Corso d'Italiano - Italian Lessons

[kanejam]

Oh I forgot to mention, school is never ever ever on Saturdays so that is a really weird concept. Would you say that all middle and istituti have school on Saturdays. So you just bum around the house for several hours by yourself? You must have a lot of spare time in the afternoons.

Attend never needs a preposition, so just 'when I attended middle school'. You can say 'when I was at middle school' with the same meaning. Also you should say 'back in my elementary school years'.

In New Zealand, it's just an accepted fact that you might have to travel a lot to go to uni. There was one where I lived in Wellington, but I ended up going to one 900km away in Auckland.

Looking forward to the next lesson! No rush though, I'm enjoying just chatting.

[atman]

Oh I forgot to mention, school is never ever ever on Saturdays so that is a really weird concept. Would you say that all middle and istituti have school on Saturdays.

I don't know about every school in Italy, but I can tell you that I had to go to school on Saturdays throughout (middle and high school / scuole medie e superiori).

So you just bum around the house for several hours by yourself? You must have a lot of spare time in the afternoons.

Ah, I'm sure everyone can find more interesting things to do than stay alone at home (I certainly did find many). But don't forget you have to do your homework (compiti) in the afternoon. That is, you should do them in the afternoon, but I usually just did (or copied) them in the hour before I had to show them. This, I must stress, is not recommended behavior .

And @Alessio:

I studied at a Liceo Classico, and I do have my diploma. Everyone gets a diploma after the secondary schools, at least as far as I and every Italian I know are concerned. Well, everyone gets a diploma if they graduate...

[Valosken]

Read some of this, and it's settled. Italiano shall be my third language in Uni.

[Alessio]

And @Alessio:

I studied at a Liceo Classico, and I do have my diploma. Everyone gets a diploma after the secondary schools, at least as far as I and every Italian I know are concerned. Well, everyone gets a diploma if they graduate...

Are you sure it is a full diploma, with this specific word written on it, and not just the good old "certificazione di superamento della maturità (classica/scientifica)"? If it's like that, I would really like to know the year when you got it, because I'm pretty sure that nowadays they just give you a certificate telling you did the exam, a certificate that however doesn't give any qualification and is used only to access universities.

OK, time for the next lesson!

ADVERBS OF MANNER
There are many kinds of adverbs, but among these, adverbs of manner are a bit special. In English, most of them are made up of an adjective plus the suffix -ly: softly, loudly, aggressively, quietly...
In Italian it's the same thing: you can use the suffix -mente, applied to the feminine singular form of the adjective, to create an adverb.
Aperto (open) → Apertamente (openly)
Sicuro (sure) → Sicuramente (surely)
Franco (frank) → Francamente (frankly)
Veloce (quick; invariable - it doesn't change in the feminine form) → Velocemente (quickly)
Some words, however, are already adverbs of manner, especially forte and piano. Do these adverbs tell anything to you? Like, musical dynamics? You probably know already, but most musical terms are Italian words. Forte /'fɔrte/ means "loudly" but also "strongly", and piano /'pjaːno/ means "softly" and "gently". Examples:
Fa' piano! - Don't make any noise! (lit. "do gently!")
Colpisci più forte! - Hit more strongly!
Watch out: forte is also an adjective (meaning "strong"), so fortemente is possible. However, it can't be used to mean "loudly": if you want a synonym, use "rumorosamente" (from rumoroso /rumo'roːzo/ = loud, noisy).
Another couple of interesting adverbs of manner is "bene" (well), the adverb for "buono" (good), and "male" (badly), the adverb for "cattivo" (bad). One of their (many) uses is telling how you feel:
Come stai? (Sto) bene, grazie. - How are you (lit. "how do you stay")? (I'm) fine, thanks.
Oggi sto male. - I feel ill today.
They are also used with the verb fare to indicate a good or a bad choice:
Ha fatto bene! - He did the right thing!/He chose well what to do!
Ho fatto male a crederti! - I did the wrong thing when I believed you!/I shouldn't have believed you! (notice the structure: fare + bene/male + a + infinite)

(ENGLISH) PRESENT PARTICIPLES
I gave our lesson this title because the English notion of "present participle" is different from the Italian one.
Italian present participles can be translated with an -ing form: dormiente = sleeping, incoraggiante = encouraging... we won't study these ones because they're pretty much useless (except some irregular ones, like "ente", present participle of "essere" mostly used to mean "institution, entity") and anyways archaic. Also, I'd say that 70% of the Italian verbs don't have a present participle. What is useful, instead, is the English present participle, the one you form with the suffix -er (or sometimes -or).
Generally (but this is a very rough rule), you can form this kind of participle applying the suffix -tore/i (masculine) or -trice/i (feminine) to the imperative of the verb: this will work with most regular verbs.

Alzatore - volleyball setter (from alzare = to raise, to lift)
Alimentatore - power pack (from alimentare = to feed... curious how we think we "feed" computers with electricity!)
Navigatore - sailor (from navigare = to sail)
Danzatrice - (female) dancer (from danzare /dan'tsaːre/ = to dance)

However, the vast majority of most used present participles are irregular.

Attore - actor (from agire = to act; feminine "attrice")
Cantante - singer (this is an Italian present participle - there is no "cantatore": for some strange reason, we use this one! Anyways, it comes from cantare = to sing, of course. The feminine form is identical)
Autore - author (this dates back to Latin. There is no Italian verb it comes from, stilli it's regular in the feminine: "autrice")
Conduttore - conductor (from condurre = to conduct, to lead; feminine "conduttrice")
Professore - professor (from professare = to declare; I don't know why a word coming from "to declare" would mean "teacher"... this is Italian! Feminine: "professoressa")
Confessore - confessor (from confessare = to confess; feminine "confessora")
Ballerina - ballerina (from ballare = to dance, just like danzare, but "ballare" is more common)
~ all of the stresses fall on the last-but-one syllable ~

Did you see it? Most irregular Italian present participles are incredibly similar to their English translation. You can almost identify a translation pattern! Italians love this, it helps a lot if you're studying English.

