This is the continuation of the lesson about the basics of reflexive verbs.
With a true reflexive verb, you need the reflexive to make yourself understood properly, but when it's not a direct reflexive, you can also leave it out (usually) and still get your meaning across. Check out the rules for this in the above-mentioned lesson.
Let's say I want to watch a movie on TV tonight. It would be common to say:
Mi guarderò un bel film stasera (I'm going to watch a nice movie tonight). It's not directly reflexive, because we have "the film" as a direct object (it's not even a body part!) but the sentence is constructed the same way as a reflexive one, and has that personal feel to it (it's all about me!).
If it were truly reflexive, I would be looking at myself in the mirror instead of the movie: guardarsi (to look at oneself)
Mi guardo allo specchio (I look at myself in the mirror).
I could also just as well say (and it would be correct):
Guarderò un bel film stasera. (I'm going to watch a nice movie tonight).
Without the added pronoun, the sentence is more neutral, less personal, and there's less emphasis on it being about me. But it's perfectly fine. And whether a verb is directly or indirectly reflexive is not going to change our lives a whole lot. It's just something you might wonder about. The important thing is to know how to use reflexive verbs and to get used to hearing (and understanding) them.
Here are a few more everyday examples that we think of as being reflexive, but which also contain a direct object. What's important to note is that in English, we use a possessive pronoun (I wash my hands) after a transitive verb. Italian uses a reflexive pronoun to indicate the person, but it goes together with the verb, not the noun. The following examples are typical, and so it would be wise to practice them in different conjugations.
Vado a lavarmi i denti (I'm going to brush my teeth).
Here we have the conjugated verb andare before lavare (with the preposition a [to]), so lavare is in the infinitive with the appropriate reflexive pronoun (mi [to me]) attached to it.
Ci laviamo le mani prima di mangiare (We wash our hands before eating).
Here we used ci as the reflexive pronoun. Let's not forget that ci has a lot of uses, which you can read about in other lessons.
Mi metto una maglia, fa freschino (I'll put a sweater on. It's chilly).
Mettere is an interesting verb (with an interesting reflexive version). Check out what Marika has to say about it.
Mettere vuol dire collocare, posizionare un oggetto in un posto specifico.
"To put" means "to situate," "to position" an object in a specific place.
Captions 7-8, Marika spiega Il Verbo Mettere - Part 1
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Here is a partial list of some other useful, everyday reflexive verbs:
addormentarsi (to fall asleep)
innamorarsi (to fall in love)
ammalarsi (to fall ill)
muoversi (to move)
spostarsi (to shift, to move)
These verbs are intransitive in English, they don't have anything to do with specific body parts, and they aren't used in a reflexive way in English. So they may be tricky to immediately grasp.
Let's take the example of spostarsi.
Does the verb have a non-reflexive form? Let's see: spostare. I look it up. spostare.
Hint: A dictionary will usually give you the reflexive form of the verb, too, if it exists. Just keep looking down the list of definitions or translations.
OK, so spostare exists in a non-reflexive (transitive) form.
La sposto subito.
I'll move it right away.
Caption 46, Sei mai stata sulla luna? film - Part 3
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The reflexive form means, "I move myself." In English we just say "I move." We just need to remember that we need the reflexive in Italian to say that. But if I visualize it, I can see myself moving myself over a bit, so someone can fit into a space, for instance.
Aside: The person ready to move his car in the previous example could have used the reflexive, especially if he had been in the car at the time. He could have said, Mi sposto subito (I'll move (out of the way) right away).
I can also look up the verb spostarsi on the Yabla videos page:
Basta semplicemente spostarsi di qualche metro.
All one has to do is simply move a few meters.
Caption 57, Meraviglie EP. 6 - Part 12
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The cool thing about the search window is that you can use whatever conjugation you want. You may or may not get a hit, but a pop-down menu will give you suggestions as to what's available. Sometimes it's handy to begin with the infinitive, then some conjugations. Most of these hits are real-life usages that help give you an idea of how a verb is used.
So my next move is to conjugate the reflexive verb. Creating a sentence that makes sense might be more fun than a simple conjugation. Go ahead and consult the conjugation chart supplied with verbs in WordReference: spostarsi
Mi sposto (I'll move over).
Ti puoi spostare (Could you move over)?
Lui non si sposta (he won't move over)!
Looking up sposto also reveals the "remote" past tense of spostare: spostò (the third person singular passato remoto):
Eh, tant'è vero che poi, pensa Marika, che il centro politico della città si spostò dai Fori Romani ai Fori Imperiali.
