Language

Worry and Anxiety in Italian — La preoccupazione, L’ansia and L’ansietà.  Many scenarios, either real or imagined, can prompt a feeling of concern. In short, in life there are many reasons to worry, and we often try to get advice or find solace for our worries by speaking with another. In Italian, there are many ways to convey the emotions we feel when we get worried and upset. Therefore, we must learn to think in Italian if we are to communicate our emotions in Italian! The Italian noun that means   “the worry” or “the concern” is  la preoccupazione. If one …

Antonino Bondì’s teaching career stemmed from an unlikely place: a goal of practicing pharmacy in Italy, where he’d always hoped to live. Nowadays, Bondì teaches Italian 1 and 2, Italian honors 3 and 4, and AP Italian at Rolling Meadows High School and is a diving coach at Prospect High School, both in suburban Chicago. For the past year, he’s also served as president of the Midwest Chapter of the American Association of Teachers of Italian (AATI), an organization open to past, current and future teachers from the private or public sector, as well as college students who are studying …

  Say “I’ll take care of it” in Italian with Subject – Verb Inversion Certain situations may require clarification of an individual’s responsibility to family members, friends, or co-workers. This leads to common phrases used on a daily basis. For instance, “I’ll take care of it,” can be rendered in Italian by a unique sentence structure using a verb of action and also with the reflexive verb occuparsi. When in Italy, a simple way to emphasize that you will take responsibility for an action is to make a short statement and place the subject pronoun after the verb; in effect, …

  Defining her identity and pinpointing where she feels most at home — in Italy or the United States — has never been easy for Raffaella Spilotro, the director of the children’s summer camp at Casa Italia in Stone Park. That’s because, for the first nine years of her life, Spilotro grew up in Capurso, a small town in the province of Bari, Puglia, with her parents speaking only Italian. Her mother and father came with their families to America in the 1960s, met and married here, and decided to move back to Italy when she was 2 months hold. …

Say “Some” in Italian with the Partitive To speak fluently in another language, it is important to know how to describe a group of things in a general way. In some cases, the number of things in a group can be counted, but we may want to describe only a part of the entire group. In other cases, the number of things in a group cannot be counted — either due to difficulty in dividing the group into individual parts or due to a seemingly infinite number of things within the group. In short, all languages bypass the problem of …

Italian Telephone Phrases to Use with Friends Once one is in Italy to visit relatives or friends, and especially for business, it is important to know both the familiar and polite Italian phrases used to initiate a telephone conversation. When making a telephone call to a friend, two common greetings are used, depending on how well the friends know each other. Pronto. Sono Caterina. Ready. (for hello) I am Kathy. Pronto. Sono io! Ready. (for hello) It’s me! (lit. It is I!)   In some households in Italy, landlines are still in use. In this case, of course, one needs …

“Su” in reference to a place: Physical Position: “On” “On top of” The Italian preposition “su” means “on“ and provides a literal description of one’s physical location or movement upward. The concept is simple: if someone or something is “on” something, it is above that thing, often connected to it in some way, but usually able to be removed and repositioned. As with other prepositions, su is combined with the definite article for the noun that follows and in this case, describes what the subject is “on.” The combination means, “on the” or “on top of the.” Of course, an …

Italian language teacher Lauren Krause loves to bring food and cultural items into the classroom to make the learning experience more vivid for her students. “Most recently, students tried 100% extra virgin authentic olive oil, which many had never tried in their lives,” says Krause, a 7th and 8th grade Italian teacher at Indian Trail Junior High School in Addison, Illinois. “It was so fun seeing their reactions.” Krause has taught for 13 years at Indian Trail, where she currently teaches six sections of Italian to around 100 students each day. Her Italian level 1 course takes place over two …

The Italian verb  dovere fills an essential role in everyday life, whether one is a traveler to Italy or is speaking to an acquaintance, friend, or family.  Dovere is used as a helping verb to emphasize the obligation or the need to complete an action with its meanings of “to have to,” or “to must.”  Think of how many times a day we say we “have to” or “must” do something — leave for work or school, run an errand, meet a friend we haven’t seen in a while — the permutations are endless!  Also, it is important to note …

Talking about one’s emotions is complex, both in one’s native language and certainly in an adopted language.  In Italian, many  phrases used to convey emotion are idiomatic, and the choice of verbs can differ with even minor differences in a situation. For instance, an upcoming event may make one happy and generate positive feelings of excitement and anticipation. Although it is nice to have something to look forward to (as we discussed in Part 1 of this series about emotions last year), given the repetitiveness of daily life, we all feel bored at one time or another. It is a …