OK, exercises! These sentences mix adverbs of manner and present participles. Complete them!
1. A scuola ho scoperto che le scimmie ___________ (urlare - feminine plural, NB) vivono ______________ (prevalente) in Brasile. - At school, I discovered that howler monkeys (It. "shouter monkeys") live mainly in Brazil.
2. Nel Quidditch, chi tiene la mazza è chiamato ____________ (battere - if you can't see any declined word, choose masculine singular). Deve colpire la Pluffa molto __________ (forte)! - In Quidditch, who holds the club is called Beater. He must hit the Quaffle very strongly!
3. A catechismo ci insegnano che il _________ (creare) è trino, e che dobbiamo crederci ___________ (cieco). - At catechism (is the preposition correct?), they teach us tha the Creator is triune, and that we must blindly believe that.
4. Non crederei a quel ______________ (calunniare) neanche se mi pagassero! Ha fatto ______ (cattivo) a dire quelle cose su di me! - I wouldn't believe that slanderer even if they paid me! (this last part is quite common in Italian, do you also say that?) He shouldn't have said those things about me!
5. Bender è un robot ____________ (piegare). Non si chiama così _____________ (casuale): in inglese, "bender" significa proprio "____________" (piegare). - Bender is a bender robot. He wasn't given that name randomly: in English (notice the lowercase initial in Italian), "bender" means "bender". (you don't say? .-. However, I can't translate "proprio" - it means something like "truly" or "coincidentally")
6. Il ____________________ (navigare) aveva sbagliato: avevano _______________ (abbondante - incidentally, this adjective is also a "true" present participle!) superato la loro destinazione. - The GPS navigator (yes, it comes from the verb "to sail" - curious, isn't it?) had made a mistake: they had abundantly passed (is this correct? I mean "they had gone too far [from]") their destination.


EDIT: I saw now Valoskan's post. I'm happy you've found my language interesting. If you ever need any help or advice, please do not hesitate to contact me. Buona fortuna!

[kanejam]

Spoiler:

1. A scuola ho scoperto che le scimmie urlatrice vivono prevalentemente in Brasile. - At school, I discovered that howler monkeys live mainly in Brazil.
2. Nel Quidditch, chi tiene la mazza è chiamato Battatore. Deve colpire la Pluffa molto fortemente! - In Quidditch, he/the person (who can't really be left on its own like that. 'He who' is more formal and less gender neutral) who holds the club is called the Beater. He must hit the Quaffle very strongly!
3. A catechismo ci insegnano che il creatore è trino, e che dobbiamo crederci ciecamenta. - At catechism (probably, what is catechismo though?), they teach us that the Creator is triune(???), and that we must blindly believe that.
4. Non crederei a quel calunniatore (calunniare) neanche se mi pagassero! Ha fatto male a dire quelle cose su di me! - I wouldn't believe that slanderer even if they paid me! (this last part is quite common in Italian, yes, common in English as well) He shouldn't have said those things about me!
5. Bender è un robot piegatore. Non si chiama così casualemente: in inglese, "bender" significa proprio "piegatore". - Bender is a bender robot. He wasn't given that name randomly: in English, "bender" actually(?) means "bender".
6. Il navigatore aveva sbagliato: avevano abbondantemente superato la loro destinazione. - The GPS navigator had made a mistake: they had abundantly completely passed their destination. 'abundantly passed' is sort of nonsensical

[Alessio]

OK, correction:
1) Urlatrici, it's plural.
2) Battitore: the imperative of "battere" is "batti".
3) "triune" is a translation I found with Google... I was almost sure it was wrong, though. "Trino" means that God is both one and three people at the same time. Also, "ciecamente" (typo?). Catechismo are six years during which, each Saturday or sometimes Sunday, you attend some kind of school (which isn't a school, it's generally just a building belonging to the parish) where they teach you the Catholic religion, basically.
5) OK, this time it's my fault. Casuale is an exception, it loses the -e, so it's casualmente. I make more mistakes than you and it's my own language :S
6) That sentence was a mess to translate... in Italian it works like that, "abbondantemente" is there to convey the idea of having already driven for many kilometers after the destination. In facts, "superare" means something like "to go past" (or "to overtake", but this wasn't the case), but I couldn't translate it in a good way.

I'm rushing today, I might post the lesson later.

[Alessio]

Back! Ready to teach some new...
LEXICON
Animals- Gli animali /ani'maːli/ (singular animale)
NOTE: to avoid writing the pronunciation of each of these animal names, I'll mark with a graphical accent the stressed syllable, where it's not the last but one or where it falls on <e> or <o>. In this case, a grave accent denotes an open-mid vowel, whereas an acute accent denotes a close-mid one. Remember that the accent, under normal circumstances, can and must be used only when the stress falls on the last syllable.

Antelope - antìlope
Bat - pipistrèllo
Bear - órso
Bee - ape
Bird - uccèllo (watch out - don't say ambiguous sentences because "uccello" is a common slang word for "penis")
Bison - bisónte
Boar - cinghiale
Buffalo - bùfalo
Bug - insètto
Bull - tòro
Butterfly - farfalla
Canary - canarino
Cat - gatto
Cheetah - ghepardo
Chicken - póllo
Cod - merluzzo
Cow - mucca
Crocodile - coccodrillo
Deer - cèrvo
Dog - cane
Donkey - àsino
Dove - colómba
Duck - ànatra
Eagle - àquila
Elephant - elefante
Fawn - dàino (NB /'dai̯no/; the stressed syllable is the last but one, but I preferred to put the accent anyways, to avoid confusion caused by the <i>)
Fish - pésce (another slang word for "penis", although less common... we're vulgar, eh?)
Flea - pulce
Fly - mósca
Goldfish - pesciolino rósso
Goose - òca
Hamster - cricéto
Hawk - falco
Hare - lépre
Hippopotamus - ippopòtamo
Horse - cavallo
Leopard - leopardo
Lion - leóne
Marmot - marmòtta
Monkey - scimmia
Mosquito - zanzara /dzan'dzaːra/
Mouse - tòpo (but we call the computer mouse... well, mouse, and we pronounce it /mau̯z/)
Ox - bue (/'bue̯ /, plur. buoi /bwɔi̯/)
Panther - pantèra
Parrot - pappagallo
Pig - maiale /ma'jaːle/
Rabbit - coniglio
Salmon - salmóne
Shark - squalo
Sheep - pècora
Snake - serpènte
Spider - ragno
Squirrel - scoiàttolo
Stork - cicógna
Swallow - róndine
Tiger - tigre
Tortoise - tartaruga
Trout - tròta
Wolf - lupo
Worm - vèrme
Zebra - zèbra /dzεːbra/

Very well. Lexicon lessons don't need exercises, so they're fantastic when I'm in a hurry. I'm getting ready some new lyrics that I'll post in the next days. As always, you aren't supposed to learn all this at once, so take your time, maybe write them down, and if you want, start thinking about the Italian word for whatever animal you see. Bye!

[kanejam]

Ah I was thinking urlatrice because it was feminine, it should take -e in the plural but obviously that's not the case, as it's not an -a word in the singular. Don't worry, I got it now. Battitore was a mistake as well but the rest were typos.

