Learn Italian with Me: Finding your Way

That’s pronounced ‘chow’. In Italian, it the letter C is followed by an A or E, it is pronounced like ‘ch’ in English – as in ‘chicken’.

You said you wanted another Italian lesson with me, and just to prove that I’m not chicken I will now help you to find your way in Italian.

Many years ago, back in High School, I studied German. At the time I thought the course was almost useless, although over time I have mostly changed my mind about that. I say ‘mostly’ because there were some phrases that I learned that I have never found useful.

One of those useless phrases was “where is the cinema”. I can remember it in German, “Wo ist das kino?”

Okay, a very simple phrase and maybe knowing it might have helped me in an exam situation, but I cannot imagine that I will ever use if in real life. Why would I want to find a cinema in Germany? It’s not as if I’m going to be able to understand any German film!

When I was in High School it was my goal to move to France. I took French classes the first year they were available, and worked very hard. Unfortunately for me, after two years my school decided to discontinue French and offer German instead.

I started to learn Germany, but I could not imagine that I would ever use it. (This tells you something about my lack of geographical knowledge.)

My life has not yet turned out to be as I imagined it all those years ago. I no longer live in the USA, but I have never lived in France. I go there about once a year to stock up at one of the vast French supermarkets. This does not require much knowledge of the French language.

Against all my expectations, I travel to Germany on a fairly regular basis, and often have to use trains and buses and speak German.

Now I am trying to learn Italian. I have previously visited Italy, and found that being able to say just a few phrases is helpful.

I am imagining that you too might want to visit Italy. It is a beautiful country with delicious food and wine.

I imagine that you will travel to Italy by air, or possibly train. When you arrive, you will stay in a hotel.

Actually, on some of my visits I have stayed in a youth hostel, and once in a convent, but this lesson would still have been relevant.

For this Italian lesson I am concentrating on places that the average foreign visitor might actually want to find.

In my experience the places I have needed to locate include the railway station, pharmacy (drug store in American English), post office, bus stop, and cash machine (ATM).

Vocabulary:You need to know that in Italian, nouns (that is ‘thing’ words) have gender. They are either masculine or feminine. When talking about only one of something, ‘the’ is ‘il’ with most masculine nouns, ‘la’ with most feminine nouns and ‘l’ with all nouns beginning with a vowel, whether masculine or feminine.

It is important to know which is which, because if you ever move on the stage of speaking in full sentences things like adjectives (‘descriptive’ words) must agree with the nouns. Don’t worry about the technicalities for now, but do try to learn the gender of the nouns.

So, here we go:

Railway station = la stazione (pronounced statzeeonee)

Pharmacy = la farmacia (pronounced farm-a-chee-ah)

Post office = il ufficio postale (pronounced ooficheeo postalay)

Bus Stop = la fermata dell’autobus (pronounced fermata del-louto-bus)

Cash machine = il bancomat (pronounced bank-o-mat).

Some phrases you will need to know in order to ask where these things are:

Scusi. This means ‘excuse me’ and is what you say to get someone’s attention. It is pronounced with a fairly short “oo” sound, a bit like ‘goose’ and certainly not like ‘ouze’.

C’è un (una). Pronounced ‘chay oon (or oona), means ‘there is a’, but can be used to form a question.

Qui vicino. Sounds like “kwee vicheeno”, means near here.

So, you can put these together and ask some questions.

For example: C’e un bancomat qui vicino? (Is there a cash dispensing machine near here?)

If you are very lucky, you will stop a passer-by who happens to speak English, and is very happy to practise by giving you directions in English.

It is more likely that your question will unlock a torrent of Italian, so you will need some more vocabulary to understand the directions.

Your helpful Italian may say, “Si, ce n’e uno” (Yes, there is one of them).

And then you will need to ask “Dov’è” (pronounced doh vay, meaning ‘where is it’).

Useful words to help you find your way:

the first: la prima (pronounced la preema)

the second: la seconda

right: destra. The easy way to remember this is to think of dextrous, as in people who are right handed are considered more dextrous than those who are left handed.

left: sinistra. You can remember left as being slightly sinister. (This is not intended as a slur on all left handed people).

So, if you are being told to take the second turning on the left, the phrase you will hear is “la seconda a sinistra”.

Sempre dritto (sounds like sempray dreeto) means ‘straight ahead’.

Proprio qui (propree-oh kwee) means ‘just here’.

