Rocket Italian 6 Day Course! -
Greetings (audio lesson)
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Buon giorno! Benvenuti a Rocket Italiano!
Welcome to Part One of the Rocket Italian 6 Day course on common Greetings, including your first Audio Lesson!
This is the first in your series of lessons that are designed to get you speaking conversational Italian in no time!
I'm not going to start you on memorizing vocabulary words or practicing grammar. Instead, you're going to start learning to SPEAK Italian in a conversation, right from the get-go!
The Audio Track below is the Introduction track from the Rocket Italian Interactive Audio Course. This Introduction track is about 18 minutes long, and the remaining 30 audio tracks in the course average around 25 to 30 minutes in length.
Double click on the audio button to listen to the Introduction track on Basic Greetings in Italian. Each audio lesson will include a full conversation between me and my good friend Alex, your host for the Rocket Italian audio lessons.
In addition, we will include the Italian conversation along with the English translation for each lesson. You can choose to listen to the lesson with the transcript, or without. We recommend you try both, first without the transcript, so that you can really focus on the pronunciation and rhythm of spoken Italian.
Following each translation, we also include all of the relevant vocabulary we discuss in each lesson but that does not appear in the dialogue itself, so that you can see this stuff in written form as well.
Because you will be participating in the lesson, make sure that you listen in a quiet place where you can speak aloud without being disturbed. By the end of it, you'll be able to greet someone in Italian and ask how they are in a variety of contexts and at all different times of the day.
Above all, Italians are all about PIACERE - "pleasure" - and that means your experience of learning the Italian language should be, above all, pleasurable!
Let's get started!
Use the controls below to play, stop and pause the audio track. Or you can download this track on the right. Rocket Italian |
Better quality, download and play anytime! |
[Informal]
» Italian Conversation
| Alex: | Ciao Maria. |
| Maria: | Ciao Alessandro, come stai? |
| Alex: | Bene grazie, e tu? |
| Maria: | Bene anche io, grazie. |
» English Translation
| Alex: | Hi Maria. |
| Maria: | Hi Alex! How are you? |
| Alex: | I'm good thank you, and you? |
| Maria: | I'm good too, thank you. |
[Formal]
» Italian Conversation
| Alex: | Buon giorno, Signora! |
| Maria: | Buon giorno, come sta? |
| Alex: | Bene grazie, e Lei? |
| Maria: | Bene anche io, grazie. |
» English Translation
| Alex: | Hello, Madam! |
| Maria: | Hello, how are you? |
| Alex: | I'm good, thank you, and you? |
| Maria: | I'm good too, thank you. |
» Extra Vocabulary
| uno | "one" |
| due | "two" |
| tre | "three" |
| quattro | "four" |
| cinque | "five" |
| sei | "six" |
| pomeriggio | "afternoon" |
| Arrivederci | "goodbye" |
***
So there you have some basic building blocks of entering into a Italian conversation. Sound easy? É facile? ... Good, that's the sort of confidence we like to hear.
Here's your Example of a more Advanced Lesson:
From Lesson 4.2 - Reading Dante Click on the play button to hear the audio. |
Rocket Italian |
» Italian Conversation
| Alex: | Scusa Maria che libro stai leggendo? |
| Maria: | Sto leggendo un libro su Dante. |
| Alex: | Chi è Dante? |
| Maria: | Lui è il grande poeta toscano del 1200 (mille due cento), famoso per La Divina Commedia. |
| Alex: | Ah, sì. Posso guardare? |
| Maria: | Prego! |
| Alex: | Non capisco niente! |
| Maria: | L'italiano di Dante è molto antico. |
| Alex: | Sembra un misto fra italiano e latino! |
| Maria: | Hai ragione tu. C'è anche il dialetto toscano! |
» English Translation
| Alex: | Excuse me Maria what book are you reading? |
| Maria: | I am reading a book on Dante. |
| Alex: | Who is Dante? |
| Maria: | He is the great Tuscan poet of the 1200's, famous for The Divine Comedy. |
| Alex: | Ah, yes. Can I see? |
| Maria: | Please, go ahead! |
| Alex: | I do not understand anything! |
| Maria: | Dante's Italian is very old. |
| Alex: | It seems a mixture of Italian and Latin! |
| Maria: | You are right. There is also the Tuscan dialect! |
» Extra Vocabulary
| moltissimo | "very very much" |
| lingua toscana in bocca romana | "the Tuscan tongue in a Roman mouth" |
| sto leggendo | "I am reading" |
| stai leggendo | "you are reading" |
| sta leggendo | "he/ she/ it is reading" |
| papà | "dad" |
| papa | "Pope" |
| guardare | "to look" |
| vedere | "to see" |
| nulla | "nothing" |
| vecchio | "old" |
| anziano | "old" (polite to use when referring to age) |
***
In tomorrow's lesson we'll take a closer look at the conversation on Greetings in written form. The best way to figure out how something works is by taking it all apart and then examining all of the component parts. Language is no different. Of course, taking it apart is the easy bit. Eventually, you'll have to get good at putting it all back together. But there's plenty of time for that!
We hope your piacere levels are high, and that you are looking forward to what comes next. In the meantime, don't be shy, keep practicing, and if ever you feel lost for words, take comfort in the fact that there are some simple ways to stall for time in Italian:
| boh (pronounced: BOUW) = | "I have no idea." |
| beh (pronounced: BAY) = | "Um..." |
Alla prossima volta (Until next time),
Maria DiLorenzi
Rocket Italian
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P.S. Don't forget to check out my special bonus offer only available for 6 Day Course subscribers:
http://www.rocketlanguages.com/italian/6day_special.php |