The idea that god is three different entities is called the Trinity in English, but I don't think it has a corresponding adjective like that... Maybe trinite, in the vane of infinite-infinity. I don't think we have an analogue to catechismo other than Sunday school, but I only know a handful of people who attended that at all, let alone regularly.

Anyway, c'è molti animali! Amo i pipistrelli!

[Alessio]

*ci sono... remember that "c'è" is nothing more and nothing less than a literal translation of "there is", so it takes the plural. Let me answer:
Io non amo i pipistrelli, ma qua ce ne sono tanti, specialmente (now that I notice it, all the adjectives in -le and -re lose the -e before adding -mente!) in estate (summer, feminine). I miei amici urlano (shout = urlare) quando ne vedono (see = vedere) uno.
Notice the partitive usage of "ne", which is the most common one. As always, it can replace whatever originally contained "di", and this is the case in partitive sentences: "one of the bats" → "uno dei pipistrelli".

Fine, time for our lyrics. Italy is really big: there are 20 regions (regioni, singular -e), divided in 110 total provinces (province) and 8092 municipalities (comuni). Since Italy is oblong, it's generally divided in four parts: the North (including the regions Valle d'Aosta, Lombardia, Trentino-Alto Adige, Veneto, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Liguria and Emilia Romagna), the Center (Toscana, Umbria, Marche, Lazio and Abruzzo), the South (Campania, Molise, Basilicata, Calabria and Puglia) and the Isles (Sicilia and Sardegna). Our first singer, Vasco Rossi, was from the north, so we will continue our "trip" going south and getting to the region of Toscana (/tos'kaːna/, Tuscany) where in the province of Siena, home to the famous Palio, we can find one of the best female voices in Italy: Gianna Nannini.

GIANNA NANNINI
Born in Siena, Tuscany, on the 14th of June 1954, Gianna has been singing since 1979, when she was 25. Her first success was called America (by the way - America is an Italian loanword. You probably know already, but it comes from Amerigo Vespucci, who realized that Christopher Columbus had discovered a new continent), but the real hit was in 1984 with Fotoromanza (untranslatable word made up of "foto", photo, and "romanzo", novel; I ignore why she put it in a hypothetical feminine form). Her success continued with Bello e impossibile (beautiful and impossible), and later with Meravigliosa Creatura (wonderful creature), a rock song remixed some years later. The remix was slower, and many liked it even more than the original version. Other famous songs include Maledetto ciao (damn farewell), Profumo (perfume) and Sei nell'anima (you're in [my] soul).

Our lyrics will be those of Meravigliosa creatura. Gianna's accent is the famous standard Tuscan, the "general accent" that Accademia della Crusca tends to consider neutral.

Molti mari e fiumi attraverserò
many sea.PL and river.PL cross.FUT.1SG
dentro la tua terra mi ritroverai
inside DEF.F.S 2SG.GEN.F.S earth 1SG.ACC again+find.FUT.2SG
turbini e tempeste io cavalcherò
whirl.PL and storm.PL 1SG ride.FUT.1SG
volerò tra i fulmini per averti...
fly.FUT.1SG among DEF.M.P lightning.PL PURP have+2SG.ACC

RIT. Meravigliosa creatura, sei sola al mondo
wonderful.F.S creature be.2SG alone.F.S LOC.M.S world
Meravigliosa paura di averti accanto
wonderful.F.S fear of have+2SG.ACC next
occhi di sole mi bruciano in mezzo al cuore
eye.PL of sun 1SG.DAT burn.3PL amidst (2 words) LOC.M.S heart (watch out - "mi bruciano" isn't a reflexive because the verb is in 3PL! It works like that, and that's all)
amo la vita, meravigliosa...
love.1SG DEF.F.S life wonderful.F.S

Luce dei miei occhi, brilla su di me!
light GEN.M.PL 1SG.M.P eye.PL shine.IMP.2SG on 1SG.OBL (I think "oblique" is a better term - me is also an accusative, but not here, so I'd rather call it "oblique" than "prepositional")
Voglio mille lune per accarezzarti!
want.1SG thousand moon.PL PURP caress+2SG.ACC
Pendo dai tuoi sogni, veglio su di te
hang_down PROV.M.PL 2SG.GEN.M.P dream.PL watch_over 2SG.OBL
non svegliarti, non svegliarti ancora...
NEG wake_up.REFL.IMP.2SG NEG wake_up.REFL.IMP.2SG still

Rit.

Meravigliosa creatura, un bacio lento
wonderful.F.S creature INDEF.M.S kiss slow.M.S
Meravigliosa paura di averti accanto
wonderful.F.S fear to have+2SG.ACC next
All'improvviso tu scendi nel paradiso
suddenly 2SG come_down LOC.M.S paradise
voglia di amare, meravigliosa!
will to love wonderful.F.S

TRANSLATION

Many seas and rivers I will cross
inside your land you will find me
whirls and storms I will ride
I will fly among the lightnings to have you...

REF Wonderful creature, you are alone in the world
Wonderful fear to have you next to me
eyes of sun burn inside my heart
I love life, (it's) wonderful...

Light of my eyes, shine on me!
I want a thousand moons to caress you (~ so that I can caress you)!
I hang down from your dreams, I watch over you
don't wake up, don't wake up yet...

Refrain

Wonderful creature, a slow kiss
Wonderful fear to have you next to me
All of a sudden you come down to paradise
desire to love, (it's) wonderful...


Here you can listen to the original song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnUL4h9bT7s
Here you can listen to the remixed song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4X8YsFQRtg (I couldn't find one without the lyrics in the video, nor one with Italian lyrics, so I chose the one with the Spanish translation - this way you can see how it's similar to Italian)

[kanejam]

Qua non ci ne sono molti, ma sono carnini! come pochi cuccioli volanti! Sono gli unici mammiferi nativi della Nuova Zelanda.

The song is quite cool, I'm not sure which version I like better but I'm leaning towards the remix.

Also yes there are a lot of similarities between the Spanish and Italian. I'd say one of the the main differences is that there are fewer fricatives in Italian so it seems a little bit sharper if that makes sense.

[Alessio]

"Carnini"? You meant "carini" = cute?
Also, I don't see why you chose "pochi". It means "a few". I think you meant to use a partitive article: "Come dei cuccioli volanti". Last, "ce ne": pronouns ending in -i change it into -e before another pronoun. "Gli" even merges with them: "glielo", "gliene" etc.
Anyways, nice job. You'll see (if you haven't already) that I'm very pedantic, I tend to correct whatever little mistake. Don't take it as an offence, it's just that I'm like that. I do that with Italians, too.
Fine, today we have two topics - I found this lesson in a folder in my PC, I had completely forgotten that I had written it. I have completed it, and here it is.

