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Absolute Beginner S1
You're Not from Italy, Are You?

2 Formal Italian
English
Vocabulary
Grammar Points
2
2
2
3
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Formal Italian
Alessio Sono di Milano, e tu? Di dove sei?
Melissa Io sono di Miami.
Alessio Ah, non sei di Milano...

Alessio Sono di Milano. Di dove è Lei?

Melissa Io sono di Miami.
Alessio Ah, Lei non è di Milano...

English
Alessio I am from Milan, and you? Where are you from?
Melissa I'm from Miami.
Alessio Ah, you're not from Milan.

Alessio I am from Milan. Madame, where are you from?

Melissa I'm from Miami.
Alessio Ah, you're not from Milan.

2 Vocabulary
Italian English Class
dove where adverb
Milano Milan noun
io I personal pronoun
tu you adverb

Vocabulary Sample Sentences

Dove andiamo? "Where are we going?"
Dove sei stato? "Where have you been?"
Dove sei? "Where are you?"

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Dove abiti? "Where do you live?"

Non sono di Milano. "I'm not from Milan."
Io sono di Firenze. "I am from Florence."
Tu sei uno studente? "Are you a student?"
Anche tu? "Even you?"

Grammar Points
The Focus of This Lesson Is Talking about Origins in Italian and the Verb Essere ("to be").
Di dove sei?
"Where are you from?"

As we have seen, di dove sei is the exact equivalent of "where are you from." It indicates the precise
place where one comes from. You should answer either by mentioning your home city or the nearest
important city in order to let the listener easily understand.

Di is a stationary preposition that we use with essere when talking about a person's birthplace.

Let us now look at the conjugation of the irregular verb essere ("to be").
3 Italian "English"
Io sono "I am."
Tu sei "you are."
Lui/lei è "he/she/it is."
Noi siamo "we are."
Voi siete "you are."
Loro sono "they are."

Since it is irregular, there are no learning tips to make the drilling of this verb easier. The easiest
method to memorize it is to do some written verb drills.

Notice that in the dialogue, we translate the expression di dove sei as "Where are you from?" but there
is no tu (Italian for "you"). This is because there is no need to state the subject, as the form sei implies
"you" in the second singular person pronoun. This is always the way it is in Italian unless we want to
stress the person we are referring to.

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Let us look again at a very important aspect of the Italian language regarding formal speech. The
informal way to ask "Where are you from?" uses the second person singular, tu. However, when we
wish to use formal speech, we just have to switch to the next person, the third person singular, lui/lei,
thus creating a distance between the speakers. So di dove è actually means "Where are you from?" in
formal speech and "Where is he/she from?" in informal speech.

When negating a statement, we should use the negative particle, "no," and non + verb. You can also
skip the initial "no" and just answer with non + verb. For example, non sono di Milano.

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