Yeah, so much so, that then, just think, Marika, the political center of the city moved from the Roman Forums to the Imperial Forums.
Captions 38-39, Marika e Daniela Il Foro Romano
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Learning suggestion:
Try to put your daily routine into words, using the dictionary (and the afore-mentioned online resources) if necessary. Maybe your routine goes something like this:
Ti svegli alle 6 di mattina ma ti addormenti di nuovo e quindi ti alzi alle sei e mezza. Ti fai un buon caffè e poi ti fai la doccia, ti lavi i denti, e ti vesti. Se fa freddo ti metti una giacca prima di uscire.* Nascondi la chiave sotto lo zerbino.
You wake up at 6 in the morning, but you fall asleep again so you get up at 6:30. You make yourself a nice cup of coffee and then you take a shower, you brush your teeth and you get dressed. If it’s cold, you put on a jacket before going out. You hide the key under the doormat.
Try using different conjugations to practice them.
*More about what to wear in Marika spiega: L'abbigliamento - Part 1 of 2.
In this lesson, we used simple tenses. When we use the passato prossimo (constructed like the present perfect), we need more information, such as the fact that we need to use essere rather than avere! But we'll save this for another lesson.
You've probably heard about a special kind of verb found in Italian: the reflexive verb — il verbo riflessivo. It's a kind of verb that in its direct or indirect form pervades the Italian language. It's hard to get a sentence out without using one! The basic premise is that with a reflexive verb, the subject and the direct object are the same. See these video lessons about the reflexive. Since English works differently, the Italian reflexive verb can be tricky to understand, translate, and use. Let's look at the components.
Often, a reflexive verb starts out as a transitive verb, such as lavare (to wash).
On my list of things to do, one item might be:
Lavare la macchina (wash the car).
The action is "to wash" and the direct object is la macchina (the car). The car can't wash itself. We need a subject. Who washes the car in the family?
Io lavo la macchina (I wash the car).
Pietro lava la macchina (Pietro washes the car).
But in a reflexive verb, the subject and the object are the same. They coincide. In English we might say something like, I'll go and get washed up. We use "get." In Italian, we use the reflexive form of a verb. In the infinitive, we join the reflexive pronoun si to verb, leaving out the final e , and we use a detached reflexive pronoun when we conjugate the verb.
From the transitive verb lavare, we obtain lavarsi (to wash [oneself]).
One way we can recognize a reflexive verb is by the tell-tale si at the end of the infinitive form,* in this case, lavarsi. The second way to detect a direct reflexive verb, is in being able to replace the reflexive pronoun with sé stesso (oneself).
Let's make a checklist for the reflexive verb lavarsi.
1) It has the reflexive pronoun si at the end in the infinitive. √
2) I can say lavo me stesso/a (I wash myself). √
Here are some other common direct reflexive verbs. Do they pass the test?
lavarsi (to wash [oneself])
alzarsi (to get up)
vestirsi (to get dressed)
preocuparsi (to worry)
chiedersi (to wonder)
spogliarsi (to get undressed)
sedersi (to sit down)
chiamarsi (to be named)
See this lesson about reflexive verbs. It takes you through the conjugations and discusses transitive vs reflexive verbs in terms of meaning. Once you have grasped the basic reflexive verb and how to use it, let's move on to a slightly murkier version.
Something as basic as washing your face needs some understanding of the reflexive in Italian. We looked at lavarsi. That's a whole-body experience. But if we start looking at body parts, we still use the reflexive, even though it's indirect.
Instead of saying, "I wash my face," using a possessive pronoun as we do in English, Italians use the logic, "Hey, of course, it's my face on my body — I don't need to say whose face it is." So they use the reflexive to refer to the person, but add on "the face."
Mi lavo la faccia (I wash my face).
So there is a direct object in the sentence that doesn't coincide exactly with the subject (you are not your face), but it's still part of you and so we can say it's somewhat reflexive. It's indirectly reflexive. In grammatical terms, it's also pronominal, because we use the (reflexive) pronoun with the verb.
*Caveat: The pronoun si can and does have additional functions, but if the verb is reflexive, this si will be there in the infinitive, and we can look up the reflexive verb in the dictionary.
Try using the above-mentioned reflexive formula (with lavare) for other body parts. Start with yourself, and then go on to other people like your brother, or to keep it simpler, use someone's name.
i capelli (the hair)
i denti (the teeth)
i piedi (the feet)
le mani (the hands)
Examples:
Giulia si lava i capelli una volta alla settimana (Giulia washes her hair once a week).
