Problems Learning

[gando]

Hi All
Im having problems talking in italian to relatives in milan.
I have a tutor and have been studying for 18 months. I grasp the basic concept of italian language but I get confused with certain things, for example
I was writing an email in italian and I wanted to say:
I received your email (was writing to a girl) Ho ricevuto LA TUA email or il tuo email. I guess working out which words require to mas/fem is diffcult for me to understand

Ive been listening to and watching italian tv and film to try and pickup some words but its difficult.

grazie

[lockettpots]

Hi gando

email is feminine so it's 'la tua email' (even if you are writing to a man)

It is best when learning vocabulary to learn the definite article (or indefilite article at the same time eg

Dont learn stazione for station
Learn la stazione or una stazione

This way the gender of the noun gets remembered as well as the noun itself.
If you use flashcards to learn always make sure you include the article.

John

[ladybird]

Hi All
Im having problems talking in italian to relatives in milan.
I have a tutor and have been studying for 18 months. I grasp the basic concept of italian language but I get confused with certain things, for example
I was writing an email in italian and I wanted to say:
I received your email (was writing to a girl) Ho ricevuto LA TUA email or il tuo email. I guess working out which words require to mas/fem is diffcult for me to understand

Ive been listening to and watching italian tv and film to try and pickup some words but its difficult.

grazie

Hi gando

It's not as difficult as it seems, promise.
In your example, it would be "la tua email" because email is a feminine noun.. it refers to the possesive, not the possesor.

Another example:
Il mio compleanno é 28 gennaio (I'm female but il mio refers to the masculine noun, compleanno)

Any clearer? probably not but I'm sure one of the others can explain it better!


http://impariamo.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=770

This link from the lezioni section may also be helpful.

[umberto]

I agree with Lockettpots and Ladybird: the Italian possessive adjectives refer to the possessed object, not to the person who possesses it: the possessor is left unsaid, so “il suo cane” can be translated into either “his dog” or “her dog” (or “its dog”); you use “il suo” because “cane” is masculine. As for genders, if it may help you, divide nouns in 5 groups according to the final vowel:

1. NOUNS ENDING WITH –O are 100% masculine: il cielo, il letto, il compleanno and so on. There are only two exceptions: la mano and now I don’t remember the other!!!

2. NOUNS ENDING WITH –A are 80% feminine and 20% masculine (by the way, these statistics are quite imprecise, just to get an idea of the distribution of the genders!!). La casa, la stanza, la margherita are feminine; il fantasma, il problema, il poeta are masculine (as a general rule: all those ending with -ETA, -ASMA and -EMA are masculine; all the others are feminine).

3. NOUNS ENDING WITH –E are 50% masculine and 50% feminine. This is probably the hardest group: some words must be memorized. Anyway, the nouns ending with –ZIONE and –SIONE are feminine: la stazione, la dimensione; the nouns ending with –ORE and –ARE are masculine il fiore, il colore, il mare, l’affare.

4. NOUNS ENDING WITH –I are 100% feminine: la psicosi, la tesi, la diagnosi. These nouns often concern the fields of medicine and psychoanalysis: if I don’t go wrong, they didn’t exist in Italian, so they were taken from ancient Greek and transplanted into Italian. I think there isn’t any exception, but “il bisturi”.

5. NOUNS ENDING WITH CONSONANT AND FOREIGN NOUNS, ENDING WITH CONSONANT OR VOWEL, WHICH ARE DERIVED NEITHER FROM LATIN NOR FROM GREEK are 99% masculine: il film, il computer, il samurai. Some are feminine, just because they replace an existent but not so much used Italian word, like l’email (this word is feminine because it replaces the Italian feminine “la posta elettronica”), or because they’re feminine in their language of origin (“l’eau de toilette” is feminine because in French it is). Anyway I think I don’t go wrong if I state that they’re mostly masculine.

There’s even a sixth group made of the feminine words ending with –Ù, but you only have 5 words (la gioventù, la schiavitù, la servitù, la gru and the fifth escapes me…). There are some nouns, “la radio” for instance, which are not exceptions: they’re simply abbreviations of regular nouns (“la radio” is the abbreviation of “la radiofonia”, an ordinary feminine word that nobody has no longer used for a very long time; “l’auto” is the abbreviation of “l’automobile”, an ordinary word of the 3rd group).

[gando]

So if Im talking to a female .... per esempio

Whats your name - come ti chiamA
your name = LA tuA nome
Male il tuo nome

[ladybird]

Ciao gando

No, not quite.

The "what's your name" doesn't apply as you are using the reflexive verb "chiamarsi"..for this it is worth looking up reflexive verbs in the lessons here.

As for la tua nome, this wouldn't be correct as the word NOME is masculine, it wouldn't change if you are talking to a female.

For example

Il mio nome é John (spoken by a male..obviously!)
Il tuo nome é Angela (spoken by either male or female)
Il suo nome é John/Angela

NOME=masculine noun

CASA=Feminine noun

La mia casa ( house could be owned by male or female, doesn't matter. CASA is feminine so it will be LA MIA CASA)
La tua casa (same rule applies, it doesn't matter who owns the house, just that the word CASA is feminine.)
La sua casa (his house, her house..CASA is the important word!)

So to sum up, itry and put the "his, hers, ours, theirs" to the back of your mind, just check out the gender of the noun or the "object" that belongs to them.

My book-Il mio libro
Your book-Il tuo libro
His book-il suo libro
Her book-il suo libro
Our book-Il nostro libro
Your book (if you are talking to more than one person) -Il vostro libro
Their book-Il loro libro

Hope this helps

[Roby]

Gando,

Everyone has given great explanations on how to determine the gender of the nouns...

Take a look at this entire section
http://impariamo.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=10

http://impariamo.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=45
Nouns and the articles agree in number and gender to the noun that it refers to or modifies


DOG- MASCULINE-CANE.. IL CANE.
DOGS- MASCULINE- CANI I CANI
HOUSE- FEMININE- CASA LA CASA
HOUSES - FEMININE CASE LE CASE

http://impariamo.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=770
If it is someone's possession , the possessive adjective agrees with the noun in number and gender to the noun they modify or replace.

MY DOG- NOUN- MASCULINE- CANE - IL MIO CANE
MY DOGS - NOUN- MASCULINE- CANI- I MIEI CANI
MY HOUSE- NOUN- FEMININE- CASA - LA MIA CASA
MY HOUSES- NOUN -FEMININE- CASE- LE MIE CASE.

[Manuel]

1. NOUNS ENDING WITH –O are 100% masculine: il cielo, il letto, il compleanno and so on. There are only two exceptions: la mano and now I don’t remember the other!!!

Darn! I can't remeber the other one either!!

...............................................

4. NOUNS ENDING WITH –I are 100% feminine: la psicosi, la tesi, la diagnosi. These nouns often concern the fields of medicine and psychoanalysis: if I don’t go wrong, they didn’t exist in Italian, so they were taken from ancient Greek and transplanted into Italian. I think there isn’t any exception, but “il bisturi”.

And il brindisi (toast, as in "a drink to one's honour" ) if memory serves right.
...............................

There’s even a sixth group made of the feminine words ending with –Ù, but you only have 5 words (la gioventù, la schiavitù, la servitù, la gru and the fifth escapes me…).

Would that be virtù?