Italian phrasebook
Italian is the official language of Italy, San Marino and the Swiss Canton Ticino and the southern valleys of Graubunden. It is a co-official language in Istria and the coastal region of Slovenia. Furthermore, it is the de facto primary language of the Vatican City and is widely used and understood in Monaco, Corsica and Malta and is even popular in Albania and in Romania. It is also used outside of Europe in parts of Libya and Somalia.
Even if in most of the touristic resorts along Italy English and German are widely spoken, most of the Italian people can't speak a foreign language (other than a Romance language, that is), so it is useful to know some basic phrases in Italian.
In Italian, you use the polite form ("lei") with all the people you don't know; it doesn't matter whether they are older or younger than you, unless they are children. You'll use the confidential form ("tu") with the people you know and with children. The two forms differs in the use of the 2nd and 3rd persons in verbs.
Italian has two genders, masculine (-o, pl. -i) and feminine (-a, pl. -e), and some remnants of the neuter (uovo "egg", pl. uova). So a woman would say Mi sono persa while a man would say Mi sono perso.
If you speak Spanish or even Portuguese, be careful as there are a lot of words that look and sound almost the same in these languages, but convey very different meanings. I.E: Spanish guardar ("to store, shelve") vs It. guardare ("to see, watch") and salir ("to get out") vs salire ("to go up"); Spanish caldo ("soup") vs It. caldo ("warm")
Pronunciation
Pronunciation is relatively easy in Italian since most words are pronounced exactly how they are written. Unless accented, words are normally pronounced with the emphasis on the second to last syllable. Double consonants tend to affect how the preceding vowel is pronounced; e.g. in "sono" (I am) the "o" is pronounced like the "o" in "close", while in "sonno" (sleep) the "o" is pronounced like the "o" in "dot" and the "n" sound is a bit longer. Similarly in "sera" (evening) the "e" is pronounced like the "e" in "error" [ a long 'e' sound ], while in "serra" the "e" is said as a short closed "e" as in "set" and the rolled "r" is a bit more marked
Vowels
- a
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This page was last edited at 16:54, on 27 December 2008 by Fernando Guasch. Based on work by Peter Fitzgerald, Timo Laine and Vanessa ODonnell, Wikitravel user(s) Fire Elf, Anonymous user(s) of Wikitravel and others.
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