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Italian/Week 6

Questions: directions, prices, times

Magenta week. Seven question words, and enough fixed phrases to find a station, ask a price and understand the answer.

Colours live this week

10 of 10 in play
Noun

A thing, a person or a place.

Verb

An action or a state — what is happening.

Adjective

Describes a noun.

Adverb

Modifies a verb or an adjective.

Article

the / a / some — and possessives like mon, ma.

Pronoun

Stands in for a noun — I, you, he, it.

Preposition

Links words together — to, in, of, for.

Conjunction

Joins two parts of a sentence.

Question word

Opens a question — where, when, how, why.

Fixed chunk

Learn it whole. Do not take it apart.

Direction phrases stay as grey chunks. A sinistra is one unit — you will never need to take it apart.

The question words

  • Dove?Where?
    Dove è la stazione?Where is the station?

    Written dov'è before a vowel.

  • Quando?When?
  • Come?How?
    Come sta?How are you?
  • Perché?Why?

    The same word also means because. Italian does not bother to distinguish them.

  • Chi?Who?

    say: kee — the ch is hard

  • Quanto?How much?
    Quanto costa?How much does it cost?
  • Quale?Which?
    A quale ora?At what time?

    Becomes qual before è — qual è il problema?

Perché does both jobs

Perché is why and because, the same word with the same spelling. Perché non mangi? Perché non ho fame. Where French needs pourquoi and parce que and Spanish needs por qué and porque, Italian just repeats itself — and nobody is ever confused.

Asking directions

All chunks. Say them whole.

  • [Dov'è… ?]Where is…?
  • [a sinistra]on the left
  • [a destra]on the right
  • [sempre dritto]straight on

    Literally always straight.

  • [accanto a]next to
  • [di fronte a]opposite
  • [vicino a]near to
  • [lontano da]far from
  • [cerco…]I'm looking for…

Prices, times and opening hours

  • Quanto costa?How much does it cost?
  • [Quant'è?]How much is it?

    The shorter, more common version.

  • [È troppo caro]It's too expensive
  • Che ora è?What time is it?
  • A che ora?At what time?
  • aperto / apertaopen
    Il bar è aperto.The bar is open.
  • chiuso / chiusaclosed
    La banca è chiusa.The bank is closed.

Adjectives agree, and the sign tells you which

Aperto and chiuso are adjectives, so they are purple and they agree with whatever they describe — bold for a masculine noun, slanted for a feminine one. Watch for chiuso per ferie on a shop door in August: closed for the holidays, and it may well mean the whole month.

Sentence frames

  1. 1

    Cerco la stazione.

    I'm looking for the station.

  2. 2

    Dove è la farmacia?

    Where is the pharmacy?

  3. 3

    Quanto costa?

    How much does it cost?

Daily mini-tasks

Listening this week

Podcast Italiano — the principiante episodes

Podcast apps and YouTube

Davide speaks slowly and entirely in Italian, with transcripts. The beginner episodes are pitched almost exactly here.