Italian syllable rules at A2: eight clean patterns for splitting words at line breaks. Single consonants attach forward, doubles split, s sticks to what follows, ch/gh/gn/gl stay whole, plus a copy-shop dialogue in Bergamo.
🔍 In short. The default italian sentence order is subject + verb + object, just like English: Tommaso mangia un panino. But italian routinely flips the order with verbs like arrivare, nascere, succedere, mancare, bastare, when the subject is fresh news. A1 guide with a Padova bakery dialogue and quiz.
🔍 In short. Italian più meno quantity comparison at A2: più mele, meno pane, più di Albino, più alberghi che ristoranti, più di tre euro. Bormio spa and mountain-market dialogue with Carola and Albino.
Italian cardinal variants at A2: ventun anni vs ventuno anni, vent’anni and cent’anni with apostrophe, ventitré and trentatré with acute accent, the split form mille e una notte, and fixed idioms like a quattr’occhi. Festa dei Ceri di Gubbio dialogue with Glenda and Gualtiero.
🔍 In short. Italian has two everyday ways to say ‘both’: entrambi/entrambe and tutti e due / tutte e due. To say ‘all three’, ‘all four’, ‘all ten’, the pattern is tutti (or tutte) + e + number, with the article slipping in after the number: tutti e tre i ragazzi, entrambe le bici. A2 guide with a Ferrara dialogue at the Castello Estense and Palazzo Schifanoia.
Italian doppio triplo at A2: il doppio della cifra, una porzione doppia, il triplo dello stipendio, quadruplo, decuplo, centuplo, and the switch to volte. With an Avellino Castello + caciocavallo osteria dialogue.
Italian approximate numbers at A2: una ventina, una trentina, un centinaio, un migliaio, centinaia and migliaia, plus circa, all’incirca, suppergiù. The -ina family, gender quirks, and a Slow Food dialogue in Bra.
🔍 In short. Italian uses migliore and peggiore for adjectives (la migliore amica, il caffè peggiore) and meglio and peggio for adverbs (sta meglio, canta peggio). This A2 guide gives you the four words, the noun-vs-verb test, the traps with più buono and più cattivo, and a Tivoli dialogue at Villa d’Este.
🔍 In short. Italian voi and Loro both work as plural address forms, but the modern split is lopsided. Plural voi is the universal ‘you all’. Plural Loro signals an extra layer of distance, but most Italians today let voi do the work. A2 guide with a Frascati cantina dialogue.
🔍 In short. Italian stare per + infinitive is the everyday way to say “about to do something”. Sto per uscire means I’m about to head out; il treno sta per partire means the train is about to leave. The action hasn’t started yet, but it’s a hair away. Unlike English “about to”, Italian stare … Read more ≫