Io mi lavo i capelli tutti giorni (I wash my hair every day).
Vado a lavarmi le mani (I'm going to wash my hands).
Let's take the indirect reflexive one step further. Sometimes instead of using a verb form like "to shower," we'll use the noun. Sometimes there isn't an adequate, specific verb to use. In English, we take a shower. Italian uses fare to mean "to make," "to do," and "to take." And since taking a shower is usually a very personal activity, having to do with one's body, we use the reflexive form of fare plus the noun la doccia (the shower) to say this. We could even leave out the reflexive (since there is a direct object - doccia:
Faccio una doccia (I take a shower, I'm going to take a shower).
It is more common, however, to personalize it, to emphasize the person involved. Italians would normally say:
Mi faccio la doccia (I'm going to take a shower).
Mi faccio una doccia (I'm going to take a shower).
Vai a farti la doccia (Go take a shower).
And just as easily, I can ask you if you are going to take a shower.
Ti fai la doccia (are you going to take a shower)?
And if we speak in the third person with a modal verb, we'll see that the infinitive of fare, in this case, has all the trappings of a reflexive verb, that tell-tale si at the end of the infinitive:
Pietro vuole farsi la doccia (Pietro wants to take a shower).
Mi faccio la doccia alle sette e mezza.
I take a shower at half past seven [seven and a half].
Caption 7, Marika spiega - L'orologio
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There is another verb we use when talking about our bodies. We have vestirsi (to get dressed) but Italians also use an indirect reflexive to mean "to wear," or, to use the basic translation of mettere — "to put on." The verb is mettersi [qualcosa] (to wear something). This verb is discussed in the lesson about wearing clothes in Italian.
Cosa mi metto stasera per andare alla festa (what am I going to wear tonight to go to the party)?
In the next lesson, we'll look at ways we use the indirect reflexive to be more expressive.
In Italian, “to remember” and “to forget” go well together: Ricordare/dimenticare
Ricordare may be easy to remember if we think of making a mental record of something.
Dimenticare, if you take it apart, is kind of a fun word. Di, just like “dis” in English, often undoes something. Mente is the Italian word for mind. You undo something from your mind!
Duemilaseidici è stato un anno da ricordare o da dimenticare?
Was two thousand sixteen a year to remember, or a year to forget?
Think of things you want to remember or forget from last year:
Vorrei ricordare un bellissimo viaggio in Italia.
I would like to remember a great trip to Italy.
Vorrei dimenticare quanti soldi ho dovuto spendere
I would like to forget how much money I had to spend.
In the above examples, we have treated ricordare and dimenticare as ordinary transitive verbs. They are followed by a noun. This is the most basic way to use these verbs. But ricordare and dimenticare are, more often than not, used reflexively.
Ricordati (remember)!! When a verb is reflexive, the subject and object of the verb are one and the same:
Mi sono tagliato (I cut myself).
For more about reflexive verbs see this lesson and this video.
In the following example, ricordare is used reflexively, and is followed by a noun, not a verb.
Daniela, tu per caso ti ricordi i nomi
Daniela, do you, by chance, remember the names
degli altri colli di Roma?
of the other hills of Rome?
Caption 6, Marika e Daniela - Il Foro Romano
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Ricordiamoci (let’s remember) that when a verb, not a noun, follows a verb in this category, we need the preposition di in between, as in the following example. You may notice that the verb decidere (to decide) behaves the same way!
Il tuo amico ha deciso di portarti in giro con il suo scooter,
Your friend has decided to take you around on his scooter,
ma non ha dimenticato di prestarti un casco.
but he hasn't forgotten to lend you a helmet.
Captions 7-8, Marika spiega - I veicoli
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The above example could be modified a few ways to say the same thing. We could use the reflexive:
Il tuo amico si è deciso di portarti in giro con il suo scooter,
Your friend has decided to take you around on his scooter,
ma non si è dimenticato di prestarti un casco.
but hasn't forgotten to lend you a helmet.
You will notice that as soon as we use the reflexive form, we need the auxiliary verb essere (to be) rather than avere (to have) in the compound tenses. This can be tricky indeed!
We could also use the verb ricordare:
Il tuo amico si è deciso di portarti in giro con il suo scooter,
Your friend has decided to take you around on his scooter,
e si è ricordato di prestarti un casco.
and has remembered to lend you a helmet.
However we decide to use ricordare and dimenticare (and decidere, for that matter), we need di before the verb in the infinitive.
