Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
In Italian, there's not only a past participle, as in English, there is also a present participle. Many nouns and adjectives we use every day come from this tense, as well as from the past participle.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
In this segment, Daniela talks about the gerund. As you will see, in Italian, the gerund is often used by itself, whereas in English we need an extra word before it — a conjunction or preposition. We are on more familiar ground when Daniela talks about using a gerund with the verb stare (to be) to form what we call the present continuous or present progressive.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
Daniela gives us some more examples of gerunds used in subordinate clauses. Asking ourselves what questions the gerund answers can help us understand its role in a sentence.
Difficulty: Beginner
Italy
A student asked Daniela to explain the difference between finché and the adverb fino. In fact, these words are tricky for English speakers to grasp. We're talking about "until" and "as long as," and in questions, "how far" and "how long."
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
In English, the difference between "until" and "as long as" is quite distinct, but in Italian, it's a little blurry because the presence of the negative word non (not) might change the meaning of a phrase or it might not. When the meaning is not altered by its presence, the word, in this case non (not), is "pleonastic." We're talking about finché and finche non.
Difficulty: Beginner
Italy
Daniela looks at the various contexts for using the adverb ora (now) and its synonyms and variants.
Difficulty: Beginner
Italy
Ora, the word for "now" can be combined with a number of other words to means something that has to do with time, but that indicates more precisely when a period begins or ends.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Viviana Varese, winner of the 2011 Gambero Rosso Prize "Best emerging young chef", shows us how to make a tartare of Fassone (Piemontese beef) – an elegant and very tasty dish!
Difficulty: Beginner
Italy
Gestures are part of body language, and we all know that Italians are particularly famous for communicating with their hands. Arianna shows us how to "speak" Italian without words.
Difficulty: Beginner
Italy
Arianna gives us more insights on the gestures used by Italians in everyday life, and talks about what body language can reveal about a person.
Difficulty: Beginner
Italy
Marika and Anna conjugate the verb to be in the simple present, present perfect, and simple past.
Difficulty: Beginner
Italy
Anna and Marika give examples of the past tense of the verb to be.
Difficulty: Beginner
Italy
Marika and Anna go over the future and conditional tenses for the verb essere (to be). The vocabulary review covers the future and the conditional conjugations for this verb.
Difficulty: Beginner
Italy
Anna and Marika take us through the imperative, the subjunctive and the gerund forms of the verb, essere (to be). The subjunctive is used less and less in modern English, so it can be tricky to learn in Italian, but little by little even these forms will become part of your Italian language skills.
Difficulty: Beginner
Italy
Anna and Marika introduce the verb avere (to have) and show us the conjugation in the present, present perfect, simple past and past perfect.
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