Italian Workout A1 Sample
Italian Workout A1 Sample
Italian Workout A1 Sample
COM
Italian Workout! – A1
by Daniele Daprà
with help from Lucia Imma Lecce, Daniel Stephens, Laura Cavicchi, Elisabetta
Betti, Cristian Pippa, Anita Salluce, and Stefania Zamagni
© 2013 OnlineItalianClub.com
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CONTENTS
Introduction............................................................................................................ 5
UNIT 1........................................................................................................................ 6
1.1 I Primi Contatti – First Contacts....................................................................... 7
1.2 Verbi Irregolari – Irregular Verbs..................................................................... 10
1.3 Le Nazionalità – Nationalities........................................................................ 12
1.4 I Numeri – Numbers....................................................................................... 13
1.5 I Giorni Della Settimana – Days Of The Week................................................14
1.6 I Mesi – Months..............................................................................................15
1.7 Le Professioni – Professions.......................................................................... 16
1.8 La Scuola – School........................................................................................ 17
1.9 Cibi E Bevande – Food And Drinks................................................................18
Exercises.............................................................................................................. 23
UNIT 2...................................................................................................................... 28
2.1 Il Presente Indicativo – Present Simple..........................................................29
2.2 I Sostantivi – Nouns....................................................................................... 31
2.3 Le Stagioni – Seasons....................................................................................33
2.4 Il Tempo Libero – Free Time........................................................................... 33
2.5 Avverbi Di Frequenza – Frequency Adverbs.................................................. 35
2.6 Verbi Irregolari – Irregular Verbs..................................................................... 36
2.7 Le Professioni – Professions- Part 2.............................................................. 38
2.8 I Luoghi Di Lavoro – Workplaces...................................................................39
2.9 I Numeri Ordinali – Ordinal Numbers............................................................. 40
2.10 L’albergo – Hotel.......................................................................................... 41
2.11 I Luoghi – Places.......................................................................................... 43
2.12 Scusa, Dov’è … ? – Excuse Me, Where Is … ?........................................... 44
2.13 Altri Verbi – Other Verbs............................................................................... 45
2.14 I Colori – Colours..........................................................................................46
Exercises.............................................................................................................. 47
UNIT 3...................................................................................................................... 54
3.1 Il Passato Prossimo – The Past Tense........................................................... 55
3.2 I Pronomi Diretti – Direct Pronouns................................................................58
3.3 Che Ora È ? – What Time Is It?......................................................................60
3.4 Sapori D’italia – Tastes Of Italy...................................................................... 62
3.5 Le Quantità – Quantities.................................................................................64
3.6 La Costruzione Impersonale / Impersonal “si”..............................................65
3.7 Il Tempo – Weather.........................................................................................67
3.8 La Salute – Health.......................................................................................... 68
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Introduction
First of all, congratulations for choosing our e-book for your language-learning!
It's ideal for beginners who want to develop a basic linguistic and communicative
competence in Italian, but also well-suited for those who already know some
Italian and would like to revise or consolidate their knowledge.
Italian Workout! - A1 is organised in four units, each divided into various lessons.
At the end of each unit, you'll fnd exercises relating to the topics you've just
studied.
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UNIT 1
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Welcome to your Italian course! How do you do? Oh... sorry, I forgot to introduce
myself!
In this chapter, you are going to learn some simple sentence to introduce yourself
and give basic information. On the next page, there's a table with a list of phrases
that you can use to give your name, age, origin, address, phone number, and so
on.
In the second column of the table, you'll see that the phrases are rewritten in a
more formal way. In Italian we make an expression more formal by using the third
person singular instead of the second person form of the verb (so both verbs and
pronouns change), for example:
Notice that, in the two phrases above, the subject is expressed by the pronouns in
brackets. Why do you think that is?
Unlike English, Italian has an articulated verb system and each verb has a different
form for each person.
Look at the conjugations of the irregular verb 'essere' (verb 'to be') and the regular
verb 'lavorare' (to work):
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io sono io lavoro
tu sei tu lavori
As you can see, each “person” has a different form, so it's the verb that makes
clear who the subject is. That's why you don't usually need to use the pronoun.
INFORMALE FORMALE
Ciao, come stai? [Hello, how are you?] Buongiorno, come sta?
Bene grazie [Fine, thanks]
Come ti chiami? [What is your name?] Lei come si chiama?
