意语词汇学习基础课程第05课

　　Io sono vecchio. (I am old.)

　　Tu sei carina. (You are pretty.)

　　Noi siamo nervosi. (We are nervous.)

　　Lei sta sulla sedia. (She is on the chair.) Note that

　　Lei e' seduta. (literally She is seated) is the form for She is in the chair.

　　Essi sono sporchi. (They (the males) are dirty.)

　　Now it's time to explain the differences between essere and stare, before we go any further. Essere means to be or to exist, while stare usually means to stay but can be used where English idiomatics use to be. The rules are summarized here:

　　essere is used to indicate more permanent aspects of people or things, such as -

　　1. Identity - Io sono Carla. (I am Carla) 2. 3. Profession - Egli è un professore. (He is a professor.) 4. 5. Origin - Noi siamo di Milano. (We are from Milan.) 6. 7. Religious or political affiliation - Tu sei cattolico? (You are Catholic?) 8. 9. Time of day or date - Sono le otto. (It is 8 o'clock.) 10. 11. Possession - La casa è di Giovanna. (It is Giovanna's house.) 12. 13. Nationality - Sono Italiano. (I am from Italy.) 14. 15. Physical aspects or characteristics of something - Le sedie sono verdi. (The chairs are green.) 16. 17. Essential qualities of something or someone - Sono vecchio. Sei antipatico. (I am old. You are unpleasant.) 18. 19. Location - La sedia è in cucina. (The chair is in the kitchen.) 20. 21. but also, more rarely - La sedia sta in cucina. (The chair is in the kitchen.) 22. 23. Condition or emotion that is subject to change - Sono malato. (I am sick.) 24. 25. Personal observations or reactions, how something seems or feels - La cucina è pulita. (The kitchen is (seems) clean.) 26. stare is used to indicate precise locations, in idioms and as auxiliary, such as -

　　1. Idiomatic sentences - Sto bene.(I am well.) 2. 3. Idiomatic sentences - Sto male.(I feel bad.) 4. 5. Location - La sedia sta in cucina. (The chair is in the kitchen.) 6. 7. Continuous tense - Sto correndo.(I am running.) 8. Notes: Notice that the verb form used for things like la sedia is the egli/ella/esso(-a) form. A chair is an it (below, you'll see that it's actually a she), which uses the egli/ella/esso(-a) form of the verb. Also notice that you can make sentences like Sono Italiano, without including the pronoun. To English speakers this may seem like saying Am from Italy, which we would never do, but in Italian, because the subject can be figured out by the form of the verb used (since the sentence used sono, the subject must be io, or I), there is no confusion about who the subject of the sentence is and the pronoun can be left out. If it would be unclear what the subject of the sentence is, then the pronoun has to be included.

　　The above lists of when to use essere and stare have to be memorized - using them incorrectly means you will be less likely to be understood, and people will definitely know you are not a native speaker. The same goes for the conjugations of essere and stare. Every Italian verb has a conjugation, and memorizing them just goes along with learning the language.

　　Il, lo, la, un, uno and una (definite and indefinite articles)

　　In Italian, as well as all the other Romance languages (French, Spanish, etc), all nouns have a gender associated with them. Chair is feminine, telephone is masculine. The way to tell whether a noun is masculine or feminine is to look at the il/lo or la that precedes the noun in the New Words section of these lessons. Il is the definite article that corresponds to masculine nouns - il professore, il telefono. La is the definite article that corresponds to feminine nouns - la casa, la tavola, la finestra. Whether a noun is considered feminine or masculine is generally based on the last letter of the noun. If the noun ends with an a, as in sedia or cucina, then it is most probably a feminine noun. If it ends with an o, such as muro or orologio (wristwatch), then it is always a masculine noun. Exceptions do exist to this rule - poeta (poet) is masculine - but the majority of Italian nouns behave normally. Nouns ending with an e, can be masculine or feminine, usually according to the meaning (like padre (father) and madre (mother) - but e.g. parete is feminine). The exceptions just have to be memorized as you come across them.