ANCHE AND NEANCHE
Anche means "also, even, too, as well": all this words have only one translation in Italian. But which one of the English words is used like anche? ... well, actually none is a perfect translation. Unlike its correspondant in many other languages, anche goes before whatever it modifies; the most similar word I found is German auch. Look at this sentence:

I ate a slice of pie, too.

In this case, you can't know if you want to say that you ate a slice of pie just like others did, or if you want to say that, among all the things you ate, there was also a slice of pie. This can be solved using "also" or "as well", but... well, I'm not very good with those, so I'll just show you how you do this in Italian.

Anche io ho mangiato una fetta di torta.

In this case, anche is placed before io, so it means that I ate a slice of pie like others did. You can also find "anch'io", as anche can be elided.

Ho mangiato anche una fetta di torta.

Here, anche comes before una fetta di torta, so it means that, among all the things I ate, there was also a slice of pie.
There is one last possibility:

Ho anche mangiato una fetta di torta.

If you put anche before a verb, you'll mean that, among all the things you did, there was also that action. As for this sentence, you can use it after a list of other things you did, like this:

Ho aiutato il cuoco, ho pulito i fornelli ed ho anche mangiato una fetta di torta. - I helped the cook, I cleaned the cookers and I ate a slice of pie, too.

This form can only be used with compound tenses, and anche must separate the auxiliary and the participle. If you want to use it with simple tenses, anche will go after the verb; however, in this case, we generally prefer inoltre (moreover), which goes at the beginning of the sentence and saves us a lot of problems.
Just one word about the first sentence: for sure you have noticed that I wrote the subject pronoun. This is mandatory when you use anche, for clarity's sake. Anche is not a preposition, so you should use the proper pronouns, and not just blindly the tonic ones.

What about neanche? It's the exact opposite: it means "not even" (although generally in English you put "either" at the end of a negative sentence to mean what "neanche" means). It's used in the same way, but watch out! When it occupies the first position in a sentence, you can use it alone. Otherwise, you'll need the (in)famous double negation: you'll have to negate the verb. What if you don't? Well, the result will have no meaning, that's all. No misunderstanding, no ambiguity, but you'll say something meaningless.

Neanch'io ho visto quel film. - I didn't see that movie, either.
Non ho visto neanch'io quel film. - (same as above)

Note that it's quite common for "neanche" /ne'anke/ to be realized as ['ne̯aŋke], with a non-syllabic [e̯]. I though it'd be better to write it because, especially here in the north, we tend to pronounce that [e̯] in such a way that sometimes you can't hear it.

ANCORA, GIÀ, NON ANCORA, NON PIÙ
These four locutions are time specifications. Let's see how they work.

Ancora
Pronounce /an'koːra/; /'ankora/ means anchor. /an'koːra/, instead, means "still". It's basically a contraction of "anche" and "ora", so it's literally "even now". It comes after the verb:

Vai ancora in vacanza a Cesenatico? - Do you still go on holiday to Cesenatico?
Hai ancora fame? - Are you still hungry? (lit. do you still have hunger?, we say this the German way)

"Ancora" can also be used with comparatives to increase their value. Here's what I mean:

Ho ancora più fame di prima. - I'm even hungrier than before.
Che nevichi a settembre è raro, ma che succeda in agosto è ancora meno probabile. - It's rare for it to snow (is this correct?) in September, but it's even less probable that it happens in August. (notice the subjunctive as we're talking about unlikely events: the verbs are nevicare and succédere)

There is one last usage of "ancora": it can mean "again", but this usage is restricted to a few situations only, and generally it can only come after an infinitive. It's usually a good idea to use "di nuovo" instead, as it works in any situation.

Ti è piaciuto Harry Potter? Vuoi vederlo ancora/di nuovo? - Did you like Harry Potter? Would you like to see it again?
Oh no! Ho di nuovo dimenticato il quaderno a casa. - Oh no! I forgot the notebook at home again! (notice that di nuovo must be put between the auxiliary and the participle when it's used with compound tenses; in this sentence, using "ancora" is not possible)

Non ancora
Contrary to what you might think, non ancora is not the opposite of ancora. In facts, it means "not yet". It's only used with perfect tenses, which are always compound tenses; it must be divided by the auxiliary, like this:

Non ho ancora mangiato. - I haven't eaten yet.
Quando hai bussato alla porta, non mi ero ancora vestito. - When you knocked on the door, I hadn't dressed myself yet.

NOTE: there is no Italian word for "yet" alone. So a sentence like "are we home yet?" (typical sentence said by kids on a car) would become just "siamo a casa?" (are we home?) or sometimes "siamo a casa, dunque?" (so, are we home?).

Già
This word means already. Just like non ancora, it can only be used with perfect (compound) tenses, and it separates the auxiliary and the participle.

Ho già mangiato. - I've already eaten.
Ho già visto quel film. Non voglio vederlo di nuovo. - I've already seen that movie. I don't want to see it again.

How do you negate this? Well, you have two possibilities with different meaning. If you use "non... già" (not... already), you give the idea of being surprised:

Non hai già mangiato? - Haven't you eaten already? (I expected the contrary!)

If, instead, you use "non ancora" (not yet), you'll not only mean that you're surprised, but you'll let the interlocutor know that you want them to hurry up.

Non hai ancora mangiato? - You haven't eaten yet? (Hurry up!)

Non più
Here, this is the contrary of ancora. It means... "no more". Literally! I love it when Italian can be translated literally into English!
Anyways! Non più works like non ancora, meaning that it has to be divided by the verb, but it can be used with simple tenses; with compound ones, however, it's just the auxiliary that goes in-between.

Non parlo più con te. - I won't speak any more with you. (Microsoft Word corrects "anymore"... is it wrong?)
Non l'ho più visto da allora. - I haven't seen him any more since then.

Mixing things up: neanche and non ancora/non più
What happens when you have to use both "neanche" and "non ancora/non più"? Generally, you can drop either negation: you can use "anche", or just drop the "non".

Neanche io l'ho più visto. - Not even I have seen him again.
=
Anche io non l'ho più visto. - I haven't seen him any more, too.

As far as I know, using both negation isn't regarded as an error. Double negations are the stadard in Italian.

Neanche io non l'ho più visto.

