Do you know the difference between dovere, potere, volere and sapere?
A guide to Italian modal verbs with audio examples
Today we will go deeper into details with the Italian modal verbs dovere, potere, volere and sapere and provide examples with the presente and passato prossimo.
What is a modal verb?
In Italian we call them verbi modali or verbi servili. The second definition explains better their function. They are “of service” to another verb, explaining an intention, a possibility, a need, an ability. For example:
Mangio una pizza – I eat a pizza
Voglio mangiare una pizza – I want to eat a pizza
In the first case, I simply eat a pizza. In the second, the verb mangiare is “helped” by volere to say –> I want to eat a pizza. No rocket science, the concept works exactly like for the English want.
When we use the Passato Prossimo (or any other Italian compound tense) we always need to decide which is the correct auxiliary verb: Essere or Avere. Now, with Italian modal verbs and passato prossimo we have three verbs: essere/avere + verbo servile + verb. –> Ieri ho voluto mangiare la pizza. The rule becomes pretty easy if we see some examples. Lets take for example Studiare and Andare with the verb Dovere. What did you have to do yesterday? Cosa hai dovuto fare ieri?
Ieri ho studiato per l’esame — > Ieri ho dovuto studiare per l’esame
Ieri sono andato in ufficio molto presto –> Ieri sono dovuto andare in ufficio molto presto
Essere or avere depend on the main verb used in the sentence: studiare has a direct object (io studio la matematica) so, we need to use avere; andare doesn’t have a direct object, so we need to use essere. An easy trick is to use the question “che cosa?” “what?” near the verb. STUDIARE, (che cosa? la matematica) MANGIARE (che cosa? i tortellini). If you can find a random answer, the verb supports the direct object (is a verbo transitivo) and goes with Avere. Otherwise, use Essere.
Let’s check the details and use of Italian modal verbs. Listen to the podcast and repeat for improving comprehension and pronunciation.
We are going to write examples for each verbo servile, presente indicativo on the left, passato prossimo on the right, with mixed verbs supporting essere or avere. Personal pronouns are in order: IO, TU, LUI/LEI, NOI, VOI, LORO
Dovere
Dovere means must, have to, need to.
Potere
Potere means can, to be able to, have the power to.
Numbers in Italian are called numeri. There are a few rules related to numbers. We are going to explain and practice with some examples. Listen to the sound and pronunciation of Italian numbers
In Italian, the old saying dare i numeri, literally, “giving the numbers” means to go crazy.
Of course there’s nothing as rational as numbers to measure and weigh the reality of things. We are going to study the numeri cardinali, Italian numbers (uno due tre etc…). Listen to the correct pronunciation and repeat.
Let’s get started, cominciamo!
Da zero a nove – zero to nine
Pretty straight forward, as it happens in every language, Italian numbers one to ten are unique and you need to learn them by heart.
0 – zero
1 – uno
2 – due
3 – tre
4 – quattro
5 – cinque
6 – sei
7 – sette
8 – otto
9 – nove
Da dieci a diciannove – ten to nineteen
Italian numbers ten to nineteen are different. Again, you have to memorise them. They all have the word “…dici” (…teen) either at the beginning or at the end of the number.
Very common mistake, do not confuse 16 and 17.
10 – dieci
11 – undici
12 – dodici
13 – tredici
14 – quattordici
15 – quindici
16 – sedici
17 – diciassette
18 – diciotto
19 – diciannove
Da venti a ventinove – twenty to twenty-nine
From now on, Italian numbers up to 100 are predictable. The formula is: multiple of ten + unit. For example 24 is venti + quattro = ventiquattro. See the multiples of ten below and apply the rules.
Please note that 1 and 8 combined with multiples of ten, “eat” the vowel before —> ventuno, ventotto; trentuno, trentotto; quarantuno, quarantotto; cinquantuno, cinquantotto and so on (and not ventiuno, ventiotto; trentauno, trentaotto etc).
20 – venti
21 – ventuno
22 – ventidue
23 – ventitré
24 – ventiquattro
25 – venticinque
26 – ventisei
27 – ventisette
28 – ventotto
29 – ventinove
Multipli di dieci – Multiples of ten
Get rid of the last vowel and add a suffix. So we have venti, trenta, and then quaranta, cinquanta …anta. When someone turns 40 years old, you can make fun of them saying “welcome to the …anta”, benvenuto/a negli “…anta”.
