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!! ANNOUNCEMENT !!
I run out of old lessons to edit and post, so it's all new material. We're going to touch important subjects like... Verbs, for one.
Lessons will be posted much, much faster now. Be prepared.

I got no feedback and I don't know if somebody is following this and if they're liking it or not. If you have been reading this, you don't have to raise your hand or let me know if you don't want to, but if you have any suggestions or requests or critiques I would be really happy to read them. So please forward them to me by PM or, even better, post them in the Teacher Feedback Thread! If you feel so enraged by these lessons that you want to insult me or something, you can send me a PM instead. Let's keep the thread clean, okay? biggrin I will respond to flames too, if I'm in the right mood. xd


10/12: Tenth lesson (Articles - Dos & Don'ts - IV)
10/12: Ninth lesson (Articles - Partitive - III)
10/12: Eight lesson (Articles - Indefinite - II)
08/26: Seventh lesson (Articles - Definite - I)
08/05: Sixth lesson (Nouns - Vocab. Box 1)
07/26: Fifth lesson (Nouns - Number - II)
07/18: Fourth lesson (Nouns - Gender - I)
07/02: Third lesson (Alphabet - Syllables & Stress - III)
06/22: Second lesson (Alphabet - Combinations - II)
06/15: First lesson (Alphabet - Pronunciation - I)

Most online courses start with a situation, or a dialogue, and then analyze it. I think it's useful for courses held in person, in the flesh or over the internet, or that rely on audio/video resources. A course like this instead, in my opinion, would be better as a huge online repository for topics, that can be accessed singularly or in sequence. I have no means of knowing everyone's level, so structuring the lessons in a gradual way would be meaningless.
I think I will analyze the classical parts of speech (noun, verb, adjective, article, adverb, preposition, pronoun, conjunction, numeral, interjection), and those can be used to build more complex structures.
Thus the lessons won't be numbered, but categorized for topic and then expanded or added as needed. When we get to a point where we can form a structure, more insight on that structure will be given.


I will use special formatting:

italics for Italian words

(parenthesis) or "quotation marks" for English equivalent

underlined to identify stressed syllables more easily

bold to mark endings or other elements relevant to the topic

**this** will be the format for notes, which will provide more detailed but not essential information, so that beginners can ignore these and keep to the main aspects of the topic, and at the same time more advanced learners could improve their knowledge a bit.

Ca you explain More About the "R",I didn't Understand How to Pronounce it!

Yay! You have your own thread. When do you think the lessons will be up to where they were left at?

I hope the first lesson on pronunciation wasn't too confusing, because now we have to approach another confusing matter. Bear with me with this lesson, we'll start putting those strange sounds and letters into real words! :O Be prepared for a novel...

ALPHABET - COMBINATIONS

As you may have noticed, certain letters have more than one sound. We use graphic conventions in order to express this difference, and to represent other sounds not corresponding to one single letter.
I'll call these groups of letters "combinations" though it's not the scholarly term, because they have different definitions whether we're speaking of consonants or vowels.

- Consonant clusters

In the previous lesson, we saw that "c", for example, can have two different sounds: one that resembles the English "k", that's called hard or velar, and one that resembles the English "ch", called soft or palatal. Let's stick with hard and soft, to not make things more complicated.
Now let's see how different combinations of c + vowel are pronounced.

° CA, CO, CU all get the hard sound "k" (/kah/, /koh/, /kuh/)
° CI, CE both get the soft sound "ch" (/chee/, /cheh/)

Examples:
cane /kahneh/ (dog)
cena /chehnah/ (dinner)

What if I need the hard sound, but also an "i" or an "e"? In that case, I write an "h" next to the "c" to express the change to a hard sound:

° CHI, CHE are pronounced with the hard sound "k" (/kee/, /keh/). Please pay close attention to this because it may look confusing from the perspective of an English speaker.
Ex.:
orchestra /orkehstrah/ (orchestra)

But there's another problem: and if I need the soft sound, but also an "a", an "o" or a "u"? I'll write an "i" next to the "c" to express the change to a soft sound:

° CIA, CIO, CIU are pronounced with the soft sound "ch" (/cha/, /cho/, /chu/). Please keep in mind that this "i" is only a graphical means, so it's NOT pronounced (/chya/, /chyo/, /chyu/ aren't correct).
Ex.:
bacio /bahchoh/(kiss)
faccia /fahtchah/ (face)

Sometimes, because of endings or derivations from Latin, you'll get CIE, not stressed. The "i" here is not pronounced as well, it's just a relic of our old language. This combination is pronounce exactly the same as CE.

° CQ is used to express a "double q": you saw that normally the "q" is never doubled but in one single word, so a stronger /kw/ sound is marked by this.
Ex.:
acqua (water)

**The "cq" words are almost all compounds of acqua, like risciacquare (to rinse), acquerelli (watercolors), acquario (fish tank).**

The same discourse is valid for "g": it has a hard sound /g/ like in "glue" and a soft sound /dj/ like j in "june". So:

° GA, GO, GU = hard sound
Ex.:
lago (lake)

° GI, GE, (GIE) = soft sound
Ex.:
gita (trip, outing)

° GIA, GIO, GIU = soft sound
Ex.:
giallo (yellow)

° GHI, GHE = hard sound
ghiaccio (ice)

Other than this methods to express one of many sounds of a letter, there are other clusters that use two letters for one sound.