That's all! This lesson was very long because it was simple... aaand more than half of it was already in my PC. Now, your exercises. I would like to make you translate some sentences without any help. If you don't know them, you can look up the underlined words (and only them!) on a dictionary/Google translator; if more than one word is underlined at once (as in "go fishing", two words), look them up together, or you'll get wrong results. Good luck!

1. I don't go to school any more. (remember that "go" is irregular in Italian)
2. I don't see the error, either.
3. Do you still go fishing every Sunday? (tip: the verb is just to go... you should put something else before fishing.)
4. I don't know the name of my desk mate yet.
5. Not even I know the answer.
6. Do you know the result of your exam already?
7. I don't know who I am any more.

Tip: Google Translate likes to mess things up. If you see that a noun is being translated as a verb (look at the ending), check below the text box: you'll see other translations grouped by part of speech. This is a general tip!

[kanejam]

Yes I meant carini. I meant to say 'small' rather than 'a few'... Let me try that again Qua non ce ne sono molti, ma sono carini come dei piccoli cuccioli volanti!. And don't worry about offending me; it's your language that I'm bastardising and I welcome the corrections.

Also, 'It's rare for it to snow in September' is very good English, it's probably the most natural translation.

Spoiler:

1. I don't go to school any more. - Non vado più alla scuole.
2. I don't see the error, either. - Non neanche vedo neanche l'errore.
3. Do you still go fishing every Sunday? - Anche tu vai a pesca ogni Domenica?
4. I don't know the name of my desk mate yet. - Non conosco/so ancora il nome del mio compagno di banco.
5. Not even I know the answer. - Neanche io conosco/so più la risposta.
6. Do you know the result of your exam already? - Conosci/sai già il risultato del tuo esame? (Should it be dello?)
7. I don't know who I am any more. Non conosco so più chi sono.

[Alessio]

OK, now for the corrections. Don't worry if you see many mistakes - it's natural. It's the first real translation exercise. I'll try to be as clear as possible
1) Correct, although a bit unnatural. I'd say "a scuola", as you go to one school at a time.
2) Actually correct... that's not what I meant. I expected "Neanche io vedo l'errore". See? English is much less clear about this. Your translation would be correct, but I meant to focus on the "io", not on the "errore".
3) *Tu vai.
4) Correct.
5) Why "più"? Just remove that, the rest is correct.
6) *Conosci. "Del" is correct; the prepositions decline based on what follows, not on the noun.
7) OK, if "conoscere" can be used instead of "sapere" in the other ones, in this case it's just not possible. We studied the verb "sapere", and generally it's better to use it. "Conoscere" means "know" in the sense of "know somebody"; you can use it in place of "sapere" if you want, but it can't handle a clause. In that case, you must use "sapere". Also, you should be using "chi" instead of "che", but I still have to find a rule for this. It will take some time, I'll tell you when I get it. So, the sentence is: non so più chi sono.

I'm getting the new lesson ready, I'll post it soon.

[kanejam]

Thanks for the corrections! Looks like I didn't do too terribly I should have known better with the conoscere/sapere distinction as it's the same in French with connaître/savoir.

[Alessio]

Thanks for the corrections! Looks like I didn't do too terribly

Not at all! If I were to give a mark, I'd give you a 7.5 (in Italy, the maximum is 10, and the sufficiency is 6/10). From 8 on, we generally boast. xD
OK, I've worked to find some patterns that will help you to generate the past participle of many irregular verbs. Here is what I found so far:

1) -dere, -ndere (unstressed): -so (prendere, perdere, chiudere, tendere, spendere, mordere, accendere, ridere...) but chiedere = chiesto, rispondere = risposto, -cedere = -cesso BUT cedere = ceduto ("cesso" is a vulgar word for a toilet or a very ugly person, so try to avoid this mistake). As noted, this rule doesn't apply to verbs stressed on the ending: "accadere" /akka'deːre/, for example, is regular and becomes "accaduto".
2) -nere, -orre: -(o)sto (rimanere, porre; "posto" also means "place". Among all verbs in -rre, only those in -orre have their past participle ending in -sto, and they retain the <o>, that's why it's between parentheses)
3) -cutere: -cusso (incutere, escutere, discutere)
4) -ngere, -ncere: -nto (attingere, dipingere, fingere, spingere, piangere, cingere, ungere, vincere...) but stringere = stretto
5) -ggere: -tto (leggere, reggere, affliggere, proteggere)
6) -(C)rire: -(C)erto (soffrire, offrire, aprire) where (C) is a consonant. Most verbs in -(V)rire are regular (guarire = guarito, sparire = sparito...); notable exceptions are "apparire/comparire" (both mean "to appear"; past participle "apparso/comparso") and "morire" (morto)
7) -gliere: -lto (togliere, cogliere, sciogliere)

It took me about a week to find out these rules. I couldn't find them anywhere on the Internet, and not even my Italian teacher had any. So this can be considered exclusive information!

Some other completely irregular verbs:
-"Venuto" is the past participle of "venire" and not "venere" (which means "venus" and is stressed on the antepenult, whereas "venire" is stressed on the penultimate)
-"Esistito" is the past participle of "esistere" /e'zistere/, and not "esistire" (which does not exist)
-Cuocere = cotto (cook)
-Fondere = fuso (fuse, merge)
-Fare = fatto
-Mettere = messo (did I write this already? Too lazy to look for it)
-Scrivere = scritto
-Vedere = visto
-Vivere = vissuto

Fine, I'm having a hard time deciding what will be the next topic. Be aware that we've already studied most of the basic grammar, so I think I might move on to something more complicated, like the remote past or the courtesy form. If you are interested in the remote past, which is the tense used most in books, know that most verbs are irregular (although many roots can be formed if you know the past participle). As for the courtesy form, it's very similar to Spanish, although we're a bit less formal. We're going to study this one anyways, it's really important, you can't come to Italy and speak Italian without knowing it.
Well, decide if you're interested in the remote past and let me know. Now I'll go have a shower, later I'm going out for dinner. Goodbye!

[kanejam]

Enjoy your dinner! And yes I would love to learn about the remote past, I already know about French's past historic (passé simple; I don't know why they have different names in the different languages, what does Italian call French's remote past?) so anyway hopefully it's similar.

Okay, just so I've understood this: is the 1st group the only group with antepenult stress? Because it looks like group 5 is as well? Maybe group 7? Historically these come from Latin's third conjugation (-ere) which was stressed on the antepenult, whereas the other three (-āre, -ēre, - īre) we're stressed on the the penultimate. Just in case you were interested! But here's my attempt to make sure I understand what you've written:
1. prendere - preso; chiudere - chiuso; succedere - successo
2. rimanere - rimanosto; porre - posto
3. incutere - incusso
4. attingere - attinto; ungere - unto
5. leggere - letto
6. soffrire - sofferto; offrire - offerto (this one reminds me of French)
7. togliere - tolto; scogliere - scolto

I can't believe there wasn't already a list like that, it seems like the first thin a language learner would need after learning the regular forms. Come to think of it though, are there any lists of such words for English? We have a lot of irregular verbs, depending on what you class as irregular.

