Author: get back, laurettadimmick

On my way home.

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Today was a perfect Florentine day.  We had a refreshing wind that blew through town yesterday and cooled everything off.

I had a super afternoon today, which I’ll post about later.  Suffice it to say for now that I went to see an Italian film on Michelangelo at one of the prettiest theaters in the world, a blessed holdover from the golden age of cinema, and then I went to an exhibition of (need I say, modern) video art in a Renaissance palazzo.  How could you have a better afternoon than enjoying these contrasts and artworks?  Impossible for me to imagine.

So, happily strolling home in the mid-evening, I encountered this great Clet sign.

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I walked by the koi made out of luggage materials.  I would think it’s a perfect draw for all the Asian tourists who bought too many souvenirs and need a new suitcase to get it all home.

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I walked by Moschino boutique and am happy to see fall fashions on display.  It assures me that cooler weather will happen again.  I am a window shopper only.  I could never/would never buy clothes of this price!

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I walked by the Dolce and Gabbana children’s shop, and had to admire the way they tell us that they are cleaning, rearranging, tidying up.

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I couldn’t help admiring the medieval street I just strolled through, thinking to myself what a perfect specimen of old/new.  How lucky I feel to be here.

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I turned onto my street, a route which takes me by this cool shoe shop.  Cool fall flats on display.  Another sign that nicer weather will eventually return!

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I ambled by the high-end textile store that always has the most gorgeous bolts of fabric on display.  I always stop to admire and it reminds me of happy days with my mother, when I was a bambino.  She taught me to appreciate the finer things.

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And last, but certainly not least, by my favorite hardware/perfume shop.  I mean, really, where else but Florence can you find that particular combination???

 

 

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I’ll stop in again and get some pictures of the interior.  It is a bazaar, filled with things you never knew you needed.  But, you do!

How Italian works.

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Ha ha!  I can’t help you here.  I have no idea how Italian works.  I’ve been studying it for a long time and I am still almost completely clueless!

But, I persevere.

I thought I’d share with you on this sunny Sunday afternoon, something about how Italian is explained to me on a daily basis by my Italian teachers and textbook.  It’s extremely confusing.  Maybe its just me.

OK, so Intermediate Level, book 1.  We shall discuss how to decide to use which of 2 auxiliary verbs when forming the past tense.  That sounds simple enough.  Ready?

Andiamo:

My book explains that

  1. some verbs use (or “take” in Italian) only AVERE (to have)

2. Some verbs use only ESSERE (to be)

3. Some verbs use both interchangeably

4. Reflexive verbs always use ESSERE

But then the fun stuff starts:

5. The passive form in the past tense is created using ESSERE even when the verb normally takes AVERE

6. Some verbs use AVERE when transitive and ESSERE when intransitive

Here my textbook veers off the complicated path to remind us what a TRANSITIVE Verb is, and what INTRANSITIVI VERBI are like.  I won’t bore you with the details since I barely grasp the concept anyhow.

 

Then my textbook goes back to the complicated path and reminds:

  1. The first group of verbs only uses AVERE**

**But remember, all transitive verb use ESSERE when

a. passive or

b. reflexive

 

2. The 2nd group uses ESSERE

3. The 3rd group uses either ESSERE or AVERE

4. The 4th group uses AVERE when transitive and ESSERE when intransitive

5. The 5th group involves the “verbi modali” which is 3 verbs: POTERE (to be able to); VOLERE (to want to); and DOVERE (to have to).

You’ll be relieved to know that the 3 modal verbs always use AVERE

except: when making the past tense, then you use whatever auxiliary verb the infinitive of the verb you are using normally takes.

So, for example, you might normally say Loro non sono rimasti. But if you want to use a model verb to give nuance to your phrase, then you might say Loro non sono voluti (see that! the normal past participle is voluto, but you needed to change it to plural male or voluti) rimanere.

So, to recap, you could happily say Loro non sono rimasti (they didn’t stay), but if you want to say They didn’t want to stay, then you have to make some adjustments.  In that case you would say, Loro non sono voluti rimanere (they didn’t want to stay).

My advice is just to skip the subject and accept that they didn’t stay but you have no idea what their motive was.