Mi chiamo … [My name is …]
Sono … [I am … ] E tu? [And you?] E Lei?
Piacere [Nice to meet you]
Di dove sei? [Where are you from?] Di dove è?
Sono …, di … [I’m (nationality), from (city)]
Dove vivi? [Where do you live?] Dove vive?
Come si scrive il tuo cognome? Come si scrive il suo cognome?
[How do you spell your surname?]
Quanti anni hai? [How old are you?] Quanti anni ha?
Ho … anni [I am … years old]
Qual è il tuo numero di telefono? Qual è il suo numero di telefono?
[What is your telephone number?]
Qual è il tuo indirizzo? Qual è il suo indirizzo?
[What is your address?]
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Now that you've learnt a few phrases in Italian, let me introduce myself properly:
Mi chiamo Daniele, ho 25 anni e vivo a Bologna, una bella città italiana. Lavoro
come insegnante di italiano a stranieri. Ho studiato all'Università di Padova e poi
all'Università di Bologna. Parlo italiano, inglese, spagnolo e un po' di tedesco. Nel
tempo libero mi piace andare al cinema, cucinare, leggere e suonare la chitarra. E
tu come ti chiami? Dove vivi? Quali sono i tuoi hobbies?
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Here you have a list of the frst irregular verbs you need to memorize. Notice the
Italian pronouns:
Standard Italian grammar includes other pronouns, i.e. egli [he], ella [she] and essi
[they], even though they are seldom used in contemporary Italian (you may fnd
them in literature).
[he/she/formal] [they/formal]
io ho noi abbiamo
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volere [want]
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Take a look at the following table: it shows the adjectives used to indicate
nationalities.
Unlike in English, all Italian adjectives may change depending on the gender of the
noun they refer to (masculine or feminine) and whether they are singular to plural.
In the table above you can see that there are two classes of adjectives. While
adjectives of the 2nd class (those ending in -e in the singular and -i in the plural)
don't change depending on the gender of the noun they refer to, those of the 1 st
class do. For instance:
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The table below shows you how numbers are written in Italian. Start by
memorizing those from 0 to 20, as they are the basic and irregular ones. Forming
numbers from 20 to 100 is then very simple, as in the examples:
You'll see that in the last two examples, the fnal -a of 'settanta' and 'ottanta'
drops in front of unit numbers starting with a vowel, i.e. 'uno' and 'otto'. The same
things happens with all other number (e.g. trentuno, novantotto, sessantotto...)
0 zero
100 cento
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In this chapter, you'll learn the Italian nouns for the days of the week.
What is the stress? It is the strength or emphasis we put on a syllable of the word.
Being aware of it will help you speak Italian with a better accent. In fact, there are
some words which have the same spelling but different stress and so different
meanings (e.g. àncora [anchor] – ancòra [again]).
Learning stress is not so easy at frst, because it is not always indicated in the
written form of the word.
The only case where the stress MUST be indicated in writing is when it falls on the
last syllable. In all other words (when stress is not on the last syllable) it is seldom
written.
A good example of a set of words where the last syllable is stressed and where
consequently the stress is marked with an accent is the days of the week, which all
end with an -ì.
il lunedì [Monday]
il martedì [Tuesday]
il mercoledì [Wednesday]
il giovedì [Thursday]
il venerdì [Friday]
il sabato [Saturday]
la domenica [Sunday]
So, remember: every time you come across a word with this symbol ` on the last
letter, it means the last syllable is stressed, and must be pronounced accordingly!
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Below are the names of months in Italian. Can you see the difference between the
Italian and English? In Italian we always write the name of months (as well as
names of days of the week and nationalities) with small letter.
gennaio [January]
febbraio [February]
marzo [March]
aprile [April]
maggio [May]
giugno [June]
luglio [July]
agosto [August]
settembre [September]
ottobre [October]
novembre [November]
dicembre [December]
Look again at the word 'luglio'. Can you guess why some letters are highlighted? I
wanted to draw your attention to a precise group of letters which have an unusual
pronunciation, something which learners often fnd diffcult.
Here's a little trick to pronounce GLI correctly (in phonetics, this sound is
represented by the double symbol /ʎ/): instead of reading the word 'luglio' as it is,
try to pronounce as if it was spelled “lul-yyio”.
Does your tongue press against your palate? Then you're doing right! Keep
practising!
