Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
INTRODUCTION
This topic provides all the key words and phrases you are
likely to need in everyday situations. It is grouped into
themes, and key phrases are broken down into short
sections, to help you build a wide variety of sentences.
A lot of the vocabulary is illustrated to make it easy to
remember, and “You may hear” boxes feature questions
you are likely to hear. At the back of the topic there is a
menu guide, listing about 500 food terms, and a 2,000-
word two-way dictionary. Numbers and the most useful
phrases are listed on the jacket flaps for quick reference.
Nouns
All Italian nouns (words for things, people, and ideas) are
masculine or feminine. The gender of singular nouns is
usually shown by the word for “the”: il or lo (masculine)
and la (feminine). They change to l' before vowels. The
plural forms are i or gli (masculine) and le (feminine).
Adjectives
Most Italian adjectives change endings according to
whether they describe a masculine or feminine, singular or
plural word. In this topic the singular masculine form is
shown, followed by the alternative feminine ending:
I'm lost
Mi sono perso/a
“You”
There are two ways of saying “you” in Italian: lei (polite)
and tu (familiar). In this topic we have used lei
throughout, as that is what you normally use with people
you don't know.
Verbs
Verbs change according to whether they are in the singular
or plural. In phrases where this happens, the singular form
of the verb is followed by the plural form:
Where is/are…?
Dov'è/Dove sono…?
