7. Do As Romans Do (Intermediate) Learn Italian with Podcasts at LearnItalianPod

7. Do As Romans Do (Intermediate)

March 2nd, 2006

PDF Transcript - Dialogue - Expansion - Glossary - Quiz

Do As Romans Do

When in Rome, do as Romans do. That means, when you are somewhere that you are not familiar with, act like the people around you. That’s a golden rule. Let’s learn how to apply it “the Italian way” while practicing some useful expressions using the word “quando” (when).

Intermediate Level - Lesson Nr. 7

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This entry was posted on Thursday, March 2nd, 2006 at 12:06 am and is filed under Intermediate. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

11 Responses to "7. Do As Romans Do (Intermediate)"

Tama Says:

March 2nd, 2006 at 1:16 am

ecco quando sei a Roma fai come i Romani !! behh se.. quando sei a Milano fai come i Milanesi scherzo , grazie x tutto mi hanno aiutato molto imparare piu , ora ,,ehehe ho un domanda puoi aiutarmi indovinare che cosa dice Laura nei suoi mesaggi
(sono inviati da lei il 26 Febraio fino il 28 sul suo forum ufficale) *1st 5 il 26 di Febraio the 6th message on the 27th and the 7th message on the 28th*
“ama lo’….. ”
“bisogna avere molta pazienza….pero’…. ”
“pero’…poi si stara’ troppo bene… ”
“l’unica cosa che posso dirvi,perchè siete fuori strada… è che non sono incinta. e non è un tranello. è la verita’… ”
“oh mamma mia…oh conchita mia….sono molto felice…vi basta questo? ”
“non si puo’ di mai… mai… ”
“piu’ indizi di cosi!!!!!! ”
e tutto lo ha scritto lei in un topic che ha il titulo “oops”
ma che cosa sta dicendo!!! parla in codice!!! , ne anche i propio italiani capisci cosa significa gia laura ha diventata pazza!! , but well maybe you guys can give your own opinions ,

grazie
e a presto!!

p.s anch’io ho una amica da Roma(abita li) si chiama Daniela e come me e fan di Laura

Steve Says:

March 7th, 2006 at 11:59 am

Great podcasts, very helpful! In the “Do as Romans Do” lesson, you use the infinitive of ‘comportarsi’ instead of the conjugated form of the verb. Can you please explain why.
Thanks!

LearnItalianPod.com Says:

March 9th, 2006 at 12:19 am

Hello Steve,

On the dialogue, Massimo is actually saying “Quando sei in un posto che non conosci, comportati come gli abitanti di quel posto”. The verb is conjugated.

Steve Says:

March 9th, 2006 at 9:23 am

Ok thanks for the explanation. Is there a rule on when the pronoun ‘ti’ is placed before or after the verb. I thought a pronoun could only be placed after a verb in the infinitive.
Thanks again!

LearnItalianPod.com Says:

March 9th, 2006 at 9:43 am

Here’s a great resource to understand and practice the use of the reflexive verbs:

Italian Reflexive Verbs

Nancy Says:

March 16th, 2006 at 11:28 am

Thanks for the wonderful podcasts! I found this intermediate dialog difficult to repeat after Massimo. Maybe because i have a bad memory, but i found the sentences too long to remember.

Please keep doing these podcasts. They are very helpful!

Dan Says:

March 6th, 2007 at 3:52 pm

There are over 6000 songs loaded into my ipod but the only thing I listen to these days are your wonderful podcasts. I do have to agree with Nancy above that the one sentence in this lesson “Quando sei in un posto …” was impossible for me to remember as well. Breaking the really long sentences in half would be helpful.

marvin Says:

February 13th, 2008 at 2:46 am

Ciao,
I think Steve’s question from March, 2006 needs a more direct answer. The site listed by learnitalianpod.com didn’t provide the answer. Even though the question is from 2006 and Steve is probably speaking fluent Italian by now, I, as a student of Italian in 2008, also wondered about the use of ‘comportati’. After some searching, I learned that ‘comportati’ was in the imperative form(2nd person sing)
Here is the conjugation of the reflexive verb comportarsi in the imperative…
—-
comportati
si comporti
comportiamoci
comportatevi
si comportino

LearnItalianPod.com Says:

February 13th, 2008 at 10:04 am

Marvin, thanks for your great contribution on this topic.

Dan Says:

July 20th, 2008 at 8:54 am

Jane, Massimo,

is “mi sono dimenticato” more commonly used than “ho dimenticato”? And what’s the difference between the two? For example, would Italians say “ho dimenticato il mio biglietto” or “Mi sono dimenticato il biglietto”, while speaking the “everyday” language? Thanks for your help and your great program!

Dan

LearnItalianPod.com Says:

July 21st, 2008 at 9:15 pm

Ciao Dan! - Excellent question… in fact, both expressions are very common and widely used. The expression “ho dimenticato il biglietto” is probably considered more formal than “mi sono dimenticato il biglietto”.

Here are the two constructions:

- Ho dimenticato qualcosa (subject + verb + object).
The verb “dimenticare” uses the auxiliary avere.

- Mi sono dimenticato di qualcosa. (subject + reflexive verb + di + object)
Dimenticarsi uses the auxiliary essere and needs the particle di before the object.

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