Unit 1 - Review #4 The Verb PIACERE & Indirect Object Pronouns

Unit 1 - Review #4 The Verb PIACERE & Indirect Object Pronouns In this lesson we meet the verb PIACERE, again! Yes it a challenging verb that is used in a variety of ways, but it is also an important one to learn. If you think back to all that you know about Italian already, you will probably notice that you use the verb PIACERE, a lot. Any word that we use often, we must learn to understand! Understanding this verb will help you on your path to Italian fluency! In this review we will also remember and review Indirect Object Pronouns! Pronouns can be another confusing and challenging concept when learning Italian. We already know that by learning how to use Indirect Object Pronouns, we will in turn, speak Italian more naturally. If you don t remember everything that we learned about PIACERE and Indirect Object Pronouns, don t stress too much! It s normal not to remember everything when you are learning so much information at once. The point of this review is to do our best to remember what we ve learned, so we are ready to learn and absorb the new lessons coming up! So, let s get started! Fast Review Write down everything you remember about the verb PIACERE and Indirect Object Pronouns: 1

What do we remember? What do we remember or know already, about the verb PIACERE and Indirect Object Pronouns? We know that the verb PIACERE, means TO LIKE, in English. We also know that is isn t used like other verbs. In English and Italian, we usually have a subject, then the verb that is conjugated to meet the object. Example: (io) Guardo un film I watch a movie In this sentence we have IO, which is the subject, GUARDO which is the verb that is conjugated to agree with UN FILM, the object. We know that the verb PIACERE though, doesn t work the same way. We reverse the sentence when using the verb PIACERE. What does that mean again? It means that what was previously the object of the sentence, UN FILM, is now the subject to the verb PIACERE. In other words, The subject of PIACERE is the thing that is being LIKED. Remember? We usually use the verb PIACERE in 2 forms: The first person singular: The first person plural: PIACE PIACCIONO More often than not, we LIKE an item that is singular, or we LIKE an item that is plural. This is why we use PIACE to agree with singular items, and PIACCIONO to agree with plural items. Mi piace il film Mi piacciono i dolci I like the movie (singular) I like sweets (plural) 2

Although these examples translate to I LIKE something, in English. I or IO, serves no purpose in Italian when we use the verb PIACERE. Do you remember what IO becomes when we use the verb PIACERE? It becomes MI, which means, something is pleasing TO ME. Follow this format: [Indirect Pronoun] + [PIACERE] + [thing liked] Mi piace l Italia Italy is pleasing to me (I like Italy) If you want to say that Italy is pleasing to YOU (or better, that YOU like Italy ), then the only thing that changes is the indirect object pronoun : Ti piace l italia Italy is pleasing to you (you like Italy) Now remember, this review is not an actual lesson, it is a review. If this does not sound familiar to you, please go back to the original lesson in Beginner Italian Level 1 (or any other resource) to get a broken down version of the verb PIACERE. Something else that we covered is that we use PIACE when something that we LIKE is a verb or, a whole sentence. Mi piace cantare e ballare I like to sing and to dance Even though we are using two verbs in this sentence, we use PIACE not PIACCIONO. We would also use PIACE when what we like is a whole sentence: Non ci piace quando parli male di Gina. We don t like when you gossip / speak badly about Gina We use PIACCIONO when we are talking about many things that are pleasing to us. Vi piacciono i vini Italiani? Do you guys like Italian wines? When using the verb PIACERE, don t forget to always use the definite article. 3

We cannot say: Vi piacciono dolci We MUST say: Vi piacciono i dolci Alternatively, If you want to say that you like this, these, or that, you can substitute the definitive article with demonstrative adjectives such as: questo, questi, quello Ti piacciono questi libri? Do you like these books? You wouldn t say: *Ti piacciono questi i libri? That just sounds wrong doesn t it? Go ahead, try to say it outloud. Notice how the sentence doesn t flow? Don t forget that your intuition is a good learning tool, too. If you are trying to say something in Italian and it doesn t sound right or flow well, chances are, there is a mistake in what you re saying. Noticing this means your brain is starting to think in Italian and think about how Italians may answer questions. Another example is: Non gli piace Carla He doesn t like Carla This is a difficult structure to learn in Italian because you have to remember your indirect object pronouns, but it is really no different than saying: Non ti piace Carla You don t like Carla You have to do your best to remember all of the different indirect object pronouns if you want to use the verb PIACERE correctly. The only way to get good at using PIACERE, is to practice using PIACERE in all different kinds of sentences. 4

