Hi, this is Mara from Mosalingua! Welcome to our grammar hacks series
on how to learn Italian quickly.
Today’s topic is prepositions of time, which sometimes
can cause some problems for people learning Italian.
In this new video, we will focus on 5 prepositions: da, per, in, tra and fra –
that are quite similar. We use these prepositions of time
to talk about the duration of a past, present, or future action.
We'll look at some hacks together, and you'll see that it's easy
to learn how to use them correctly. Let’s start with some examples: “Studio
italiano da dieci anni, ho iniziato nel 2007” or “Ho studiato francese per
5 anni.” For now, let's focus on the difference between da and per. As you may have noticed,
in the first sentence the preposition da means that I am still studying Italian,
while per in the second one means that I am not longer studying French.
How do we know which one to use? If the sentence uses present tense,
it means the action is still going on in the present, so I use da; if the
sentence has a past tense, it means the action is complete, so I use per.
In many cases, the preposition per can be left out, for ex.: “Ho studiato
l'italiano dieci anni” or “Studio un’ora e poi vado a fare shopping.”
The preposition "in" can also express duration, for ex.: “In due mesi ho
visitato molti paesi.” But be careful: there’s a difference between in and per. If I say
“In due ore ho studiato tutta la lezione di storia” it means that I finished
studying, the action is over. If I say “Ho studiato per due ore inglese”
it means I’m still at it. Finally, let’s look at the prepositions of time
tra and fra. They’re the same, so you can use them
interchangeably, and they express a future action that is not happening yet.
For example “Tra un'ora vado al cinema” or “Fra una settimana parto per il mare.”
Let’s sum it up: DA is the preposition of time that goes from past
to present, that is, the moment I am speaking. IN is the preposition of time to say
how long an action took. PER is the preposition of time used to say
how long an action has taken so far. TRA and FRA are the prepositions of time
to express how soon the action will take place.
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miss any of our videos. Ciao, see you next time!