[Alessio]

Actually, I've been asking myself why they have different names ever since I started learning French back in my 1st year in middle school, but I can tell for sure that passato remoto and passé simple are the same tense.

Your rule is correct. Many textbooks say that Italian has 4 declension - àre, ere, ére and ìre. I'm almost sure that if you know the corresponding verb in Latin you'll get the stress right. Anyways, the groups stressed on the antepenult are the 1st, the 3rd, the 5th and the 7th (so basically odd numbers, LOL). You can tell because most of the time the -e of the ending is dropped in the participle. You got the participles right except "rimanere" → "rimasto" (you didn't understand what I wrote between the parentheses, did you? Verbs in -nere take -sto, verbs in -orre take -osto. I was trying to merge the two types of verbs, apparently I didn't succeed) and you made a typo in "sciogliere" → "sciolto".

What I can tell is that at school we use enormous lists (basically paradigms with the translation in Italian) for English irregular verbs, but we were never taught the basic rules, such as "-ing/k" → "-ang/k" → "-ung/k" (ring - rang - rung, sing - sang - sung, sink - sank - sunk) and I had to classify the verbs myself. The only classifications our teachers taught us was like this:
-Verbs staying the same in the three forms, like "cut"
-Verbs with the simple past identical to the past participle but different from the present, like "think"
-Verbs with three different forms, like "go"
I've never found this classification particularly useful, I've always preferred to find conjugation patterns, however restricted they could be. That's why I worked to get these rules.

Now, it's Saturday, I've got plenty of time, so I'll write the basics of simple past.

PASSATO REMOTO /pas'saːto re'mɔːto/
The remote past tense (I will accept the name "simple past" as a proper translation, as the two tenses aren't identical, but correspond to each other) is the most used tense in literature and in southern dialects when referring to past events.
As it happens many times, although it indicates a far away past, there is no precise rule to determine how far the moment the action happened has to be. It's weird to use a remote past for something that happened yesterday, but if you sense that an action happened in the past has still effects on today, or you think of it as a near action for whatever personal motive (classic example: you've been in a coma for the past 20 years), you can use the recent past even if it happened a long time ago.
In contemporary spoken Italian, it's always accepted to use the recent past for every past action, regardless of the time it happened; however, when writing, the remote past is a powerful weapon to show that your knowledge of Italian is very good.
This tense, however, can't be used in some situations: the ones that we've seen a couple of lessons ago, with time specifiers that could only be used with compound tenses. Actually, this rule is incomplete; you'll see what I mean later on. This will be the topic of more than one lesson.
Furthermore, the remote past indicates exclusively punctual actions, as opposed to the imperfect past. Go back to the lesson where we studied it if you don't remember where it must be used.
Unfortunately, this tense is the most irregular one in Italian. Those who know Latin will probably find some correspondences; I hope that in Latin those verbs are regular, so that with a proper translation pattern they can get the translation in Italian.

Regular Verbs
First Conjugation: -are
The simple past root of this verb can be obtained by removing -are, as predictable.
-ai
-asti
-ò
-ammo
-aste
-arono
All of these endings are stressed on the first vowel; so 1sg and 3sg are stressed on the ultimate (as <i> is in dyphthong with <a> for 1sg), 2sg, 1pl and 2pl on the penultimate and 3pl on the antepenult.
Example: mangiare - eat
Io mangiai
Tu mangiasti
Egli mangiò
Noi mangiammo
Voi mangiaste
Essi mangiarono

Notable Irregularities
Only three -are verbs are irregular in the remote past tense.
FARE - do, make
Io feci ("feci" also means "feces". There are so many ambiguous words in Italian...)
Tu facesti
Egli fece
Noi facemmo
Voi faceste
Essi fecero
Stress pattern: on the penultimate everywhere, except 3pl (where it falls on the antepenult).

STARE - stay, remain
Io stetti
Tu stesti
Egli stette
Noi stemmo
Voi steste
Essi stettero
Stress pattern: same as for "fare"

DARE - give
Io diedi
Tu desti
Egli diede
Noi demmo
Voi deste
Essi diedero
Stress pattern: same as for "fare"

3rd conjugation: -ire
Why did we skip the 2nd conjugation? Because we will talk about it in a later lesson, as it's the one with most irregular verbs.
As always, remove -ire to get the root. Then add:
-ii (it is very rare to see two identical vowels next to each other in Italian, but in this case it happens; however, most people realize this sequence as two different syllables, /i.i/, rather than a single long vowel /iː/. This can be heard better in questions and exclamations: the two <i>'s will have different tones)
-isti
-ì
-immo
-iste
-irono
The stress pattern is the same as for -are verbs, except -ii, which, being generally realized as two sillables, is stressed on the first <i>, thus on the penultimate.
Example: dormire - sleep
Io dormii
Tu dormisti
Egli dormì
Noi dormimmo
Voi dormiste
Essi dormirono

Notable exceptions
Only two -ire verbs are irregular in the remote past tense.

DIRE - say, tell
Io dissi
Tu dicesti
Egli disse
Noi dicemmo
Voi diceste
Essi dissero
Stress pattern: same as for -are irregular verbs

VENIRE - come (in every sense, just in case you're a bit... malitious.)
Io venni
Tu venisti
Egli venne
Noi venimmo
Voi veniste
Essi vennero
Stress pattern: as always, the same as for -are irregular verbs



That's the end of our first remote past lesson. It wasn't hard, was it? Don't worry, the next ones will be.
Now, let me end this lessons with a sentence and a proverb.

Sentence of the day: Studiate sempre e tanto. Come dice sempre mia nonna: studia e starai a sedere!
Always study, and study a lot. As my grandmother always says: study, and you'll be sitting (while working)!

Proverb of the day: Tanto va la gatta al lardo, che ci lascia lo zampino!
The (female) cat goes so (near) to the lard, that she leaves there her paw (and so her life)!
Basically, it means "curiosity killed the cat". We like to complicate our lives with long sentences. Also, as you can see, our proverbs are written in old Italian: word order is a mess and some structures you'll find there aren't used anymore. You could here some of them, though, so I'll write them anyways.