° GLI This is a difficult sound to make, that is present in the Spanish "double L" as well. It's a bit similar to the double L in "million". It can be combined with other vowels: glia, glie, glio etc. GLO, GLA, GLU don't have this sound, but it's simply G + L.
**Also the sound stays G + L if at the beginning of the word.**
Ex.:
moglie (wife)

° GN This resembles the "gn" in "foreign", or "ny" in "canyon", or the n with the tilde in Spanish.
Ex.:
sogno (dream)

° SCI, SCE (SCIE) and SCIA, SCIO, SCIU This has a sound similar to the English "sh".
Ex.:
scimmia (monkey)
prosciutto (ham)

But the rules for "c" are applied, so:

° SCO, SCA, SCU and SCHI, SCHE = hard sound, like "sk" in "sky"
fresco (fresh)

- Diphthongs and Triphthongs

When speaking of vowels, the combinations are called "diphthongs" and "triphthongs". You guessed right, "DIphthongs" are two-vowel based, while "TRIphthongs" are three-vowel based.
They basically consist of non-stressed "i" or "u" plus one or two other vowels. If they're the starting vowels, "i" and "u" are used as semiconsonants, similar to the English "y" or "w". There's not a great difference in pronunciation, as all the vowels are pronounced, but you don't break the air flow when pronouncing them, and the semiconsonant tends to be uttered a bit faster.

Diphthongs:

° IA, IE, IO, IU
Examples:
pianoforte (piano)
piede (foot)
gioco (game)

° UA, UE, UO
Ex.:
guanto (glove)
guerra (war)
**Pay attention that this word, and others in the same fashion, is pronounced differently in Spanish, when it becomes /ge/; in Italian, the "u" is kept there, so it's /gwɛ/**
suono (sound)

° IU, UI
Ex.:
schiuma (foam)
lui (he)

° AI, EI, OI
Ex.:
daino (fallow deer)
sei (six; "you are")
poi (afterwards)

° AU, EU
Ex.:
causa (cause; lawsuit)
Europa (Europe)


Triphthongs are uncommon, but there're some, like:

° UAI, UOI
Ex.:
guai (troubles)
tuoi (your/yours)

The most important thing to remember about those combinations is that they're only possible when the "i" and/or the "u" aren't stressed. Otherwise, we have a "hiatus": that means the vowels are "separated".
Ex.:
poeta (poet) - Here there's no diphthong, because there's no "u" nor "i".
paura (fear) - Here there's no diphthong despite the presence of an "u", because that "u" is the stressed syllable, as you can see from the underline.


I wanted to end the writing and pronunciation part with this lesson, but seeing that there're many things already I guess I'll wait until next week for explaining syllables and stress in detail. For now, try to practice pronunciation if you want to! heart

I can do Spanish and French accents no problem, but I appreciate that you had such a DETAILED pronunciation chart. I'm very excited to see what you begin with, and wanted to know if you were against inbox contact/messages?

Hello everyone! I'm sorry about the delay, but some things happened in my life (e.g.: graduation) and I spent a lot of time away from home lately. But I'm back now with more linguistic oddities in this Italian lesson! smile So sit down and enjoy: today we'll talk about...

NOUNS

Nouns, or substantives, are one of the most important parts of speech in our language. They basically identify an object, concrete or abstract, unlike verbs which identify an action or status.
We can distinguish two categories of nouns: “proper nouns” and “common nouns”. In the same fashion as in English, proper nouns are those that refer to singular, specific people, animals, places, personifications and so on, while common nouns refer to generic entities.

Nouns are considered a variable part of speech in Italian, meaning that they... well, change.
And they change in two main ways: gender and number.

In this lesson, we'll focus more on gender, and we'll leave number to the next lesson.

NOUN GENDER

Gender is an odd feature for an English speaker, I suppose. Even more so because it mostly has nothing to do with natural gender. Latin, Greek, German and many other languages have this feature. But you, learner of Italian, are lucky! Italian, in fact, has only two genders instead of three.
Those genders are masculine and feminine. Like I said above, those aren't usually linked to the actual gender of the object meant by the noun. Let's see an example.

Fratello means “brother”, and actually its gender is masculine, while sorella means “sister” and its gender is feminine. But what about albero (tree, m.), and pianta (plant, f.)? There's no reason behind assigning a certain gender to a certain noun, and that makes things difficult. But there're trends and tendencies, and that's what we're going to analyze.

The very first trend is what you've seen right now. Masculine nouns tend to end in -o, and feminine nouns tend to end in -a.
This is the main one you have to remember. Also, nouns ending in -e can be both masculine and feminine.

