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Grammar 3
Preview
Here’s a preview of the phrases you’ll be learning in this lesson.
Vocabulary Exercises
Something you should keep in mind when learning vocabulary is that words can often have multiple meanings. The meanings you will learn in these vocabulary exercises are the ones that are relevant in the corresponding phrase exercises, but they are not necessarily the only meanings. For example, in this lesson you will learn the word macchina, which normally means car. However in some contexts the word macchina can have the more general meaning of machine. You should always be prepared to encounter new meanings of the words that you’ve learnt, particularly when you venture beyond this course.
Phrase Exercises
Key concepts
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The possessive adjectives mio/mia, my, tuo/tua, your and suo/sua, his/her are just like all other Italian adjectives in that they each have a masculine and a feminine form. And, like other adjectives, you have to choose the form that matches the gender of the noun that the adjective refers to. So we have il suo libro (his book or her book) and la sua macchina (his car or her car). Note that although English also has some gender-specific possessive adjectives (his and her), in English the gender matches the possessor whereas in Italian the gender matches the possessed object. So the only way to tell whether suo/sua means his or her is from the context.
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In English the possessive adjectives (my, your, his, her) are used instead of articles like a and the, so instead of the car we say my car. In Italian, however, we keep the article and just add the possessive adjective the same as we would any other adjective. Just as we would say la nuova macchina, the new car, we say la mia macchina, literally the my car.
Next Lesson: Grammar 4
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Part B: Grammar →
Grammar 3
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