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7 Livello tre. mercoledì, il diciotto febbraio. Settima Lezione.

Level three. Wednesday, February 18, 2009. Seventh lesson.

-compiti (homework) is at the bottom of this page.

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-Gli argomenti (the topics): What we did in class, and more.

-Warmup: "Cosa facevi da bambina?" (What did you used to do, as a young girl?) "Che cosa ti piaceva fare quando eri piccola?" (What did you used to like to do when you were little?) We brought photos from our youth, and talked about what we used to do.

- Passato prossimo, irregular past participles. We recited the verbs in the fifth box of our "irregular past participles" handout.

In the passato prossimo with essere, the participle can be thought of as being almost-an-adjective: example:
Sono arrivata. - I have arrived. - (I am "arrived".)
It makes sense that the past participle agrees with the subject, since an adjective would agree with the subject.

Now if we look at a transitive verb (takes a direct object) in the past (which takes avere)
Ho mangiato la mela.
and then take the object (la mela) and change it to a pronoun which precedes the verb
La ho mangiata.
it still makes sense that the past participle mangiata has to agree with the direct object pronoun la because the participle is still acting almost-like-an-adjective because the verb is transitive it is acting on the direct object. ( It I ate.) So the participle is referring to what happened to the direct object pronoun and so agrees with it. In a weird way it makes sense. (Ha senso, no?)
- Ora, volta tempo. We did a two-way translation exercse about the different expressions that deal with time and weather. (click here for the handout)

- Imperfetto. We went over the homework from pages 198 and 199, A, B, and C.

If you want to practice saying the imperfetto out loud, make sure you put the stress on the right syllable. Most grammar books have it marked. Here (parlare) is an example of the location of the stress:

parlare (l'imperfetto):
parlavo____parlavamo
parlavi____parlavate
parlava____parlavano


-Charades (imperfetto with imperfetto) I was (doing something) while you were (doing something). Both verbs are in the imperfetto.


- Parole da ricordare (words to remember)
da giovane... - when I was young...
da bambino... - as a child...
...quando ero giovane - ...when I was young
... quando ero piccola - ...when I was little
a memoria - to learn "by heart"
guadagnare - to earn
compiere - to become an age
Lei ha compiuto ventun anni la settimana scorsa. - She turned twenty-one last week.
Lei aveva ventun anni. - She was twenty one. (When talking about someone's age in the past, always use the imperfetto.)
polpetta di carne - meatball
tutta la giornata - all day
tutti i giorni - every day
chiacchiererare - to chat

- Handouts. These are the handouts for this week:
15. Ora, volta tempo. (white, two sided) A two-way translation exercise.
16. Imperfetto or passato prossimo."Sorprese belle e brutte". (pink (or white?), two sided with drawings)

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-Compiti.

1. Anyone who still wants to may bring a picture to class, so that we can talk about what you used to do, and what you liked to do.

2. Imperfetto or passato prossimo? Read pages 200 and 201. Read the "nota bene" sidebar: "Sapere e conoscere". Do the esercizi A, B, and C. You have to select between imperfetto and passato prossimo.
Think of the passato prossimo as being an event and the imperfetto as being a description or a habitual action.
When it's a description of what is happening, the imperfetto will often translate into English as "was _______-ing" or "were _______-ing".
When it's a habitual action, then imperfetto will often translate into English as "used to ________" or "would __________".

3. Imperfetto or passato prossimo? Do the handout 16 "Sorprese belle e brutte." For each frame, choose whether you feel like what is happening is
an action: movement, film or
a situation: without movement, photo.

4. Ora, volta, tempo (optional) There is some practice with this in "Italian the Easy Way" on page 147, practice set 50.
Even if you don't have this book, make up some questions using these words ("ora", "volta", "tempo") to ask each other in class.

5.Irregular past participles. I'd like us to finish up memorizing the irregular past participles on handout 3. There are two more boxes of ten verbs total. Make up some very simple sentences in passato prossimo using these and any of the other verbs on the list to ask each other in class next week. Write them out in order to memorize them, but I would prefer if you don't have to read every word off your paper when you ask them in class.