Whether you’re learning Italian as a second language or just looking to brush up on your skills, you’re bound to make some mistakes. And those errors can be very confusing – even to native speakers!
One of the most common mistakes beginners make is to confuse grammatical gender. In Italian, words have a number (singular or plural) and a gender.
Subjunctive
The subjunctive form of the Italian verb “subjective” is used to connect (check the Italian verb congiungere) subordinate clauses to main clauses featuring verbs that express opinions, wishes, hope and expectations, assumptions, emotions, feelings, doubts or hypotheses.
The subjunctive is not as scary as it seems, and it really doesn’t require hours of memorizing rules. All it takes is a bit of study and practice!
In Italian, the subjunctive is generally used after impersonal errori grammatica italiana verbs. It is also often used after adverbs that express preference for one thing over another.
Piuttosto che
Italian grammar mistakes often involve the use of the piuttosto che form of the Italian verb “subjective”. This form of the verb is used to express relative superlatives.
The piuttosto che form is preceded by a definite article, which indicates that an object is more than another object. This is often used in comparisons and mathematical statements.
You can also use it to indicate that something is more than the sum of another object. The definite article is usually not required to do this, but it can be helpful in cases where you want to emphasize that the two objects are of equal importance or value.
You can also use the piuttosto che to indicate that one thing is closer or farther away from another than the other object. This is usually done in conjunction with a demonstrative adjective.
Apostrophes
Apostrophes are used to indicate omitted letters. They are most often found in non-standard forms of English where they are used for contractions, such as Mr for Mister and lb for pounds, but there are also some situations in which they are erroneously applied to proper names, titles or nouns in non-standard ways.
Apostrophes can be confusing, especially for beginning writers. However, once you know when to use them and when not to, they are easy to master!
The apostrophes form is mandatory before words that begin with a vowel such as lo and una, and the indefinite articles un and uno; and with indefinite adjectives ending in -una, such as ciascuna and nessuna. They are not needed before the definite articles le and gli, nor before the demonstrative adjectives quello and quella.
Countable and uncountable nouns
Countable nouns are items that we can count (like dogs or pencils), while uncountable nouns are intangible and abstract ideas, like water or love. Both are very important to understand and master in order to become fluent in English.
In Italian, a countable noun takes the form of the verb “countable”. In general, these words have both a singular and plural form.
However, there are some exceptions. For example, some abstract nouns like happiness, truth, or darkness are usually uncountable.
Some of these abstract nouns can be expressed with indefinite quantifiers, such as “di” and “qualche”, which work with both countable and uncountable nouns. Others, like “un po’ di” and “alcuni/e”, are more similar to the English word “a few”.
Shortened nouns
The Italian verb “shortened” can be used to shorten some words. The most common use of this is with adjectives.
The adjectives bello (beautiful, handsome, nice) and quello (that) both have shortened forms when they precede the nouns they modify or the verb essere. These shortened forms are similar to the definite article, but they also change according to gender and number of the noun.
Other words that have a shortened form include names of professions that end in -ta and the names of months and days. Some of these become feminine in the plural, as in poetessa or pilota, while others don’t change, like la giornalista.
