9 La nona lezione, il 9 dicembre 2009
- Warmup: La palla verde dei verbi. Coniugazione nel presente: conoscere, sapere, divertirsi, lavarsi, chiamarsi, sedersi...
- Pass the P.imsleur! unit 1.
- Pass the Past! Conjugating l'imperfetto:
|
ANDARE andavo
|
andavamo |
SCRIVERE scrivevo |
scrivevamo |
DORMIRE dormivo |
dormivamo |
Notice how the emphasis moves for the noi and voi forms.
There are only a few irregular verbs in the imperfetto:
essere:
|
ero |
eravamo |
fare:
|
facevo |
facevamo |
bere:
|
bevevo |
bevevamo |
dire:
|
dicevo |
dicevamo |
1. a repeated action in the past
2. an action in progress in the past (i.e. You can't really tell when the action ended).
3. one of these special categories: Weather, Emotion, Time, Mental state, Age, Physical condition. (and notice that all of these special categories carry a feeling of "description" rather than "action".) (mental state: hoped, believed, thought...) (age: "When I was three years old...) (physical condition: was tired, was hurt, was feeling sick, was warm, was cozy, was nice...)
Here's the list of examples we used last week. The first 3 are examples of a repeated action in the past.
|
I went to the store every day in Spain. I used to buy candy once a week when I was little. Every day I would go to their house. |
Andavo al negozio ogni giorno in Spagna. Compravo caramelle una volta alla settimana quando ero piccolo/a. Ogni giorno andavo a casa loro . |
ALL of the other examples (in English) include the past tense of "to be": "was" or "were".
|
Yesterday at 3pm I was sleeping. It was raining. I was happy. It was 5 o'clock. I was thinking of you. He was fifteen years old. I was tired. |
Ieri alle tre dormivo. Pioveva. Ero felice. Erano le cinque. Pensavo a te. Aveva quindici anni. Ero stanca/o. |
In contrast, where the imperfetto translates "was", the passato prossimo translates "did", or an action verb which could be restated with "did".
I went to the store. - I did go to the store.
I went to their house a week ago. - I did go to their house a week ago.
I slept from 10 pm to 6 am. - I did sleep from 10 pm to 6 am.
It started raining. - It did start raining.
I thought about you. - I did think about you.
- Quando ero giovane... You shared stories and asked each other questions about when you were younger. Che bravissime studentesse!
- "Tu scendi dalle stelle" We're all learning to sing this Italian Christmas song, so that we can carol the neighbors next week. (click here for the lyrics). We're just learning the first verse and chorus.
And here are some kids imitating le nonne. (They're sick and tired of Tu Scendi Dalle Stelle.)
- Parole da ricordare:
Ho comprato qualcosa da mettere - I bought something to wear.
canzoni sdolcinate - schmaltzy songs
inoltre - and furthermore..., and in addition...
Che carina! - How cute!
Che cosa ti piaceva fare? - What did you used to like to do?
Dove abitavate? - Where did you (pl.) live?
Fingevamo cavalli e orfani. - We would play (pretend) "horses and orphans".
scuola femminile - all-girls school
sull'erba - on the grass
la torta - cake
il tuorlo - yolk
l'albume - the white of the egg
sbattuto - whipped
sbattere - to whip
panna - cream
montato - peaked (whipped cream, egg whites...)
succo - juice
versare - pour
infornare - to put into the oven
sfornare - to take out of the oven
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- Handouts. (click on the link if you need the handout)
19. Tannenbaum and Silent Night (italiano)
1. Audio Level 2, Unit 2.
2. L'imperfetto v. passato prossimo. Read pages 200, 201. Do esercizi A and B. (clicca qui per le risposte)
3. Scrivere. Write about a memorable day, or about a memorable dream. (The idea is to decide when to use passato prossimo and when to use l'imperfetto.) Send your work to Nadine, or bring it to class next week.
4. Potluck! Next week (here at the usual place, at the usual time: 6:45) we will have a potluck dinner AND a fun lesson! Be ready to talk about (in italiano, certamente!) how you made your dish, or how you picked out your bread or wine. We'll practice l'imperfetto playing MadLibs, we might play charades in Italian, we will carol the neighbors. (click here for the lyrics to O Tannenbaum and Silent Night in italiano). If you missed this lesson, bring a photo of yourself when you were younger to talk about what you liked to do da bambina. If you didn't miss this week, bring another photo of yourself, anyway! Tell us some more! Look for e-mails about what people are bringing.
5. Click here to hear Nadine read La Lettera.