Luca: Good morning guys, I am with the legendary Lucrezia. Lucrezia: Hi everyone! Luca: we are on the wonderful
Gianicolo hill, and we'll talk about..what are we going to talk about Lucrezia? Lucrezia: Today we are going to talk a bit about
the difficulties that foreign students face when they learn Italian.
Luca: Lucrezia is a fantastic Italian teacher, and has a Youtube channel
that has become a reference for all those who are learning Italian,
what is the name of the channel? Lucrezia: thanks, the name is "Learn Italian with Lucrezia" Luca: Fantastic, so, today
we are going to talk about - go figure, the Italian language, and we'll be doing so
by roaming around the beautiful streets of Gianicolo, because we currently find ourselves
in this wonderful neighborhood. Let's start with the first thing that you think is rather problematic for
Italian students. Lucrezia: So, the first that that comes to mind, offhand, is
prepositions, because prepositions follow certain rules in most cases but
there are quite a few exceptions and I find that
one should tackle this grammatical aspect of the language right from the get-go, and
one should continue to review them continually. I have come across students who
think they know how to use prepositions even when they speak Italian at a high level
but they don't feel like "going back to the drawing board" because
they think it is for beginners. Luca: Could you give us an example of one preposition that people normally
get wrong? Lucrezia: well, normally the propositions that people get wrong
are "di", "in", "a", as well as "per", and I want to dispel the myth that
prepositions are for beginners.
Luca: Well, I agree with you. Lucrezia: I think prepositions are for every level,
for every student, and that's why one should review them all the time no matter their level. In this regard, I like using this metaphor
of the learning process,
that is, the concept of "spiral learning", according to which we move forward but then we go back to the previous points of the path, like in a spiral-like pattern
Luca: I like the spiral-like learning curve, that's a nice concept!
Lucrezia: In this spiral-like method, students keep going back to some previous points from another point of view, from a higher and deeper perspective. Luca: fantasitc,
so, this is the first challenge. Lucrezia: I myself am talking too much, sorry about that! Luca: no no, that's totally fine!
Luca: what about the second challenge? A second challenge might be pronunciation and here,
we can say a bunch of things, but I will limit myself to just y a few things. So, the sound
"ps", at the beginning of a word..Luca: "psicologico" (psychological) Lucrezia: yes, this sound is a bit problematic
and then the sound "gn" and the sound "gli". Luca: "gli" is difficult even for some Italians,
who often say "i" spaghetti" (instead of "gli"), and are not able to
pronounce "gli" correctly. Lucrezia: and then vowels. Sometimes students skip them,
for example the "e" at the end of a word is often pronounced as "ii" (ee)
and most often than not, native English speakers tend to make this kind of mistake. Luca: that's true Lucrezia: and viceversa. Luca:
another thing that comes to mind now is that Americans often say
"gIovanni", they say "gIo", "cIo" and put say the "I"...Lucrezia: exactly. Luca: for example, they say "giulIani",
GIovanni..but in reality an Italian would say Giuliani. Lucrezia: that's right, so what do we learn from all this? That
prepositions..sorry Luca: no worries, keep going..Lucrezia: this makes us realized that in Italian
vocals are always "full", maybe not always,, but 90 % of the time
because in the aforementioned cases the "i" (like in Giovanni) has the function of smoothening the sound. Luca: as when you
put sugar in your cup of coffee! Lucrezia: right, the function of the i is that of having us pronounce a soft "g",
does it make sense? Also..Luca: then..? Lucrezia: then another challenge is
a la frase comparativa (sentence with comparatives), since in Italian we can choose between "di" and "che"
independently from what follows next, because it depends
on the grammatical function of the following word - whether it is an adverb, adjective etc, and so a lot of people
- filtering things through their native language - use only and always "che"
Luca: can you give us an example? Lucrezia: "Lui è più alto CHE stefano" (He is taller than Stefano)
and this sentence is incorrect. Luca: what should you say instead? "Lucrezia": lui è più alto DI Stefano", because Stefano is
a common name, so it requires "di" in front of it. Luca: wonderful. Guys,
we have stopped here to make a pause because this is an interview "on the go" and it is a bit hard to walk and hold the camera so we are about to end the video..
Lucrezia: so, I'd say that another problematic point is la perifrasi (periphrasis) - starte + gerundio (gerund)
which in Italian indicates the so called "presente progressivo" - "quindi
adesso io sto parlando e Luca sta tenendo la videocamera" (so now I AM TALKING and Luca IS HOLDING the videocamera.. Luca: hardly!
Lucrezia: right, and you know why this is a problem?
Because students often use this structure as if they speaking their own language, and in the case of
native English speakers, this periphrasis is used to talk about the future
and this is obviously not correct, because in Italian we have a specific tense
to talk about actions unfolding in the future, so
in Italian we don't make any distinction between "futuro programmato" (planned future), "futuro incerto" (uncertain future) and
futuro spontaneo" (spontaneous future), and so on, we only have one tense for the future.
Luca: And that's it! Lucrezia: and the one last point that I wanted to address is the
structure "tutto ciò che" (all/everything that), foreigners
have a hard understanding the role of "ciò" in this structure, and as a consequence I often hear
"tutto che", and an Italian can tell that "ciò" is missing
from this structure. "Tutto ciò che" is used together as a collocation
and the single roles of teach element gives meaning to
the overall structure. Luca: great, well said. Very informative! Do you want to add anything else? Lucrezia: well, no,
actually I am finished! Luca: (speaking in Roman) that's it let's end the video.
Ok guys, thanks a bunch and thanks a ton to Lucrezia! Lucrezia,no thank YOU Luca
and I am sorry if the recording is not top-notch quality. Luca: well, this is actually the cool thing of this video
because if we had been sitting on some couch giving you a lecture you would be bored to death
Lucrezia: in the end, it is fun to see Luca and Lucrezia roaming around in the Gianicolo fields
Luca: yes, for grammatical fields, and in front of the famous Gianicolo Cannon
just a reminder that we are in Rome and from Rome
she comes from Roma Nord and I come from "Roma Sud", which is the same thing. Lucrezia: yes, although I have just moved up North!
Roma: yes, somewhere else in Rome. Guys, thanks a ton, have a great day and hugs! We'll see you soon
here on YouTube. Ciao!