Ah, mi sono dimenticato di dirti che...
Oh, I forgot to tell you that...
Caption 25, Francesca - alla guida
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One of Italy’s most beloved singer-songwriters ci ha lasciato (passed away): Pino Daniele. Italian uses the verb ricordare to express remembrance on such occasions.
Lo ricorderemo con affetto.
We’ll remember him with affection.
In Quando (When), one of his most famous songs, Pino sings about, among other things, ricordi (memories).
Fra i ricordi e questa strana pazzia
Among memories and this strange madness
E il paradiso che forse esiste
And a paradise that might exist
Captions 29-30, Pino Daniele - Quando
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Ricordare has another, closely related meaning—“to remind,” as in the following example.
Ah, un'altra cosa, scusami Anna,
Ah, another thing, sorry Anna,
che volevo ricordare ai nostri amici di Yabla, come usanza,
that I wanted to remind our Yabla friends of, customarily,
noi italiani a tavola non mangiamo mai pane e pasta insieme.
we Italians at table we don't eat bread and pasta together.
Captions 41-42, Anna e Marika - Un Ristorante a Trastevere
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When using ricordare as “to remind,” it becomes ricordare a and gets used with an indirect object, as in the above example. The preposition a (to)—sometimes connected to an article, as above—goes between ricordare and the person getting reminded. In the above example, the direct object is cosa.
But when the indirect object is a personal pronoun, the spelling shifts, as in the following example, where ti stands for a te (to you). See an explanation and chart of Italian indirect object pronouns here.
E tra l'altro, ti volevo ricordare, che questa era una palude.
And besides, I wanted to remind you, that this was a swamp.
Caption 18, Marika e Daniela - Il Foro Romano
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In the following example, the personal pronoun as indirect object is attached to the verb itself. See more about this in previous lessons Ci Gets Around, part one and part two.
Hm... Rosmini. -Hm.
Hmm... Rosmini. -Uh huh.
-Ricordami il nome? -Ginevra.
-Remind me of your [first] name? -Ginevra.
Captions 80-81, Il Commissario Manara - S1EP1 - Un delitto perfetto
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In English we have two distinct but related words, “to remember” and “to remind,” while in Italian the difference is considered so minimal that the same word is used, but there are some subtle differences.
More often than not, when we’re remembering, ricordare is used reflexively: ricordarsi, as in mi ricordo (I remember). (See the lesson: Reflections on the Reflexive.) When using the past tense, as in the following example, essere (to be) is the auxiliary verb.
Ci siamo ricordati tutti i momenti belli della nostra storia.
We remembered all the beautiful moments of our romance.
Caption 17, Anna presenta - La Bohème di Puccini
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If you think of ricordare as meaning “to call to mind,” it may be easier to see how one word can fill two bills. While ricordarsi (to remember) is reflexive, and involves the person who’s remembering, ricordare a (to remind) involves two or more people.
Things get a little tricky when personal pronouns are used (which is a lot of the time)! Notice the object pronouns and conjugated verb. When ricordare means “to remember” the conjugation of ricordare matches the object pronoun, such as in ti ricordi? (do you remember?), si ricorda (he/she/it/one remembers), vi ricordate (you remember), ci ricordiamo (we remember). But in ricordare as reminding, there are usually at least two different people involved: ti ricordo (I remind you), ci ha ricordato (he/she/it reminded us), mi poteva ricordare (he could have reminded me).
In a nutshell:
Ricordare and its reflexive form ricordarsi (to remember): takes essere (to be) as an auxiliary (e.g., ci siamo ricordati), can be reflexive (same person)
Ricordare a (to remind): takes avere (to have) as an auxiliary (e.g., ci ha ricordato), is two-way (different people)
Here are a few more examples to help you remember...
Ti ricorderai di comprare il pane, o te lo devo ricordare?
Will you remember to buy bread, or do I have to remind you of it?
Ricordamelo pure, ma forse non mi ricorderò!
Go ahead and remind me of it, but maybe I won’t remember!
Come faccio a ricordarmi di ricordarti?
How can I remember to remind you?
Ti ho già ricordato due volte.
I’ve already reminded you twice.
When we’re una squadra di uno (a team of one), then we need stesso (self) to remind ourselves of something:
Alla fine, sarà più semplice ricordare a me stesso/stessa di comprare il pane, che di ricordarmi di ricordare a qualcun altro.
In the end, it’ll be easier to remind myself to buy bread, than to remember to remind someone else.
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