There is usually some flexibility in choosing where to place an adverb in a sentence, however for an adverb that modifies a verb the most common position is immediately after the verb. This is different to English where the most common position is immediately before the verb.
Italian
English
Perdo spesso la chiave.
I often lose the key.
Roberto apre sempre la finestra.
Roberto always opens the window.
Guardiamo a volte il fiume.
We sometimes look at the river.
Non uso sempre un piatto.
I don’t always use a plate.
An adverb that modifies a verb is usually placed immediately after that verb.
Usage of the adverb mai, never.
In Italian, the adverb mai, never, is generally used together with non, not, as in the following examples.
Italian
English
Non perdiamo mai la chiave.
We never lose the key.
Marco non pulisce mai lo specchio.
Marco never cleans the mirror.
To English speakers this may seem like a double negative: “not … never”. In English the two negatives would cancel each other out, resulting in a positive expression. However in Italian this doesn’t happen. These “double negatives” are common and always express a single negative idea.
Italian often uses double negative constructions such as “non … mai” (literally “not … never”) to express a single negative idea (“never”).
The prepositions a and ad are identical. The normal form is a, but ad is often used when the following word starts with a vowel (particularly a stressed “a”).
In the table above we’ve shown the most common meanings of the Italian prepositions (the meanings that are relevant in this lesson), however these prepositions are used in a multitude of different situations which will often call for different English translations. For example in some situations da could actually mean by, at, to or as, rather than from. Common prepositions like these can only really be learnt in context, by practising with whole sentences. This is, of course, what we will get you to do in the exercises in this course. We’ll start with some of the most common situations in this lesson and then introduce more uses for these prepositions in later lessons. Importantly, we want to stress that you shouldn’t try to learn words like these by simply memorising their definitions. This might work at first, but you’ll run into trouble as soon as you start encountering some of the many, many other situations where they are used.
Examples
Italian
English
Vendiamo il negozio a Simona.
We sell the shop to Simona.
Vincenzo compra un cane da Paola.
Vincenzo buys a dog from Paola.
Devo andare a Roma.
I have to go to Rome.
Andiamo da Napoli a Firenze.
We go from Naples to Florence.
Carlo torna da Roma.
Carlo returns from Rome.
Posso dare un caffè ad Anna.
I can give Anna a coffee. (I can give a coffee to Anna.)
Prendo un arancia da Giulia.
I take an orange from Giulia.
Non vado mai a Venezia.
I never go to Venice.
Simona va spesso a Firenze.
Simona often goes to Florence.
Exercises 4.5 and 4.6 will introduce several new words, including the following new irregular verbs. We’ve already used some of these forms in the examples above.
There are a handful of very common prepositions (including a and da) that combine together with the definite article to form a single word. For example, whenever the preposition da is followed by the definite article il, the two words combine together to form dal. Here are some examples.
Italian
English
Notes
Prendiamo un libro dal tavolo.
We take a book from the table.
dal = da + il
Roberto dà il bicchiere alla ragazza.
Roberto gives the glass to the girl.
alla = a + la
Non diamo la borsa all’uomo.
We don’t give the telephone to the man.
all’ = a + l’
Note in the second example above that the verbdà (with an accent) and the article il do not combine together. It is only the prepositionda (without an accent) that combines together with the definite article.
Here is a table of all the combinations of the prepositions and definite articles that you have learnt so far. You may not encounter all of these combinations in the exercises in this lesson, but keep your eye out for the rest of them in future lessons. As usual, there is no need to try to memorize these now - wait till you actually encounter them in the exercises.
The most common use of the preposition di is to indicate possession.
Italian
English
Il libro di Marco
The book of Marco orMarco’s book
Lo zio di Giulia
The uncle of Giulia orGiulia’s uncle
As you’ll notice from the examples above, the most common and natural way of indicating possession in English is to use the apostrophe + s construction. Italian does not have an equivalent construction and instead always uses the preposition di to indicate possession.
Like a and da, di also combines with the definite article. We’ve expanded the previous table to show all three prepositions.
Article
a + article
da + article
di + article
il
al
dal
del
la
alla
dalla
della
lo
allo
dallo
dello
l’
all’
dall’
dell’
And some examples…
Italian
English
Vedo la borsa della donna.
I see the woman’s bag.
Compriamo il libro dello zio di Giulia.
We buy Giulia’s uncle’s book.
Il gatto dell’uomo non usa mai la porta.
The man’s cat never uses the door.
Exercises 4.9 & 4.10 make use of the following two forms of the irregular verb essere, to be.
Another common use of the preposition di is to form what is known as a partitive construction. In this construction the combination di + definite article has the meaning of some, as in the following examples.
Italian
English
Compro del pane.
I buy some bread.
Abbiamo del caffè.
We have some coffee.
Marco vuole della carta.
Marco wants some paper.
We introduced some new nouns here: pane, bread, caffè, coffee and carta, paper. You can deduce the genders of these words based on whether we used del (masculine) or della (feminine). You should keep your eyes open for these sorts of clues when you come across new nouns in the exercises.
Finally we have some examples of di used in a way that’s identical to the English preposition of.
Italian
English
Voglio un bicchiere di acqua.
I want a glass of water.
Diamo una tazza di caffè a Paola.
We give Paola a cup of coffee. (We give a cup of coffee to Paola.)