[Alessio]

I've just found out that I forgot to add the exercises .-. I'll post them at the end of this second lesson about the remote past.

Today, we're going to talk about the verbs of the 2nd conjugation. This is the conjugation of the (rare) regular -ERE verbs.
-etti
-esti
-ette or -é (both are generally accepted)
-emmo
-este
-ettero
A regular verb that comes to my mind is gemere:
Io gemetti
Tu gemesti
Egli gemette or gemé
Noi gememmo
Voi gemeste
Essi gemettero

Avere and essere aren't considered as 2nd conjugation verbs, but they end in -ere, so I'll write their simple past here.
AVERE
Io ebbi
Tu avesti
Egli ebbe
Noi avemmo
Voi aveste
Essi ebbero

ESSERE
Io fui
Tu fosti
Egli fu
Noi fummo
Voi foste
Essi furono

Stress patterns are as always.

Now, as for the vast majority of 2nd conjugation verbs, the irregular ones, the scheme in the lesson about irregular past participles is going to help us. In facts, I'm going to classify -ERE verbs by their ending, just like in that scheme. The first group we are going to see is that made of verbs ending in -dere and -ndere, but also those from the third line, ending in -cutere (we will call these 1st group 2C verbs, were 2C stands for 2nd conjugation). These verbs get their remote past root from the past participle, but only for 1sg, 3sg and 3pl; the other persons are regular. To form the three I mentioned, remove the declension vowel (o/i/a/e) and add these suffixes:
-i (1sg)
-e (3sg)
-ero (3pl)
None of these suffixes is stressed, as always. So:
Io presi, persi, incussi...
Tu prendesti, perdesti, incutesti...
Egli prese, perse, incusse...
Noi prendemmo, perdemmo, incutemmo...
Voi prendeste, perdeste, incuteste...
Essi presero, persero, incussero...
Persons in italic (by the way, we call it corsivo /kor'siːvo/... it's quite ironic that a word originates from the name of our language and we change it completely, isn't it?) are irregular.

The past participle is important also with verbs from the 2nd and 4th line of those listed in the irregular past participles (we will call these 2nd group 2C verbs): these verbs don't get their root from their own past participle, but rather "borrow" the rule from 1st group verbs and use that one as the root. Let me explain better what I mean. Take the verb rimanere (to stay, in the sense of "not move/not change"): its past participle is rimasto. However its simple past root is rimas-. It really looks like it was a 1st group verb, thus having the past participle ending in -so, doesn't it? The same happens with porre and his countless compounds (supporre, imporre, comporre, apporre, riporre...): ist past participle is posto but the past root is pos-.
If this rule seems too complicated, you can just remove the final -to and, for verbs from the 4th line, add -s and you'll get the right root. I thought it was fairer to you to explain what is the origin of this rule. Anyways, the endings are the same as for 1st group verbs, so:
Io rimasi, posi, dipinsi
Tu rimanesti, ponesti, dipingesti
Egli rimase, pose, dipinse
Noi rimanemmo, ponemmo, dipingemmo
Voi rimaneste, poneste, dipingeste
Essi rimasero, posero, dipinsero

Did you notice anything? Why in this world does "porre" become "ponesti"? Where did that <n> come from? Well, it's not a case that verbs in -nere and -orre behave identically. Verbs in -orre have been syncopated; their original form ended in -onere. This is why "porre" behaves like "ponere" in the remote past (and, excluding 1sg - pongo - and 3pl - pongono - in the present as well), and is treated as a 2C verb.

Verbs from the 7th line (which we'll call 3rd group 2C verbs) behave similarly to 2nd group verbs. Their root is made in -ls, so for example "togliere" → "tols-".
Io tolsi, scelsi
Tu togliesti, scegliesti
Egli tolse, scelse
Noi togliemmo, scegliemmo
Voi toglieste, sceglieste
Essi tolsero, scelsero

OK, what's left? Verbs from line 6 are regular (they end in -ire, after all), even though sometimes "apparire/comparire" is regarded as irregular and conjugated as "apparvi, apparisti, apparve, apparimmo, appariste, apparvero" (but the regular conjugation is universally accepted, so stick with that one... don't complicate things more than it is necessary). Instead, verbs from the 5th line (4th group 2C verbs) have their root ending in -ss.
Io lessi, protessi
Tu leggesti, proteggesti
Egli lesse, protesse
Noi leggemmo, proteggemmo
Voi leggeste, proteggeste
Essi lessero, protessero

OK, this is the end of today's lesson. We've seen all the existing patterns for -ere verbs; however, these patterns alone won't let you conjugate every single verb. Some verbs are completely irregular; this is, for example, the case of "cadére" (which is irregular, as always, in 1sg, 3sg and 3pl; its root is "cadd-") or "cuòcere" ("coss-"). I'll try to get together as many roots as I can and post them in the next lesson. Here are your exercises, which are very simple: take this verbs and, judging whether they are regular or not by looking at the past participle scheme, conjugate them in the remote past.

ACCOGLIERE (to welcome; however, "Welcome!" is translated literally, an it's "Benvenuto!")
SORPRENDERE (to surprise, to amaze)
CAMBIARE (to change)
SCOPRIRE (to discover)
GIUDICARE (to judge)
PIANGERE (to cry)
FERIRE (to hurt, even morally)
COMPORRE (to compose... how strange! Does "compose" remind you of anything in Italian... ?)
OFFRIRE (to offer)

[kanejam]

Spoiler:

ACCOGLIERE (to welcome; however, "Welcome!" is translated literally, an it's "Benvenuto!")
Io accolti
Tu accogliesti
Egli accolte
Noi accogliemmo
Voi accoglieste
Essi accoltero

SORPRENDERE (to surprise, to amaze)
Io sorpresi
Tu sorprendesti
Egli sorprese
Noi sorprendemmo
Voi sorprendeste
Essi sorprendero

CAMBIARE (to change)
Io cambiai
Tu cambiasti
Egli cambiò
Noi cambiammo
Voi cambiaste
Essi cambiarono

SCOPRIRE (to discover)
Io scoprii
Tu scopristi
Egli scoprì
Noi scoprimmo
Voi scopriste
Essi scoprirono

GIUDICARE (to judge)
Io giudicai
Tu giudicasti
Egli giudicò
Noi giudicammo
Voi giudicaste
Essi giudicarono

PIANGERE (to cry)
Io piansi
Tu piangesti
Egli pianse
Noi piangemmo
Voi piangeste
Essi piansero

FERIRE (to hurt, even morally)
Io ferii
Tu feristi
Egli ferì
Noi ferimmo
Voi feriste
Essi ferirono

COMPORRE (to compose... how strange! With + porre?)
Io composi
Tu componesti
Egli compose (lol)
Noi componemmo
Voi componeste
Essi composero

OFFRIRE (to offer)
Io offrii
Tu offristi
Egli offrì
Noi offrimmo
Voi offriste
Essi offrirono

[Alessio]

Fine, your exercise was correct, apart from accogliere: accolsi, accogliesti, accolse, accogliemmo, accoglieste, accolsero. Verbs in -gliere form the simple past in -ls.

