10 Mar 2023

What is Grammar in Italian and Its Words

by | posted in: Basic Italian Grammar, Italian grammar, Vocabulary & Idioms | 0

 What is Grammar?

Grammar is the way you use words and put them together into phrases in the right order.

The rules of grammar help to build sentences that make sense.

To use the grammar rules properly you need to know about the different types of words that make up the language.

Why Is Grammar Important?

The rules of grammar help you to avoid putting things in the wrong order which can change the meaning of a phrase and could make people misunderstand what you want to say.

Example

Anna mangia il pesce (Anna eats the fish)

Anna mangia il pesce What is Grammar in Italian and Its Words

Il pesce mangia Anna (The fish ear Anna)

Il pesce mangia Anna What is Grammar in Italian and Its Words

There is, of course, a big difference in meaning between the two sentences.

 Words of Grammar

Noun

A noun is a word which names a thing, a place, a person or an animal.
A noun can be singular when naming one thing and plural when naming more than one.

Article

An article is a small word in front of a noun. Nouns which are the name of people do not have them.
The article that allows one to signal persons, objects, etc., in a specific way is called definite.- Articolo Determinativo
The article that allows one to designate nonspecific persons, objects, etc. is called indefinite. – Articolo Indeterminativo

Adjective

An adjective is a describing word. It tells you what a noun is like.
It can tell you what something looks like.
Numbers al adjectives because they tell you how many things you are talking about.
They are placed before or after the noun they modify.
Adjectives must agree with the nouns they modify.
This means that an adjective must correspond in gender and number with the noun.

Verb

A verb is an action word. It tells you what someone or something is doing or it shows a state.
Verbs are very important because they can turn two words into a proper sentence.
A verb can also tell you when something is happening: for this reason, verbs have different forms, and tenses, for talking about the present, the future and the past.
Italian verbs are divided into three conjugations according to their infinitive endings.
These infinitive endings allow you to determine which person and number of endings a verb must take when you conjugate it.

Subject

In a sentence, every verb must have a subject.
The verb expresses action and the subject is who or what the verb is.
The subject is typically a noun (“Il tavolo”) or a pronoun (“Lui/lei”). The subject pronouns are io, tu, lui/lei, noi, voi, loro.

How to Identify the Subject?

Try to make a question like in this example:
– Mario guarda la televisione.
– Chi guarda la televisione?
– The subject is MARIO.

Object

The object is the person or the thing affected by the action.
There are two kinds of Objects:

– a direct object is affected directly by an action
– an indirect object is usually the person or thing for whom or to whom an action is done.

Pronoun

A pronoun is a word you use to replace a noun.
Pronouns make languages less repetitive.
Without the pronouns, you would have to repeat the same word again and again in the same sentence, which would sound very clumsy.

Adverb

An adverb is like an adjective, but it doesn’t describe a noun.
It tells you more about a verb, an adjective or even another adverb and describes how, when or where something happens.

Preposition

A preposition (literally, “a putting before”) is a word that tells you how one thing is related to another.
A lot of prepositions show where one thing is in relation to another.
Other prepositions show when something happens in relation to something else.

Conjunction

A conjunction is a linking word. It joins other words and groups of words together. Without conjunctions, sentences sound short and jerky.

Sentence

A sentence is a series of words that allows you to make a statement, ask a question, or express a thought or opinion.

newsletter

What’s next?

You might want to keep learning Italian online with these free resources:

🔗 How to learn Italian grammar without getting bored

What's next?
facebook

Let’s Connect!

Join and visit our Facebook Group for Italian Learners

JOIN

Follow easitalian:

Leave a Reply