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matteo tironi.
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Now, this is quite pro stuff, so if you are just a beginner you could has well skip it altogether and come back once you feel ready. You know, these two guys take quite an effort to be understood and used correctly, and it is most likely the most common mistake foreigners commit when speaking in Italian.
Now, before we get down to this stuff, let's start with a recap about some stuff we talked about in part 2 we're gonna need.
Among the three “alternative versions” pronouns can have in Italian, there is a special one called emphatic one (although I think the name prep-ones suit them better, because that's their main use).
These alternative forms are used when a pronoun is preceded by a preposition.
So let's make an example: let's say my mother has just baked a cake and I want some.
The cake in Italian is la torta (feminine) and to want is volere.
So I should say something like this:
“voglio un po' di torta”
“I want some cake”
ok, but what if the cake has already been named in the speech and we want to substitute it with a pronoun?
Because in Italian some is phrased as un po' di (literally, a little of), the pronoun must be in the prep-form, because it is preceded by di (of).
As la torta is a feminine noun, one could think that lei replaces torta.
“io voglio un po' di lei”
this doesn't work because the emphatic pronouns can be used in people's regards only. So I have to find another way. But if you go back looking up the table I wrote, you'll notice that there is no other forms.
Why? Because we have to use them, the Italian's jack of all trades, ci and ne. Or better, just ne in this case.
“io ne voglio un po'”
what? How could of it became ne and travel all the way in front of the verb? Well, that's it. You could think of it as the German da-words (which are quite close in meaning and usage), just that ours moves around and doesn't look like its “normal” counterpart. Yeah, Italian nonsense
and mind you, ne is used whenever the preposition is di in Italian, not when it is of in English
and it is quite different..... because di is quite wider than of: it covers about, of and often “it” doesn't even appear in the English version, because something like this/that already takes it place.
For instance, ALL this sentences require ne to be translated to Italian.
I've read a book about Tokyo and now I know a lot about it (about Tokyo).
Ho letto un libro su Tokyo ed ora ne (di Tokyo) so molto a riguardo.
You still owe me that money! Nah, I don't want to talk about that (about money) now.
Mi devi ancora quei soldi! No, non ne (dei soldi) voglio parlare ora.
Could you talk me about your journeys? We've already talked about them (about the journeys) countless times.
Mi parleresti dei tuoi viaggi? Ne (dei viaggi) abbiamo già parlato un sacco di volte.
Yeah, ne is THAT wide it covers
1) of/about it
2)of/about that/those (when that is used as a pronoun. DO NOT USE questo/quello (this and that as adjectives, really, this is the most common mistake English natives make when learning Italian.)
3)of/about them.
I'll repeat it. The preposition has to be di (at times da, but 99% di) in Italian, not of/about in English. Therefore you have to know the Italian preposition to use it correctly.
for instance, let's take the verb to depend (in Italian, dipendere)
in English, to depend is followed by on, so one could assume that something like
our lives depend on it.
could be
ci dipendono le nostre vite. WRONG
nedipendono le nostre vite. CORRECT,
because the Italian dipendere is followed by da (and it becomes ne in the pronominal preposition version)
So, the easy one is done. Yeah, the easy one. Because if ne covers three main structures, ci covers a gazillion. Really, I had to think hard about it to come up with all the cases, and still I may be missing out on some.
Now, hold yourself to your chair and get ready to face it. ci. Two letters, lots of troubles.
Ci covers:
1)a (roughly to it/that/them, but also THERE!)
2)in (yeah, in XD)
3) con (with)
4) su (on, above)
5)per (through, for)
and more I'm missing out on for sure.
So, let's make some examples without further ado
posso andare a casa? Sì puoi andarci.
Can I go home? Yeah, you can go there (where there kind of means to it, right?)
c'è Luigi, posso andarci assieme?
Luigi is here, can I go with him?
La porta è troppo stretta, quindi non ci passo
the door is too narrow, so I can't pass through it.
