Karen Antje Möller

Planning a trip to Italy? Learn some basic Italian to make it more fulfilling. Get to know Italian greetings, question words, numbers, and the days of the week. Also, be sure to know how to ask for help in Italian so you're prepared for emergencies. And something very important: how to order food and drinks! This Cheat Sheet includes some useful phrases you can use every day as well as some phrases for dealing with an emergency and ordering food and drink.

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.

Knowing Italian greetings can make a good impression, whether you're speaking Italian for business or while traveling. The Italian culture places importance on introductions and salutations as it is often considered a foundational way of showing respect. There are different expressions you can use depending on if the situation is formal (business meeting) or informal (meeting someone at a restaurant).

To communicate in Italian and to travel with ease, there are practical questions in Italian (or any language for that matter) that you'll use daily and have to know: Parla inglese? (pahr-lah een-gleh-zeh) (Do you speak English?) Chi? (kee) (Who?) Cosa? (koh-sah) (What?) Quando? (kwahn-doh) (When?) Dove?

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.

When learning the Italian future tense, imagine a romantic scenario involving the gorgeous Trevi Fountain in Rome. Tradition holds that you can ensure a return visit to the Eternal City by standing with your back to the fountain and tossing a coin over your shoulder and into the water. If you're really determined to return to Rome, review some key verbs in the future tense: Amare (to love) Tornare (to return) Vedere (to see) Partire (to leave) io (I) amerò tornerò vedrò partirò tu (you, inf.