Looking by endings, we can recognize the following trends:

- Ending in -a
Mostly feminine;
the masculine terms ending in -a usually are high terms coming from Latin and Greek: poeta (poet), problema (problem), dramma (drama, tragedy), etc.
**Some feminine nouns in -a can refer to people of the opposite gender too: guida (guide), guardia (guard), spia (spy) etc.**

- Ending in -o
Mostly masculine;
Only a few exceptions: mano (hand), eco (echo), and neologisms coming from abbreviations: moto (← motocicletta, motorbike), auto (← automobile), foto (← fotografia, photograph) etc. are feminine.
**soprano, mezzosoprano, and contralto, are all musical terms that refer only to a female despite being masculine and ending in -o. The reason is that they actually are an abbreviation: the old phrase would have been something like “The (female) singer with the soprano tone”.**

- Ending in -e
Can be masculine, or feminine, or both.
Endings in -ale, -ame, -iere, -ile, -sore, -tore are always masculine;
endings in -aggine, -sione, -zione are always feminine.
Ex.:
caviale (caviar), salame (salami, sausage), professore (professor, -male- teacher), attore (actor) are all masculine, but
stupidaggine (stupid thing, nonsense), passione (passion), situazione (situation) are all feminine.

- Ending in -i
Are usually feminine nouns, ending in -osi, -asi, etc., derived from ancient Greek: crisi (crisis), ipnosi (hypnosis), metropoli (metropolis) etc.

- Ending in stressed vowel
The biggest group is formed by the ones ending in -tà or -tù, feminine and abstract: bontà (goodness), virtù (virtue), città;
There're many exceptions though. For example these days of the week:
lunedì (Monday)
martedì (Tuesday)
mercoledì (Wednesday)
giovedì (Thursday)
venerdì (Friday)
and all compounds of -dì (day) are masculine.

- Ending in consonant
Apart from some onomatopoeic nouns, those are always foreign words, either from Latin and Greek or from other, modern languages. The rule of thumb is that the newest words always get to be masculine.
The cardinal points are masculine:
nord (north)
sud (south)
est (east)
ovest (west)

HOW TO CHANGE GENDER

No, that's not a guide about getting surgery.
There're nouns that express roles or professions or animals, that are actually linked to natural gender, as we saw above with “brother” and “sister”. Those nouns have to change depending on the specific gender of the person or animal we want to describe, and there're a few methods to do it.

- The rarest one is using nouns with a completely different root. Not many nouns use this method; here are some:

uomo – donna
(man – woman)

maschio – femmina
(male – female)

padre – madre
(father – mother)
marito – moglie
(husband – wife)
fratello – sorella
(brother – sister)
genero – nuora
(son-in-law – daughter-in-law)

Some animals do this too:

bue – mucca
(ox – cow)
montone – pecora
(ram – sheep)

- The most common method, instead, is by changing the ending on a common root, or by special endings that mark the feminine form.

° O → A
Ex.:
figlio – figlia
(son – daughter)
nonno – nonna
(grandfather – grandmother)
zio – zia
(uncle – aunt)
cugino – cugina
(-male- cousin - -female- cousin)
suocero – suocera
(father-in-law – mother-in-law)
cognato – cognata
(bother-in-law – sister-in-law)

amico – amica
(friend)
operaio – operaia
(worker)

cavallo – cavalla
(horse)
gatto – gatta
(cat)

° E/A → ESSA

dottore – dottoressa
(doctor)
professore – professoressa
(professor)
studente – studentessa
(student)
poeta – poetessa
(poet)

leone – leonessa
(lion - lioness)

** Notice that the stress changes in presence of the new ending. It tends to fall on the first syllable linked to this ending.**

° TORE → TRICE

autore – autrice
(author)
pittore – pittrice
(painter)
scrittore – scrittrice
(writer)
attore – attrice
(actor – actress)

° Others:
cane – cagna
(dog – b***h?)
re – regina
(king – queen)
dio – dea
(god – goddess)


UNISEX NOUNS

It's not the exact scholarly term, but it conveys the idea, doesn't it? biggrin
Some nouns in fact don't belong to a certain gender, but their gender is determined by the article that precedes them. Most of them are nouns ending in -e and -a.
Ex.:

nipote (nephew, niece, grandson, granddaughter)
parente (relative) ** False Friend Alert! “parent” is genitore – genitrice, though the latter is seldom used.**
insegnante (teacher)
cantante (singer)

artista (artist)
omicida (muderer/ess)
collega (colleague, coworker)
atleta (athlete)

Some other, mainly nouns for animals, belong to a specific gender but can express both the male and female of the species. They're told apart by using adjectives.
For example

serpente (snake, m.)
delfino (dolphin, m.)
balena (whale, f.)
aquila (eagle, f.)
etc.

Well, I think this lesson is huge already, so no greetings for now. Next lesson we'll see noun number (again, for those who used to read the old thread), and to wrap it all up, I'll put up some tables with many useful nouns grouped by topic, as suggested. So you can build up your vocabulary faster!
You see that I tried to put together some nouns even in this lesson. Now you can address most of your relatives and point in the four directions, for example! xd

As an exercise, you can try looking at a dictionary of your choice and guess the gender of a noun following the few guidelines I wrote here. Don't feel down if you don't guess all of them, there're many many exceptions!

See you next week!