Books and Articles by Beth Bartolini-Salimbeni

Of the 14 verb tenses in Italian, four are compound. A compound verb tense means that more than one verb is involved: You form them with a helping verb (essere, to be, or avere, to have), which is conjugated, and the past participle of another verb (mangiato, eaten; stato, was; dormito, slept). You translate Italian compound tenses according to the tense of the helping verb.

Of all the vocabulary needed to speak a language, nothing is nearly as valuable as verbs. Without them, your language is stagnant and incapable of showing action. To make the most of Italian verbs, you can add prefixes and suffixes or the occasional adverb or pronoun and expand your Italian vocabulary exponentially.

The Italian language is adapting to the rhythms of modern life with the introduction of new idioms and the construction of simpler, more concise sentences and paragraphs. The basic rules of the Italian language, however, stay the same. Despite the ongoing transformation of the language, these rules remain the foundation that stabilizes it.

Italian idioms add color to a language and make you sound competent and comfortable. Using idioms (may) make Italians think you know more of their language than you actually do. That's good because it means people will respond in kind and help you both to expand your language skills and ease your acceptance into another culture.

Fine-tune your command of the Italian language by knowing when to capitalize a person's title. If you have to write a formal letter or e-mail to VIPs, such as the principal of your child's school, show that you're familiar with the rules of Italian "bureaucratic" etiquette. Names that represent a particular title — by birth, merit, or qualification — should be capitalized.

Whether you're learning Mandarin, Farsi, German, or Italian, idioms enrich communication — but can't be translated literally. In Italian, the most common idioms use the following verbs: fare (to do), avere (to have), essere (to be), and andare (to go). Idioms using fare (to do) Here's a list of the most common idiomatic expressions with fare (to do): fare gli auguri (to give one's wishes) fare il bagno/la doccia (to take a bath/shower) fare bello/brutto/caldo/freddo/fresco (to have good/bad/warm/cold/cool weather) fare il biglietto (to get a ticket) fare buon viaggio (to have a good trip) fare colazione (to have breakfast/lunch) fare i compiti (to do homework) fare una conferenza (to give a lecture) fare la conoscenza di (to meet; to make the acquaintance of) fare il conto (to add up the total) fare due, tre, .

In Italian, the present indicative tense works much like the present tense in English. To conjugate Italian verbs in the present indicative tense, you first need to understand that Italian infinitives (the "to" form, as in to die, to sleep, to dream) end in one of three ways — and that you conjugate the verb based on that ending: Verbs that end in -are Verbs that end in -ere Verbs that end in -ire The endings of regular verbs don't change.

In Italian, nouns have gender and number — masculine or feminine, and singular or plural. Articles (a, an, the, and so on), which are associated with nouns, are also masculine, feminine, singular, or plural according to the noun they refer to. So the English definite article the is either masculine singular, masculine plural, feminine singular, or feminine plural in Italian.

Some verbs add on two letters — ci (literally, here, there) — to the end of the infinitive and before their conjugated forms and thereby change their meanings. These verbs follow regular conjugation patterns but put the adverb of place ci (here, there) before each conjugated verb form. For example: vedo means I see; but ci vedo means I can see, I am able to see.