20 – venti
30 – trenta
40 – quaranta
50 – cinquanta
60 – sessanta
70 – settanta
80 – ottanta
90 – novanta
Da cento in poi – Over a hundred
One hundred is “cento”, not hard to remember if you are an English speaker (century, cent etc…). We don’t say “un cento”, but just “cento”. Then you have 200 duecento, 300 trecento and so on.
Mille is singular, all its multiples are “–mila”. Please note, one billion in Italian is un miliardo. In this case, the English billion is an exception. In other languages the equivalent translation of miliardo is common (French, Spanish, German, Russian…).
100 – cento
200 – duecento
1000 – mille
2000 – duemila
10.000 – diecimila
100.000 – centomila
1.000.000 – un milione
2.000.000 – due milioni
1.000.000.000 – un miliardo
Quanti anni hai? Ho — anni
You know enough to put together all the numbers you want. Let’s start with a simple question. How old are you?
Differently from English, In Italian you “have” years, you are not xx years old. That’s an interesting way to imagine one’s age, as if you own the time you have used.
Anyhow, the correct way to ask someone’s age is:
Quanti anni hai? (“Quanti anni ha?” With the formal Lei)
Ho 47 anni.
I hope this lesson about numbers was useful. Alla prossima!
We are sure that even if you speak some Italian there are some names of body parts – parti del corpo – you don’t know. We’ll focus on vocabulary and pronunciation. Listen to the audio files and solve the final quiz.
Ok, get ready to listen and repeat the words. We are going to dissect and study the human body just like my esteemed fellow countryman Leonardo da Vinci did some time ago. Well… in less detail.
La testa – The head
As opposed to English, i capelli is a countable noun. So il capello is a single hair. Il sopracciglio belongs to a particular family of Italian nouns, along with other nouns of body parts. The singular is masculine, plural is feminine le sopracciglia ending in -a. This is because in Latin they were neutral words and in Italian (we have no neutral) singular and plural took different genders. At the bottom of the page you will find a recap.
Il torso – the torso (easy!)
In this case the singular word il seno stands generally for both breasts. It is also possible to say i seni, less used. I bet you want to know how we say “ass” instead of the most polite sedere. There you go: culo.
Gli arti – Limbs
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Finally, it’s worth mentioning the name of the fingers. From thumb to pinky the are: pollice, indice, medio, anulare, mignolo. In Italian il dito, singular is masculine, the plural le dita is feminine. Other nouns with irregular plurals are: sopracciglio, ciglio, braccio, ginocchio, labbro. Try to say the plural following the same rule, LE DITA —-> LE —–A.
A useful tip, hoping you won’t need it. If you feel pain somewhere and need to explain it to an Italian doctor, say:
There are some few basic rules for pronouncing correctly Italian sounds. Italian is less complicated than other common European languages. That’s because Italian is a literary language, heavily influenced by classic Latin and syllables have just one sound.
The Italian alphabet has just 21 letters, since j, k, w, x, and y are used only in foreign words recently adopted in the Italian vocabulary, like jeans, wifi, baby sitter, marketing, etc. Italian vowels are A E I O U. Listen to their sound:
The letter H is quite unique, since generally it’s not pronounced in the spoken language, but it is fundamental for creating some sounds. For example, “I have” in Italian is “io ho”, where “ho” is not pronounced like “holiday”, but like “Oregon”. GElato and spaGHEtti are simple and effective examples of how the letter H changes the sounds of syllables. Listen how a native speaker says these words correctly.
Another example where H creates sounds is CHI, like CHItarra, guitar, where we also have a double R. Double consonants give a stronger tone to the sound. Please listen and repeat.
Let’s find out some tricky words and Italian sounds you wouldn’t guess just reading them.
We are sure you would like to have some fantastic food in Italy. If you want to order some fish, you should call it pesce. SCE in italian is pronounced like shame. Two or more fish are pesci and SCI is pronounced like she in English. Listen and repeat.
The last tip of today about tricky Italian sounds is the hybrid sound GLI, where G and L are smoothly blended together. For example, the Italian word for family is famiglia. Listen carefully and catch the sound GLI.
Let’s wrap up today’s learnings. Please try to read and pronounce correctly the following syllables and then listen to the correct sound to adjust. Finally, solve the simple quiz below.
CA-CE-CI-CO-CU-CHE-CHI
GA-GE-GI-GO-GU-GHE-GHI
SCE-SCI — GLI
Thanks for listening.
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