :smile:

This was useful to me as a recap! I knew there were some aspects to this grammar point that I wouldn't be able to remember off the top of my head! Thanks!

Reply 984

Becca

This was useful to me as a recap! I knew there were some aspects to this grammar point that I wouldn't be able to remember off the top of my head! Thanks!

No problem! I guess I should thank PJ1991 because I'm being a lazy cow at the moment and probably wouldn't have dug that sheet out otherwise! :smile:

Reply 985

PJ991

17

I don't want to be making you go out of your way to get sheets :hat2:

. I'm merely text on your computer screen after all :cool:

. I owe some rep to many a person in this thread. It will come soon I assure you.

Although I very much appreciate it. My book is crap. And my teacher could possibly confuse things more, however amazing he is.

Reply 986

No, it's perfectly fine! I need to be doing some revision myself anyway, so you're making me do it! And I'm sitting right next to my bookshelf!

If you want a good grammar book, by the way, I'd recommend "Conoscere l'italiano" by Simona Simula. If you do come to UCL you'll be using the book anyway, but it's actually pretty good. Although, bizarrely, even the beginner's level textbook is written entirely in Italian :confused:

Reply 987

We used "Basic Italian". Such a boring and badly laid-out book! Loads of exercises though.

Reply 988

museobsessed

14

I've got a really good grammar book called essential italian or something, but i'm not that far through it. Thanks for those explanations though, I have no idea how long its gunna take for me to proplerly understand it though haha

Reply 989

Azione Grammatica! by Derek Aust and Mike Zollo saves my life on a regular basis. :love:

Reply 990

Prepostions are the bane of my existance. Is there any reason why you use 'in' for phrases like 'in banca', 'in ufficio', but you use 'da' for 'dal panettiere', 'dal macellaio', 'da Luigi', and 'a' for 'al ristorante' or 'al cinema'. And why do you articulate the preposition for the second two, but not 'in'?

My head hurts. I'm going to fail my grammar exam tomorrow.

Reply 991

Lizia

Prepostions are the bane of my existance. Is there any reason why you use 'in' for phrases like 'in banca', 'in ufficio', but you use 'da' for 'dal panettiere', 'dal macellaio', 'da Luigi', and 'a' for 'al ristorante' or 'al cinema'. And why do you articulate the preposition for the second two, but not 'in'?

My head hurts. I'm going to fail my grammar exam tomorrow.

Prepositions are ****** in every language I have come to realise! I'm learning Norwegian and when I try and speak I normally have to go through every preposition before I get the right one! In English we have loads of phrasal verbs where a tiny preposition can change the verb's meaning entirely e.g. "to get" and "to get back"...my Spanish friend used to make me teach him one phrasal verb a day!

Reply 992

Becca

Prepositions are ****** in every language I have come to realise! I'm learning Norwegian and when I try and speak I normally have to go through every preposition before I get the right one! In English we have loads of phrasal verbs where a tiny preposition can change the verb's meaning entirely e.g. "to get" and "to get back"...my Spanish friend used to make me teach him one phrasal verb a day!

They're horrible. I miss French, they were so much easier then! I chose Italian because it was meant to be easy like French- HA!

Reply 993

My Italian friends are like that with English phrasal verbs, too! They're like, "You complain about Italian having lots of tenses? You have PHRASAL VERBS." Mi dicono sempre che glieli spiego! (Erm, I think I have my pronouns mixed up? 'They always ask me to explain them [phrasal verbs] to them.' ?)

Reply 994

PJ991

17

I'm glad I don't have to do all this fun with crazy pronouns and prepositions. At the minute, all I need to focus on is my AS speaking resit, that is now tomorrow!!

And I'm counting votes. So I may be a little tired in the exam. I get home at 3.45am and have my exam at about 2.30pm. I remain optimistic.

Reply 995

Your time will come PJ! Do you not do pronouns at A-level? I feel very cheated if you don't! Have fun with the vote counting, are you old enough to vote yourself?

Reply 996

PJ991

17

We do, but just easy ones. And the exam is only 2 essays and a translation so they can either easily be avoided or a sentence can be memorised beforehand. They're definitely not in AS, although I remember an hour spent doing them with the silly teacher.

Yea! I'll be off to vote in the morning, hopefully before the propaganda monsters get to the entrance of the polling stations. I don't want any grief at 7am :p:

Are you voting by post from Italy?

Reply 997

PJ991

Are you voting by post from Italy?

Questo ha ricordato a me il fatto che il modulo che mi permette a delegare il mio voto ai miei non è arrivato quando ero in Inghilterra, anche se lo abbiamo chiesto qualche giorni prima! Non penso che sia possibile fare il voto postale da un altro paese - solo se qualcuno non c'è nel suo proprio elettorato, ma si è ancora in Inghilterra al momento.

Il tuo rep+ mi ha fatto ridere! Grazie! :yep:

Reply 998

oh, e volevo dirvi anche che se ci sia qualcuno inglese in Italia oggi che vuole seguire le elezioni - BBC World Service (canale 43 su nostra televisione - Freeview, penso) le seguirà stasera (o almeno ci sarà un riepilogo di tutto).

Oh, e mi sembra che la mamma farà il voto per me! Non è molto sicuro, potrebbe fare qualunque che vuole lei! :s-smilie:

Reply 999