Carla è in camera. Ci passa un sacco di tempo.
Carla is in her room. She spends lots of time there (where there kind of means in it).
Ok, this is it. As you may have noticed, ci and ne are not limited to being used with objects only, but they can be referred to people to.
When talking about people, in fact, we have two options, the normal prep-way and the ci-ne way.
Mi sono innamorato di lei and
Ne sono innamorato
both mean I'm in love with her (although the latter doesn't tell us whether I'm in love with a boy or a girl, to tell the truth), and the meaning doesn't really change that much. I would say that the former gives more importance to me (I am in love, not someone else), while the latter focuses on her (I'm love with her and not with someone else), but it doesn't really change that much.
But as far as objects are concerned you HAVE TO use ci and ne. No way to run
.
now, one would think this is all. unfortunately, ci and ne are quite the plague and don't just come in in normal situations, where their use is pretty obvious. no.
They like taking the piss out of people and so they came up with a category of verbs called pronominal verbs that use ci and ne (and at times the other pronouns) to change the meaning of a basic verb.
“whaaaaat? Man, explain because this ain't clear”.
Ok, so let's make an example.
Dormire means to sleep.
Dormirci su/sopra means to sleep on a problem or something.
Prendere means to take.
Prenderci la mano means to get accustomed/used to something.
Prenderci gusto means to start liking a certain action.
Prenderci means to guess right.
Yeah, I know, it is quite confusing but if you stretch you mind, and do it a lot, you could see the underlying logic.
This verbs are usually intransitive (they don't have any direct object), and have to come with ci or ne, otherwise they don't make sense.
If I had said prendere la mano instead of prenderci it would simply mean to hold the hand, nothing less and nothing more.
Unfortunately, there's more bad news coming: sometimes, ci and ne feel alone and go calling the other pronouns and the reflexive function to make monster verbs like farsene una ragione (to get over it, literally to make oneself a reason about it) and darsene di santa ragione (to beat each other very hard).
Now, to wrap this part up and go over to the next topic let's talk about the sentence order.
As we already know, the sentence order gets turned upside down when pronouns come into play.
Well, ne and ci are no exception.
Their position is after the pronominal indirect object of the sentence, anyway before the verb (they never come with the direct object, as I've said before)
Like the direct pronouns, ne makes the indirect pronouns undergo a vowel lifting (1st and 2nd persons) and a fancy fusion (3rd persons, gliene)
as for ci, it never comes with the other inflected pronouns.
Ah, like the other pronouns, ci and ne stack at the verb's end in the infinitive and imperative tense.
Ce ne dai= you give us some of it
darcene= to give us some of it (infinitive)
daccene=give us some of it (second singular person imperative)
ah, a Lang-8 user made me notice that there is something mising here: vi.
yeah, vi is kind of the little brother of the ci/ne family, and it is indeed very limited in use.
vi stands for from it (yeah, da again in Italian), in very few selected cases, mostly in fixed phrases.
moreover, it is used to replace ci in certain formal sentences.
e.g.
vi si possono trarre delle conclusioni importanti
important conclusions can be drawn (from that)
here vi is mandatory and irreplaceable by ci and ne
dopo che il treno fu arrivato, io vi salii
after the train arrived, I got on it.
here both vi and ci are possible, but vi is better because of the formal context (given by the historical past)
vi è sopra una grossa macchia.
there's a big stain on it.
here vi replaces ci in the ever common esserci verb, and although not 100% wrong, is sounds clunky and weird and ultimately very old-fashioned.
so this is the little black chick of the pronominal preposition family, and trust me, you could as well forget it altogether
phew, this one was tough. I'm pretty sure you have lots of doubts about this one, so feel free to ask, and to curse our weird grammar that makes you struggle so hard
Edited by matteo tironi - 15/10/2014, 14:57
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pronouns 3. level4.ci and ne, the daunting ones. |
