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VCE Stuff => VCE Languages Other Than English (LOTE) => VCE Subjects + Help => VCE Italian => Topic started by: lleeea on November 19, 2018, 05:42:35 pm

Title: italian unit 3 and 4
Post by: lleeea on November 19, 2018, 05:42:35 pm
hey,
im doing italian unit 3 and 4 next year aannnd im pretty stressed coz im from a non italian background and my listening and writing skills suck but im going for it coz i love the language so MUCCH...anyways, does anybody know what tenses do i have to know for next year, like my teacher knows that we just need to know passato prossimo really well, do we need to know any other tenses????
Title: Re: italian unit 3 and 4
Post by: theoryofthetides on November 19, 2018, 08:19:12 pm
Hi! I'm currently studying 3/4 Italian and I don't come from an Italian background either :)

The verb tenses/moods I feel like you will really need to know are of course il presente, il futuro, and il passato prossimo as you said, however this year I've found myself using the imperfetto way more than I used il passato prossimo. It's super easy to get the hang of and I feel like it works better than just il passato in a lot of (appropriate) cases. It mightn't elevate your language by a lot but it's worthwhile practising for next year if you feel like it. My teacher taught us the passato remoto also, but that shouldn't really be a priority at the moment in my opinion, you can learn about this tense during your detailed study if studying something about history like the economic boom for example.

Those are all indicativo, but the subjunctive/congiuntivo and conditional/condizionale were a little harder to pick up at first but also worth really nailing to help improve your overall language and especially to impress the examiners. The study design says you will need to know the present perfect, the imperfect 'if' clause, the pluperfect, and the imperative subjunctive, (the required verbs can be found on pages 8-9 of the study design). Don't worry if you haven't heard of these or know these yet, you will have time to learn them and develop them next year, but just keep the subjunctive and conditional in mind.

Some smaller verbs that you can probably teach yourself/really become good at using during the holidays if you want a small headstart are:
1) The modal verbs (potere, volere, dovere) which are suuuper handy in situations such as sacs where you just don't know how to conjugate a certain verb on the spot and one of the modal verbs can work with it. I'm sure you've already learnt these but it's good to keep them fresh in your brain.
2) Piacere. You could probably brush up on your present and future indicative piacere conjugations, but you can elevate this to the present conditional next year.
3) The reflexive verbs. Honestly, a lot of the time I forget to use them or just forget how to use them lol, so if you feel like doing Italian one day during the holidays maybe try to fully understand the reflexive verbs if they're also a bit of a problem for you!

I really don't think verbs are too much of a priority to try and understand in units 3/4, you almost just tend to pick them up through reading and listening but your teacher will give you plenty of worksheets/booklets and other resources to help you learn them. If I were you, I'd almost focus a little bit more on the small things such as conjunctions to help your writing flow more next year and the use of 'ne' which like reflexive verbs, I just never really got, rip in peace for the exam.

If you're worried about listening you can start listening to Italian music! A lot of it probably isn't going to be your taste whatever your taste is, but if you have Spotify you can find a song in Italian you like from Italian playlists or Italy's Top 40 and then start a radio for that song to find more. You can also find Italian YouTubers and just listen to how they enunciate certain words and maybe even take note of their mannerisms? They might use vocab that is  pretty specific to what they're talking about e.g. beauty, gaming, etc. and they will probably talk way too fast to comprehend, (at first at least), but it's nice to just listen to native speaker ramble for 10 minutes and count it as study, (treating videos and songs as dictations is a great way to practice listening though). You can also watch movies in Italian or with subtitles too of course.

I could probably type for ages about VCE Italian but if I wasn't clear enough or if you want to know anything else just let me know! Please don't feel stressed about 3/4, it's honestly not thaaat big of a step up and if you love the language anyways you will probably end up being really motivated next year!  ;D