Indirect Object Pronouns What are indirect object pronouns again? Let s delve a little deeper: Indirect object pronouns are pronouns that identify the recipient of a verb, or action. A verb almost always has an object. Canto una canzone I sing a song In this example, SONG is the object of my SINGING ( action ). But, some verbs can have a recipient too. Ti do una pizza I give you a pizza In this example, I am giving a PIZZA ( object ) to YOU ( recipient ). If it helps, you can rethink this sentence in English and say: I give a pizza to you That way, you can clearly see the recipient TO YOU in English, hopefully making it easier for you to see the similarity the sentence to Italian. Do you remember the indirect object pronouns? Io > mi to me tu > ti to you lei > le to her lui > gli to him Lei > Le to you Sir / Ma am noi > ci to us voi > vi to you all loro > gli to them 5

Some more examples: Ti piace l italia Gli piace l italia Signora, Le piace l italia? Italy is pleasing to you / you like Italy Italy is pleasing to him / he likes Italy Ma am, is Italy pleasing to you / do you like Italy? Once you memorize the indirect object pronouns that you can use them in different sentences, you have only a limited amount of options to combine them with PIACERE. Does that make sense? What I mean is, once you decide on a indirect object pronoun, you will most likely have it followed by PIACE or PIACCIONO. mi piace / piacciono I like ti piace / piacciono You like gli piace / piacciono He likes le piace / piacciono She likes Le piace / piacciono You Sir/Ma am like ci piace / piacciono We like vi piace / piacciono You guys like gli piace / piacciono They like Thinking more in Italian The goal of this course is to get you fluent in Italian, not mimic Italian. In order to do that, you have to transition from mimicking Italian to thinking in Italian. How do you do that? You practice, repeat and do your best to understand the way an Italian would think about sentences before speaking. If I tell you: Grazie thank you And you respond right away with: Prego you re welcome That means you are starting to think in Italian. Why? Because the response just rolled off your tongue and you didn t have to consciously think about how to translate YOU RE WELCOME into Italian (which, if you did, would be wrong since welcoming the person makes no sense, right?). 6

The more you repeat these words and phrases, the more you embed them into your subconscious. Soon, you will notice that you are quick to respond and just know how to say something without putting a tremendous amount of thought into it. When it comes to saying that you LIKE something, or something is PLEASING to you in Italian, there are really only six different versions that will satisfy all of your PIACE / PIACCIONO needs: mi, ti, gli (for him, her and them), le (for she and formal), ci, vi. Flexibility of PIACERE An important thing to remember when we think of flexibility, is that the Italian language is generally more flexible when it comes to sentence structure than English. We learned that in order to say I LIKE ITALY in Italian, We say, Mi piace l Italia. But, you can also say: L italia mi piace. Yes, it s true that the standard Italian way is MI PIACE L ITALIA. But, because Italian is flexible, you can easily put the subject of the verb (the thing being liked) at the beginning of the sentence! This is exciting news! We re going to make a full circle here and I ll say again, DON T OVERTHINK IT! If you want to get an idea of the tone and how this sentence may sound to someone when you say it outloud, it would come off like this: L italia mi piace Hmm, Italy, I like it / or, Speaking of Italy, I like it. You can also say: I vini italiani vi piacciono? Carla non gli piace Questi libri ti piacciono? Italian wines / speaking of Italian wines, you like them? Speaking of Carla, he doesn t like her These books, do you like them? 7

Quando parli male di Gina non ci piace When you speak bad / gossip about Gina, I don t like it Now, the reason why I didn t teach you this sooner is because I don t want you to say your PIACERE sentences like this all the time! There has to be a reason as to why and when you would put the subject of a sentence at the beginning. For example, if you want to suggest a specific tone in your sentence, or that you re thinking about how to answer, you may reverse the sentence in the way shown above. It has to do with emphasis! Say these two options outloud: Mi piace l italia (standard italian) L Italia mi piace (emphasis) Now, look at this example here and pay attention to where NON is placed in the sentence: Quando parli male di Gina non ci piace When you speak bad / gossip about Gina, I don t like it Don t forget that when we use NON, we put it before the pronoun! Do not put NON after the pronoun! Incorrect: Correct: * Ci non piace Non ci piace We don t like it * Mi non piace Non mi piace I don t like it 8