If you think that you might be able to understand the answer if the person spoke more slowly, the key word to use is “lentamente”. This is pronounced ‘lent-a-mont-ay’. It is polite to add ‘per favore’ (pear favoray); good manners are always welcome.

Don’t despair! Most people you meet will really want to help you.

You will notice that I have not given any vocabulary to help you find your hotel, or tourist attractions.

I have found that it helps to carry a card with the name of your hotel in your hand luggage. Very expensive hotels may provide a ‘meet and greet’ service at the airport, but it is more usual to make your own way from the airport to the hotel.

I usually try some advance research so that I know which bus to get from the airport to the hotel. Otherwise, I try to find out the likely price of a taxi from the airport to my hotel.

If you are visiting Venice, it is possible to get a water taxi from Marco Polo airport directly to many of the larger hotels, but this is very expensive. Actually, Venice is just expensive full stop, but it seems a shame to start spending money so quickly when you could use the water bus system. Make sure to do some planning before you leave home.

A guide book for the area you are visiting will help you to find the main visitor attractions. If you do get lost, use the book. Of course you can ask a local person for help, but show him or her the entry in the guide book, and ask ‘dov’è?’

You will be able to find all the places you wish to visit with very little Italian, but it is fun to at least make an attempt to speak the language.

If you take any medicine on prescription, make sure you carry a copy of all your prescriptions in your hand luggage. If you have the misfortune to fall ill on your trip, you should show the prescription to a pharmacist before taking any other medicine, even over-the-counter preparations. These might be different brands than those available at your home. The pharmacist will be able to look up your prescription drugs and provide you with appropriate advice.

Most of the Italian words that I have given you are nouns. I am so old that I was taught about sentence structure at school.

My kids did not receive that sort of instruction, and were told that nouns are ‘thing’ words.

If you want to learn to form sentences, you will need to learn some verbs, or as my kids would call them, ‘doing’ words.

In my opinion, verbs are the tricky part of any language, as they keep jumping around so, depending on whom you are talking about, and whether you are speaking of the past, present or future.

When you are speaking your native tongue, it is possible to select the right verb form without straining even a single brain cell. Trying to find the right word in a foreign language can be like trying to find an elusive coin at the bottom of your purse.

I will start with a basic verb that you will need in almost any conversation: “to be”.

In the present tense, in English the verb ‘to be’ takes the following pattern:

I am

He/she/it is

We are

You are

They are

Italian starts off with a complication, as there are two forms of ‘you’. There is the everyday ‘you’, used with colleagues at work, people in shops, those whom one knows formally. Then there is the familiar ‘you’, reserved for family members, young children and very close friends.

It is impolite to address somebody with the familiar form of ‘you’ unless invited to do so.

In addition (as if that weren’t enough), there is also the plural form of ‘you’. This is used when the speaker is addressing more than one person.

The only example that I can think of in English applies to Glasgow (in Scotland), where it is common to hear the word ‘yous’ . Some years ago I was in charge of installing a computer software package, that my employer had purchased from a company based in Glasgow. About every month, the company representative would come to a project meeting. He would always ask my team and me “How are yous getting on?”

However, there is one aspect of the language that is simpler than English, and that is that the personal pronoun (eg I, We, They) is not usually used. The form of the verb used provides the information.

The personal pronoun is only used for emphasis. For example, it you were saying that all your friends are on vacation, while you are at work, then it is likely that you would use the Italian word for “I”, which is “Io” (pronounced ee-oh).

Anyway, back to Italian verbs. The Italian for ‘to be’ is ‘essere’ (pronounced essaryay).

I am = (io) sono

(Familiar) You are = (tu) sei

(Formal) You are = (Lei) è

She/he is = (lui/lei) è

We are = (noi) siamo

Plural you are = (voi) siete

They are = (loro) sono

‘To be’ is an irregular verb in both English and Italian, which means that it does not conform to one of the patterns which verbs usually follow.

There are some useful tip for remembering the correct verb for ‘I’ , the familiar you (tu), and ‘we’. The ‘I’ form of verbs always ends with the letter “o”, the ‘tu’ always ends with the letter “i” and the ‘we’ always ends in “iamo”.

Although ‘to be’ is an irregular very, this tip is still applicable.

If you have read this far, you are probably tired.

The Italian word for tired is “stanco” (or “stanca” if you are female).

So you can say “sono stanca”, and stop reading.