IL CAFFÈ – a coffee
IL CAPPUCCINO – a cappuccino
L’ESPRESSO – an expresso
IL CAFFELLATTE (or caffè latte or caffè e latte or less correct but sometimes used caffelatte) – a latte
IL LATTE – milk
An alphabetical list of the vocabulary can be found here.
Attention !!!
You will learn the nouns directly with the DEFINITE ARTICLE and later you will learn the difference between these articles and when to use them in the Lesson 6.
Interesting fact !!!
You must know that in Italy the bar is not a place where you go to drink alcoholics in the evening but a place where you have breakfast or a coffee during the day, let’s say cafés or coffee shops… Let’s learn what you can order at these “bars”…
Use the vocabulary of this lesson and ow you are able to create a complete sentence, for example this question:
Quanto costa il cappuccino? – How much does the cappuccino cost?
Quanto costa l’espresso? – How much does the expresso cost?
Notice that the sentences in Italian have a different structure than in English:
How much does it cost? – How much does the cappuccino cost?
Quanto costa? – Quanto costa il cappuccino?
As you can see, the adverb is the first, the verb the second, than the subject and the rest. But in more complicated sentences you can also change the order of the words according to the word you want to put the accent on.
Note: For details see the article At a BAR.
PERSONAL PRONOUNS and VERB TO BE
In this lesson we also learn the singual and plural personal pronouns together with the verb “to be”.
ESSERE – to be
| Singular | Plural |
|---|---|
| IO - I | NOI - we |
| TU - you | VOI - you |
| LUI, LEI - he, she | LORO - they |
Notice that there is no “it is”. It’s because in Italian “it” doesn’t exist, there is only he and she. Every word has only feminine or masculine gender.
| Singular | Plural |
|---|---|
| SONO - am | SIAMO - are |
| SEI - are | SIETE - are |
| È - is | SONO - are |
Notice that the first person singular is the same as the third person plural. Also the pronunciation is the same.
Also the second person singular is the same as the number six. Also the pronunciation is the same.
| Singular | Plural |
|---|---|
| IO SONO - I am | NOI SIAMO - we are |
| TU SEI - you are | VOI SIETE - you are |
| LUI, LEI È - he, she is | LORO SONO - they are |
Important rule: in a normal Italian sentence you can skip without problems the personal pronoun. For example if you say “è italiano” you already know thay you’re speaking about “lui”, you don’t need the personal pronoun to recognize it. Usually it’s omitted and it’s used only if you want to put a special accent on the pronoun.