Fine, let's get a pause now. The remote past is quite difficult to learn, so it's better if we stop talking about it for a while. Brains need pauses!
What I'm going to do in these lessons is going back and looking for things I had skipped to let you learn important things first. So far, this course has been mainly about grammar, so we skipped topics that can be useful. Today I want to talk about two of these topics: weather and directions.

WEATHER
Look at this sentence in English:
It rains.
OK, so it rains and it's a fact (it really is: here it's actually raining). But... what is "it"?
Well, it's the realization of the general rule that no verb can go without a subject. It has no meaning of its own; "raining" isn't a thing everybody can do, "I rain" is meaningless.
In Italian, since we have an anticausative reflexive, it would make sense to use it: in facts, the anticausative is the best way to avoid expressing, even subtly, the subject, shifting attention to the object (which is clearly rain) instead. But for some reason, we just don't use it and express weather the English way: with a 3rd person verb, and that's all. This means that some weather sentences are one word long, and together with imperative ones they are the shortest possible sentences.
Piove. /'pjɔːve/ - It rains.
The particularity of this sentence is that there is no subject. It isn't implied: in facts, it's forbidden! You can't say *esso piove. This is a typical example of an impersonal verb. There are very few in Italian, but they exist.
Now, how do you express other weather conditions?
Nevica. /'nevika/ - It snows.
Grandina. /'grandina/ - It hails.
These are the basic bad weather conditions, and the only ones expressed with impersonal verbs. The others are:
C'è il sole./È soleggiato. - It's sunny. (sole /'sole/, masculine = sun; it can also mean alone, feminine plural form; neither the spelling nor the pronunciation change)
È nuvoloso. - It's cloudy. (nuvola /'nuvola/ = cloud)
C'è la nebbia or very rarely È nebbioso. - It's foggy. (nebbia /'nebbja/ = fog; we see that very often here in Pianura Padana, and it's as bad as in England, if not worse)
C'è della foschia. - It's hazy. (foschia /fos'ki.a/ = haze; what we call "foschia" is "nebbia" for southern people, not because of their dialect, but because they never have foggy days there. They aren't used to it... northern people, instead, drive even when they can't see as far as five meters from their nose!)
C'è del vento or rarely È ventoso. - It's windy. (vento /'vεnto/ = wind; remember that /'vεnti/ means winds, whereas /'venti/ means twenty. I'm not sure I wrote this correctly in the lesson about numbers... I think I might have turned it the other way around. I'm going to check after I'm done writing this post)

DIRECTIONS
OK, so you've finally decided to come to Italy! ... but you got lost. You thought you were going to Rome, and instead a big, white sign written in large letters says "ASCOLI PICENO" right in front of you. You don't have a clue about where you are; you approach a passer-by and ask him, in your best Italian accent: «Mi scusi, come arrivo a Roma?»
«È semplicissimo: gira a destra alla prossima, poi segui le indicazioni per Pedaso, imbocca l'Autostrada Adriatica, poi a Teramo prendi l'A24!»
Of course, all you could understand was "è semplicissimo". Well, you know that "è" is the verb "to be" and "semplicissimo" is probably a superlative. But apart from that, you didn't get a single word.
Don't worry, it happened to me in Paris and I speak French, so it can happen to anybody. But we want to prevent that, right? So let's study how to interpret that sentence!
The basic directions are:
D(i)ritto - straight ahead
Sinistra - left
Destra /'dεstra/ - right
Avanti - forward
Indietro /in'djεtro/ - backward, back
The cardinal points are:
Nord /nɔrd/ - north
Sud - south
Est /εst/ - east
Ovest /'ɔvest/ - west
These are the only Italian nouns which end in a consonant and aren't loanwords. They are all masculine and, of course, they never take the plural. I think their origin is somewhere in Latin... do you know anything, Kanejam?
OK, what about verbs?
Of course, the main verb of motion is andare (to go), which, as you know, is irregular: vado, vai, va, andiamo, andate, vanno. With destra and sinistra, you should use the preposition a as well:
Vai a sinistra/destra. - Go to the left/right.
With avanti and dritto, don't use any preposition.
Vai avanti. - Go on. (you can also use this figuratively, just like you do in English)
Vai dritto. - Go straight ahead.
With indietro, you shouldn't use andare, unless you mean "insert the reverse gear and make the car move backwards"; you should use tornare (to return), with no preposition after it.
Torna indietro. - Go back.
If you use the cardinal points, use the adverb verso (towards).
Vai verso nord. - Go north.
Using a is usually accepted, although I feel that it would be more correct to do that only to express state in place, rather than movement.
"To turn" is girare. So:
Gira a sinistra/destra. - Turn left/right.
Regionally, you might hear "gira indietro" instead of "torna indietro"; this is not correct in standard Italian. You could also hear "girare a vuoto", which means "going around in circles", underlining the fact that you'll get nowhere.
When you want to tell someone that they must take a road, use the verb "prendere" (litereral translation) or "imboccare" (turn into). If you are going to use an ordinal number (which I don't think we've studied - man, how many things I forgot to teach you!), you don't need the word "strada" (street/road), it's implied.
Prendi/Imbocca la prima a sinistra. - Take the first street on your left.
You can also say:
Gira (a sinistra/a destra) alla prossima. - Turn (left/right) into the next one.
Finally, if you're too lazy to tell someone the full directions, you can tell them to follow the signs:
Segui le indicazioni per Pedaso. - Follow signs for Pedaso.

This is the end of our lesson. I thought the directions part would have been short... instead, I had to split it in two parts! Next time we'll see the remaining part and - hopefully, depending on what I can find - some simple past roots. I'm too tired to write exercises now, they'll come tomorrow. Study, as always... ah, also, never get lost in Ascoli Piceno. My father did with his truck and trailer, I was with him. We found ourselves in some nearby town (it was called Amandola, I think) where the main road was off-limits for trucks and we had to pass below a medieval arch... I still don't know how we managed to do that without damaging the truck. Or why in this world they would force trucks to pass below a medieval arch. This is Europe.
Fine, I'm going to eat. Goodbye!