Last Lessons In Italian On Duolingo - what have I learned?

 The flag of Italy, the tricolore or three colour flag.

I have spent a year learning Italian on Duolingo. I am now near the end of the course and am going back to learning Spanish, which is similar to Italian.

What have I learned about Italian? First, the plurals. I have learned that spaghetti is plural, masculine plural. That's easy to remember.

Many words are the same as English. For example, 

Italian - English

idea - idea

radio - radio 

In Italian the adjective often comes after the noun.

The letters J and K and w x y are not in Italian words and only exist in Italian publications in foreign place names and words.

Italian is similar to Latin. I remember learning amo, amas amat in school, which means I love, you love, he, she or it loves. So, I love is the verb with o on the end. The technical term for an added ending is a suffix, Anything fixxed on the front of a word is a prefix.

Learning other languages helps you to understand your own language.

When learning French at school I used to get confused by the techical term pluperfect. I now realise that is is short for plus perfect. or more than perfect. The Italians have a good word for it.

It is the long ago tense. In English for example, thik of the teacher asking if you did your homework. You reply with the simple past, 'Yes I did it.' The past tense of do is did. 

The teacher asks, 'Did you do it yesterday?'

You reply, 'No, I had already done it last week."

That's the distant past or previous past. Had done.

I did it yesterday. But I had done the rest of the tasks the day before yesterday.

Do. Did. Had done.

Sometimes people get confused. They hear the words did and done which they associate with the past action. So they say, I done it. I have heard a gardener and a builder say I done it. People who work with their hands rather than studying do not have detailed and analytical knowledge or language.

I wonder how to tell them politely. Would they be angry or grateful.

At meetings of Toastmasters International.

Useful Websites

1 duolingo.com

2 wikivoyage phrasebook Italian

3 Translate google 

I shall add more thoughts on Italian in my next post tomorrow. You can also read several other posts I have written about Italian during the past year.

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Ciao. Arrivederci. Buona notte.

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