{"id":14591,"date":"2015-06-23T23:53:48","date_gmt":"2015-06-23T14:53:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dante-learning.com\/eng\/?p=14591"},"modified":"2016-06-08T04:32:44","modified_gmt":"2016-06-07T19:32:44","slug":"imperfetto-conversational-italian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dante-learning.com\/eng\/imperfetto-conversational-italian\/","title":{"rendered":"Imperfetto in conversational Italian"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>The &#8220;conversational&#8221;\u00a0use of the <em>imperfetto<\/em> in Italian is very common\u00a0and helps to simplify the language. Is it right to learn it the wrong way?<\/h1>\n<p>I&#8217;m not going to explain again the correct use of the <em>imperfetto<\/em>, but how the &#8220;incorrect&#8221; and common use of it, is\u00a0so popular in the spoken language.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.3em;\">The <\/span><em style=\"line-height: 1.3em;\">imperfetto, <\/em><span style=\"line-height: 1.3em;\">&#8220;<\/span><span style=\"line-height: 1.3em;\">imperfect&#8221; by definition,<\/span><span style=\"line-height: 1.3em;\">\u00a0is\u00a0very flexible and can break\u00a0some rules. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.3em;\">There are many ways we can use it<\/span><span style=\"line-height: 1.3em;\">\u00a0as an alternative to more complex structures. For example:<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Imperfetto ipotetico<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>The Italian condizionale and congiuntivo are elegant, beautiful tenses, and make the Italian language so musical. <a title=\"Periodo ipotetico \u2013 Italian Conditional Sentences \u2013 Guide and QUIZ\" href=\"https:\/\/dante-learning.com\/eng\/2013\/07\/periodo-ipotetico-italian-conditional-sentences\/\" target=\"_blank\">They are combined together to build conditional sentences<\/a>. For example:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Se studiassi tutti i giorni, imparerei l&#8217;italiano<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It\u00a0means that if &#8220;I studied every day, I would learn Italian&#8221;: <em>Congiuntivo imperfetto<\/em> and <em>Condizionale presente.<\/em>\u00a0This is the correct way to build\u00a0the <em>periodo ipotetico della possibilit\u00e0<\/em>, a possibility that may occur\u00a0now or in the future: the Italian and English second conditional.<\/p>\n<p>Things may change if I want to use the third conditional:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<h3>Se avessi studiato tutti i giorni, avrei imparato l&#8217;italiano.<\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If I had studied every day, I would have learned Italian. So it&#8217;s impossible now, it was possible in the past. <em>Congiuntivo trapassato <\/em>and<em>\u00a0<\/em><em>condizionale passato.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This last example can be easily simplified in spoken Italian with<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #339966;\">Se studiavo tutti i giorni, imparavo l&#8217;italiano<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This is\u00a0poor grammar, sloppy, and you should learn the correct conditional sentences. As a matter of fact though, some people use the\u00a0<em>imperfetto indicativo<\/em> instead of the <em>condizionale passato<\/em> and the\u00a0<em>congiuntivo<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>We have to find some balance between following rules and be flexible when needed, so I think that every intermediate and advanced student should learn the &#8220;wrong&#8221; <em>imperfetto<\/em>. But we&#8217;ll get back to that at the end of this article.<\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Imperfetto di cortesia<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>In this second typology, the flexibility of the <em>imperfetto<\/em> is very useful when we need to soften the tone of a request. The verb <em>volere<\/em> (want) sounds too direct with the <em>presente indicativo<\/em>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<h3>voglio un caff\u00e8 e un panino al prosciutto<\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The waiter will bring you a coffee and a ham sandwich, but you were quite rude: &#8220;I want&#8221; is way too direct.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<h3>vorrei un caff\u00e8 e un panino al prosciutto<\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This is perfect. The <em>condizionale <\/em>makes the request possible and not imperative.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #339966;\">volevo un caff\u00e8 e un panino al prosciutto<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;I wanted&#8221; a coffee and a ham sandwich. &#8220;I wanted&#8221; now, not in the past. It&#8217;s illogical but in this case the <em>imperfetto<\/em> is a valid alternative to the presente and condizionale.<\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Imperfetto as possibility in the future<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>The imperfetto is a past tense, but in some cases we can use it to talk about intentions and possibilities in the near future. Some examples:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Domani <strong>volevi<\/strong> andare\u00a0in palestra?<\/li>\n<li>Ho sentito che stasera <strong>c&#8217;era<\/strong> un bel film in tiv\u00f9.<\/li>\n<li>Ti ricordi a che ora <strong>partiva<\/strong> l&#8217;aereo domani?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>All the sentences above are conversational and sound just right to Italian speakers. Italians\u00a0use the <em>imperfetto<\/em> here without paying much attention to the fact we&#8217;re talking about the future using\u00a0a past tense.<\/p>\n<p>This is possible because all these events are linked to previous knowledge. In other words, the speaker is resuming a past discussion and the <em>imperfetto<\/em>\u00a0refers to it, not necessarily to the event.<\/p>\n<p>The conclusion, and my point of view, is the following.<\/p>\n<p>We can talk about an &#8220;unorthodox&#8221; use of the <em>imperfetto, <\/em>but not of new trend or a sudden change of the Italian language.\u00a0&#8220;Modal imperfetto&#8221; has\u00a0been around for centuries in literature, from Dante\u00a0to modern and contemporary authors, and <a title=\"Universit\u00e0 di Trieste\" href=\"https:\/\/www.openstarts.units.it\/dspace\/bitstream\/10077\/8125\/1\/Nannoni%20covertocover.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">all the cases are encoded in the Italian grammar<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In Italian we say <em>parla come mangi<\/em>, &#8220;speak the same way you eat&#8221;, keep it simple.\u00a0So, use the <em>condizionale<\/em> when you need to be correct, let yourself go and allow some <em>imperfetto<\/em> when your teacher is not around.<\/p>\n<p>Alla prossima!<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Torre_pendente_di_Pisa_2.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">photo credits<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The &#8220;conversational&#8221;\u00a0use of the imperfetto in Italian is very common\u00a0and helps to simplify the language. Is it right to learn it the wrong way? I&#8217;m not going to explain again the correct use of the imperfetto, but how the &#8220;incorrect&#8221; and common use of it, is\u00a0so popular in the spoken language. The imperfetto, &#8220;imperfect&#8221; by &#8230; <a title=\"Imperfetto in conversational Italian\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/dante-learning.com\/eng\/imperfetto-conversational-italian\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Imperfetto in conversational Italian\">Read more \u226b<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10020,"featured_media":13768,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[47,992],"class_list":["post-14591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lingua","tag-imperfetto","tag-imperfetto-vs-condizionale","no-featured-image-padding","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dante-learning.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dante-learning.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dante-learning.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dante-learning.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10020"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dante-learning.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dante-learning.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dante-learning.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dante-learning.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dante-learning.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dante-learning.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}