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“Che lavoro fai?”, “Cosa fai nella vita?”, “Di cosa ti occupi?”. These are the most
common ways to ask what you do for a living. In the following table you can fnd
Italian nouns for professions.
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Are you taking a “real” Italian course in a language school, or are you planning to
take one in the future? Back to the classroom, then!
Here's a list of vocabulary to describe the classroom the things you'll fnd there. In
the exercise section, you'll fnd an activity to help you memorize these new words.
NOUNS VERBS
il banco [desk] leggere [to read]
la sedia [chair] scrivere [to write]
la lavagna [blackboard] imparare [to learn]
il cestino [rubbish bin] parlare [to speak]
il quaderno [notebook] contare [to count]
la classe [class] cantare [to sing]
il libro [book] provare [to try]
la penna [pen] sbagliare [to do wrong]
la matita [pencil] correggere [to correct]
il pennarello [marker] tradurre [to translate]
la mensa [canteen]
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Now we've arrived at one of the most popular topics amongst students of the
Italian language. What topic is that? Food, of course! On this page, you will learn
the words for the main foods. Later in this e-book, we'll focus more on Italian food
and recipes.
One very important thing to bear in mind: Italian nouns (just like adjectives) always
have a grammatical gender (i.e. masculine or feminine). You can understand the
gender of the noun by looking at the article.
MASCHILE FEMMINILE
SINGOLARE il – lo la
PLURALE i - gli le
There are two masculine articles: 'il' is used for most nouns (e.g. il vino, il pane, il
succo...) . You use 'lo' only when the noun starts with a vowel or with letters s-
(followed by another consonant), z-, y-, and x- (e.g. lo zucchero, lo spumante, lo
yogurt...).
When a singular noun (both male and female) starts with a vowel, the article loses
its last vowel and becomes l'. For instance: l'arancia, l'uovo, l'insalata, l'acqua...
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LE BEVANDE [drinks]
SINGOLARE PLURALE
la bibita [beverage] le bibite
il caffè [coffee] i caffè
il tè [tea] i tè
il latte [milk] x
il cappuccino i cappuccini
il succo [juice] i succhi
la spremuta [fresh juice] le spremute
lo spumante [sparkling wine] gli spumanti
il vino [wine] bianco/rosso i vini
la birra [beer] le birre
l’acqua [water] x
il ghiaccio [ice cube] x
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DOLCI [deserts]
il biscotto [biscuit] i biscotti
lo strudel [strudel] gli strudel
il dessert [dessert] i dessert
la marmellata [jam] le marmellate
la torta [cake] le torte
la cioccolata [chocolate] X
il gelato [ice-cream] i gelati
I know, it's a lot of vocabulary to learn. The good thing is that food is one of the
most common everyday topics,so you won't be short of chances to practise!
Now, I'll introduce you to a very important verb, particularly when talking about
food, likes and dislikes, and free time.
The verb is 'piacere' which basically translates the English verb 'to like'. It works a
bit differently from other verbs you've learnt so far. It might seem diffcult, but it is
actually quite easy, since we only use 3rd person singular and 3rd person plural,
piace and piacciono. Look at these examples:
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As you can see, the subject of verb 'piacere' is the thing you like. So, if I want to
state I like chocolate, I say: “A me piace la cioccolata”. And if I rather like cookies,
what I have to say is “A me piacciono i biscotti”. You see? Cookies is plural, so you
use the plural form of the verb.
The diffcult part about this verb is to use the preposition a and the pronouns
correctly. There are two ways to state who likes something. Either you use the
preposition a + direct pronoun or someone's frst name, or the indirect pronoun
alone.
Dunque... ti piace studiare l'italiano? Allora gira pagina, gli esercizi ti aspettano!*
*So... Do you like studying italian? Then turn the page, the exercises are waiting for you!
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Exercises
3. Noi ________ italiani. Voi di dove _________? (sono / siamo / sei) (sono / è /
siete)
1. Sara e Alina ______ venticinque anni e sono della Bulgaria. (ho / hanno / ha)
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1) Qual'è il numero di telefono della A) Abito in via delle Belle Arti 35.
scuola? B) Faccio la commessa in un negozio di
2) Come si scrive il tuo nome? calzature.
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A Cristian piace fare una colazione molto abbondante. Ascolta e completa il testo
con le parole mancanti.
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