More on EMPHASIS Look at the table below: Subject Pronoun Indirect Object Pronoun Tonic Pronouns (stressed pronouns) io mi a me tu ti a te lei le a lei lui gli a lui Lei Le a Lei noi ci a noi voi vi a voi loro gli a loro As you know, in Italian we tend to omit the subject pronoun when it s obvious and when we have a pronoun before the verb, this blends with the verb and ends up sounding like one word. Basically, pronouns do not stand out. In English, we can emphasize WHO likes something by over pronouncing the subject pronoun: I eat pizza What happens in Italian though? We usually would say, Mangio la pizza I eat pizza This standard way just tells someone that you are eating pizza without any emphasis. There is a way though, to emphasis that YOU are in fact, eating pizza. You simply say the subject pronoun! Io mangio la pizza I eat pizza When using the verb PIACERE on the other hand, you do not usually use the subject pronoun like in the example above, because you know that you use the indirect object pronoun, instead. 9

How can we make the subject stand out then? Do you remember learning about I Pronomi Tonici, or, Tonic Pronouns? Tonic pronouns are Stressed Pronouns. This is what you would use to emphasis the subject when using the verb PIACERE. If you are in a conversation with someone and curious to know what THEY like after telling them what YOU like, then you need a way to stress the fact that this is just YOUR side of the story... Saying something like: Mi piace la musica rock Rock music is pleasing to me/i like rock music Doesn t leave room for someone else to tell you their opinion about rock music. Or better, you are simply saying that you like rock music and then ending the conversation with your opinion. But, if you add a stressed pronoun to the sentence, it opens it up for discussion! For Example: A me piace la music rock, e a te? A noi non piacciono i film horror A Lei signora, piace l Italia? A noi piace il mare, e a voi? A loro non piace la musica classica Rock music is pleasing to me, how about you? (I like rock music, but maybe you have a different opinion) We don t really like horror movies (we specifically don t like horror movies, but maybe other people do) Ma am, do you like Italy? (do YOU like Italy, because I might have a different opinion, or there may be more people in the room) We like the beach / the beach is pleasing to US, how about you guys? They don t like classical music / classical music isn t pleasing to them (the music is not pleasing to THEM specifically, but others may like it) As you can see above, to add emphasis to sentences that use the verb PIACERE, we use the standard subject pronoun and add A in front of it! The reason why we add the A is because the verb PIACERE still needs an indirect object pronoun, that is, a recipient (to WHOM the thing is pleasing). 10

When are Pronouns no good? Think of a scenario when we cannot use pronouns with the verb PIACERE? We ve talked about all the things we can do with pronouns, but now let s talk about what we can t do with pronouns. Pronouns aren t helpful when you want to specify and express to whom something is pleasing to because it is not known yet. Take a look at the following sentence to get a better idea of what this means: A mia sorella piace molto il Portogallo My sister likes Portugal a lot / Portugal is very pleasing to my sister In this sentence we have to specify A MIA SORELLA and cannot use the Tonic Pronoun A LEI to do so. Why? Well, because we don t know who LEI is yet! You cannot say the sentence using Tonic pronouns and expect the listener to know that you are speaking about your sister. This is how it looks like: 11

A lei piace molto il Portogallo She likes Portugal a lot / Portugal is very pleasing to her Without specifying and saying directly that you are speaking about your SISTER, the person you are speaking to wouldn t know who SHE is that likes Portugal. You cannot use a pronoun if the noun is not clear. Alla mia cagnolina non piace il latte My female puppy doesn t like milk / To my puppy milk is not pleasing If I said this same sentence with a tonic pronoun, this is how it would look like, and what it would translate to: A lei non piace il latte She doesn t like milk As you can see, you can easily infer that the recipient is a FEMALE, but there is no way of knowing that the recipient is a FEMALE PUPPY.. Once we ve already established whom we are talking about, only THEN can we use stressed pronouns. Stressed pronouns, are only useful once the conversation has started and we know what the subject is. Once you mention your PUPPY, then using A LEI is appropriate. Examples: Ai vostri figli piace giocare a calcio? your To your children is playing soccer pleasing?/do children like playing soccer? Once you established that you are speaking about YOUR CHILDREN, than you can say: A loro piace giocare a calcio? like To them is playing soccer pleasing?/do they playing soccer? More Examples: A Luigi piacciono gli animali A Marta e Luana piace leggere To Luigi animals are pleasing/luigi likes animals To Marta and Luana reading is pleasing/marta and Luana like reading 12

