Buon Anno! What are your New Year's Resolutions?

12th April 2018

What are your New Year’s resolutions? Find out ours and learn some useful words for talking about the New Year in episode 35 of 5 Minute Italian.

No.35

Listen to the episode

What are your New Year’s resolutions? Find out ours and learn some useful words for talking about the New Year in episode 35 of 5 Minute Italian.

To help you remember what you learnt in today's lesson, below you'll find bonus materials like word lists, quizzes and flashcards. But first...

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Bonus Materials

Remember and practice using what you learnt with the bonus materials for today's episode.

Today's Italian words

hai fatto = you’ve done/made
già = already
una lista = a list
di = of
buoni propositi = New Year’s resolutions (literally good intentions)
per il duemila diciotto = for 2018
certo = of course
vorrei = I’d like
imparare = to learn
il tedesco = German
il francese = French
essere = to be
più = more
organizzata = organized (for a woman)
organizzato = organized (for a man)
e tu? = and you?
faccio = I do/make
sono = I am
contento = happy (for a man)
contenta = happy (for a woman)
così = like this/like that

Take the Quiz!

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Click here to take the quiz for this episode: Buon Anno! New Year's Resolutions in Italian

Italian flashcards

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Transcript

Please note, this is not a word for word transcript.

Katie: What are your New Year’s resolutions? Find out ours and learn some useful words for talking about the New Year in episode 35 of 5 minute Italian.

K: Ciao a tutti e benvenuti a 5 minute Italian, hi everyone and welcome to 5 minute Italian. I’m Katie…

M: And I’m Matteo. Ciao.

K: Buon Anno!

M: Buon Anno!

K: Happy New Year! Sorry we’re a little bit late to the party - but we’ve both had influenza, the flu.

Matteo come stai?... How are you?

M: Definitely better now.

K: So now we’re back and ready to learn some Italian! And today we’re going to talk about New Year’s Resolutions. As always, we’ll listen to the conversation first, then we’ll learn what each bit means.

M: Hai già fatto una lista di buoni propositi per il 2018?
K: Certo! Vorrei imparare il tedesco ed essere più organizzata. E tu?
M: Non faccio i buoni propositi, sono già contento così!

K: The first question you heard was:

M: Hai già fatto una lista di buoni propositi per il 2018?

K: Have you already made your list of New Year’s resolutions for 2018?

K: Hai fatto means “you have made". Hai means “you have” and fatto means “done” or “made” (Italians don’t make the distinction between these two words).

M: Hai fatto

K: The word già means already. Italians put that in the middle, just like we do in English. Hai già fatto = you have already made. Then we heard:

M: Una lista

K: Which means a list. Then you heard di, which means “of” and buoni propositi, which means “resolutions”. Proposito means intention, so buoni propositi literally means “good intentions".

M: Buoni propositi.

K: So far we've got hai già fatto una lista di buoni propositi. The literal translation is “you have already made a list of resolutions". Luckily in Italian, questions are very simple, we just say the sentence with question intonation. So to make that into a question, we just say:

M: Hai già fatto una lista di buoni propositi?

K: Then you heard:

M: per duemiladiciotto

K: Per means "for" and duemiladiciotto means "two thousand and eighteen".

M: per duemiladiciotto

K: Next you heard:

M: Certo!

K: Which means “certainly” or “of course”. Then you heard

M: Vorrei imparare il tedesco.

K: Vorrei means “I’d like to”, imparare means “learn” and tedesco means German. I said: il tedesco, literally translated to “the German” because Italians say “the” when they talk about languages. Another example is il francese (French).

M: vorrei imparare il tedesco

K: Then I said:

M: Essere più organizzata

K: Essere means “be”, più means “more” and can you guess what organizzata means? You guessed it! It means “organized”. Italian adjectives change depending on if we’re describing a man or a woman. I said organizzatA, with an A at the end, because I was talking about myself and I’m a woman.

M: That’s right. If I was talking I’d say organizzatO, because I’m a man. So we say: essere più organizzatA if you’re a woman and essere più organizzatO if you’re a man.

K: Then I asked, “and you”?

M: e tu?

K: Next Matteo replied:

M: Non faccio i buoni propositi.

K: Faccio means “I make” or “I do”. In Italian, the negative is very simple, we just add non to the beginning. So non faccio means I don’t make. Non faccio i buoni propositi means I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions.

M: Non faccio i buoni propositi.

K: Then you heard: sono già contento così

K: Sono means “I am”. Then we heard the word già again, which we know means “already”. Then we heard the word contento. Can you guess what that means? Contento means happy, and I’m sure you can see the etymolgical link with “content”. If I was talking about me, a woman, how would I say “I’m happy”

M: Sono contentA, with an A at the end, for a woman.

K: Finally, you heard the word così, which means “like this” or like that.

M: Sono già contento così

K: Let’s listen to the conversation again:

M: Hai già fatto una lista di buoni propositi per 2018?
K: Certo! Vorrei imparare il tedesco, e essere più organizzata. E tu?
M: Non faccio i buoni propositi. Sono già contento così!

That’s all we have time for today, thanks for listening. And if you’d like to get more mini Italian lessons delivered to your inbox, don’t forget to subscribe by following the link below. Grazie, and ciao for now, see you next time, or as we say in Italian, alla prossima!

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Bellissimo!