January 17, 2006

(map from CIA -The World Factbook)

Last night was the first night of my Italian class. 3hours of bombardment. Oh the pain.

I learned that in Italian, as with French, nouns are all masculine of feminine nouns tend to end in 'o' or 'e' (singular) or 'i' ( plural), and feminine nouns end in 'a' or 'e' ( singular ) or 'e' or 'i' ( plural ). Pretty simple, right? Ha!

masculine articles are 'Il' and 'Lo' ( singular ) and 'I' and 'Gli' ( plural ),
while feminine articles are 'La' ( singular ) and 'Le' ( plural ).

I also learned that the Italian alphabet has only 21 letters. There is no 'j','k','w','x', or 'y'.

As with French, there are formal and familiar or informal forms of just about everything. Unless you are addressing young people (giovani) or close friends or family, you use the formal form. For example "Ciao" is the informal greeting, and "Buon giorno" or "Buona sera" are formal ie 'good morning' or 'good evening'.

Etcera, etcera, for 3 hours. Mind overload; mind grid lock; panic; acceptance; homework even. Memorize vocabulary, greetings, alphabet, numbers to 'millions'.Can I do this? Do I want to do this? Why not. Yes,Yes,Yes!

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