All amico di Teresa piace Stefano friend Stefano is pleasing to Teresa s friend/ Teresa s likes Stefano New stuff on PIACERE So what do we use when the thing that is being liked is ME, or US, or YOU or YOU GUYS? This is where the full conjugation of the verb PIACERE comes in handy. Remember, PIACCIO, PIACI and so on from the previous lesson? io piaccio (a qualcuno) tu piaci (a qualcuno) lui piace (a qualcuno) lei piace (a qualcuno) noi piacciamo (a qualcuno) voi piacete (a qualcuno) loro piacciono (a qualcuno) someone likes me someone likes you someone likes him/it (the form we have been using so far) someone likes her/it (the form we have been using so far) someone likes us someone likes you guys someone likes them Read the following sentences and do your best to write down what they mean: All amica di Teresa piaci tu Tu piaci all amica di Teresa Non piacete alla madre di Gina? Ti piaccio quando canto? Le piacciamo tutti (A Renata piacciamo tutti noi) Remember, we have to match the subject of the thing being LIKED to PIACERE. So, if the object of my liking is YOU, I have to use the conjugation of PIACERE that matches TU. Which is PIACI. 13

Did you get these translations right? All amica di Teresa piaci tu Teresa's friend likes you /To Teresa s friend you are pleasing I know what you re thinking. But Manu, I thought we usually drop the subject in Italian. Why does this sentence end with TU if PIACI refers to YOU?? Say this sentence out loud: All amica di Teresa piaci Doesn t it sound like something is missing at the end of it? You have to emphasis TU because Teresa s friend likes who? YOU! All amica di Teresa piaci tu Since Italian sentence structure is flexible, you can say this same sentence like this: Tu piaci all amica di Teresa You are pleasing to Teresa s friend/she likes you More examples: Non pia cete alla madre di Gina? mom/gina s Ti pia ccio quando canto? Le pia cciamo tutti (A Renata piacciamo tutti noi) You guys are not liked by Gina s mom doesn t like you Do you like me when I sing?/is my singing pleasing to you? She likes us all/we are all pleasing to her Disagreeing with the verb PIACERE How do you disagree with the verb PIACERE? If someone is telling you what they like or what is pleasing to them, and you disagree, how do you express that in Italian? It s not that hard actually! Just follow and remember this format: A + [Stressed Pronoun] + Invece + Sì (yes) A + [Stressed Pronoun] + Invece + No (no) Examples: 14

A me piace ballare! A me invece no! I like dancing! I, on the other hand, don t like it!/to me instead it s not pleasing A me non piace ballare A me invece sì! I do not like dancing... I, on the other hand, like it! Vi piacciono le spiagge italiane? Mmm non molto A noi invece si! Do you guys like Italian beaches? (we are asking you all) Mmm, not really (you guys answer) We, on the other hand, like them! (we on the other hand..) Agreeing with the verb PIACERE In the above examples we review how to disagree with the verb PIACERE. Now we will see how to agree with PIACERE. If you want to ask someone what they think, agree with someone, or say me neither while using the verb PIACERE, follow this format: Asking Back - E + A + [Stressed Pronoun/Name]? Me too - Anche A + [Stressed Pronoun/Name] Me neither - Neanche A + [Stressed Pronoun/Name] Examples: Manu, ti piace Firenze? Sì, molto, e a te? Signore, Le piacciono i carciofi? No, non particolarmente.. E a Lei? Neanche a me! A me piace molto l Italia, e a voi? Anche a noi! Manu, do you like Florence? Yes, very much, and you? Sir, do you like artichokes? No, not particularly, and you Ma am? Me neither! I like Italy a lot, and you guys? We do too! 15

A me piace l Italia Anche a me! Italy is pleasing to me/i like Italy Me too/italy is also pleasing to me! Drill Create 10 new sentences using the PIACERE conjugations you learned in the previous and this lesson: PIACCIO, PIACI, PIACCIAMO, PIACETE Make sure that thing being LIKED in these sentences is either: ME, YOU, US, YOU GUYS Post your sentences in the forum for feedback! 16

Your Notes 17