Italian word for chosen

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WordReference English-Italiano Dictionary © 2023:

Principal Translations/Traduzioni principali
Inglese		Italiano
chose n	(law: piece of personal property)	proprietà personale nf

WordReference English-Italiano Dictionary © 2023:

Principal Translations/Traduzioni principali
Inglese		Italiano
choose [sth]⇒ vtr	(select)	scegliere⇒ vtr
	I think that he will choose the blue sweater.
	Credo che sceglierà il maglione blu.
choose⇒ vi	(make a selection)	scegliere⇒, decidere⇒ vtr
	You can’t take both: you must choose.
	Non puoi avere entrambe le cose: devi scegliere.
choose to do [sth] v expr	(decide, prefer)	decidere di, scegliere di vi
	He chose to become an architect.
	Ha deciso di diventare architetto.
choose from [sth] vi + prep	(decide between)	scegliere tra, decidere tra vi
	He needs to choose from the three options.
	Deve scegliere fra tre possibilità.

WordReference English-Italiano Dictionary © 2023:

Compound Forms/Forme composte chose | choose
Inglese		Italiano
chose in action n	(law: right to bring lawsuit)	diritto a bene intangibile il cui possesso è ottenibile tramite un’azione legale nm
chose in possession n	(law: property)	bene tangibile nm

Question words (or open question words) are an extremely important part of any language because they allow us to expand our knowledge about the things happening around us. Open questions differ from yes-no questions in that the possible ways of responding to them are limitless – or in other words, they must be answered with more than just a yes or a no.

In Italian, there are a number of different ways to ask questions using open question words, most of which have an exact English equivalent. Let’s take a look at them now!

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How to Say “Who / Whom / Whose” in Italian – Chi

Chi is the word for who, whom and whose depending on the context.

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When used to mean who, it comes at the beginning of the sentence and stands in the place of the subject.

• Chi viene alla festa? = Who is coming to the party?
  (Marco viene alla festa. = Marco is coming to the party.)
• Chi è quel uomo misterioso? = Who is that mysterious man?
  (Marco è quel uomo misterioso. = Marco is that mysterious man.)

When chi takes the meaning of whom, it replaces the object and may be preceded by a preposition such as per, con, and so on.

• Chi hai visto? = Whom did you see?
  (Hai visto Marco. = You (did) see Marco.)

• Con chi parli? = With whom are you speaking?
  (Parli con Marco. = You are speaking with Marco.)

• Per chi sono i soldi? = For whom is the money?
  (I soldi sono per Marco. = The money is for Marco.)

Chi can also mean whose when preceded by the preposition di.

• Di chi è questa macchina? = Whose car is this?

• Di chi è la responsabilità? = Whose responsibility is it?

Chi also appears in the word chissà which translates to who knows.

• Chissà da dove viene quella ragazza. = Who knows where that girl comes from.

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How to Say “What” in Italian – Che cosa

Che cosa is the most formal and correct way of saying what in Italian.

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However in speech and in more informal contexts, you will certainly come across cosa and che on their own. Cosa is fairly standard whereas che can be considered slang.

• Che cosa fai? = What are you doing? (formal)
• Cosa fai? = What are you doing? (less formal, used with friends and children)
• Che fai? = Whatcha doin’? / What‘s up? (slang, used with friends, can be aggressive)

Che cosa can also be preceded by prepositions as in the following examples.

• Per che cosa usi il sito? = For what do you use the website? (What do you use the website for?)

• A che cosa serve? = What is it good for? (Lit: To what does it serve.)

When used with certain third-person forms of the verb essere (to be), Italians tend to remove the final a in cosa and replace it with an apostrophe, a process known as elision. It is valid for the spoken and written language.

The version without the elision is grammatically correct, though less popular. It is mainly a question of what feels more natural (which in most cases will be the version with the apostrophe).

• Che cos’è? / Che cosa è = What it is? (present tense, 3rd person singular)
• Che cos’era? / Che cosa era? = What was it? (imperfect tense, 3rd person singular)
• Che cos’erano? / Che cosa erano? = What were they? (imperfect tense, 3rd person plural)

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How to Say “Where” in Italian – Dove

Dove is the word for where in Italian.

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• Dove abiti adesso? = Where do you live now?
• Dove vai domani? = Where are you going tomorrow?

It can be preceded by the preposition da (from).

• Da dove vieni? = From where do you come? (Where do you come from?)

Like cosa, it often loses the final e to an apostrophe in sentences containing forms of essere that begin with the letter e.

• Dov‘è il latte? = Where is the milk?
• Dov’era il latte? = Where was the milk?
• Dov’eravate? = Where were you?

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How to Say “When” in Italian – Quando

Quando is the word for when in Italian.

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It can appear at the beginning of a sentence on its own…

• Quando torni in Italia? = When are you coming back to Italy?
• Quando vuoi andare in montagna? = When do you want to go to the mountains?

…or be preceded by a preposition such as da (from) or entro (by, within). When used with da, it can be translated as (for) how long or since when in English.

• Da quando vivi a Torino? = How long have you lived in Turin? / Since when have you been living in Turin?
• Entro quando devo pagare? = (By) when do I have to pay?

With essere once again you can choose to either truncate the final o or leave it as it is. In the written form however, you may come across the full version more often, especially in the case of the third person plural of the imperfect tense.

• Quand’è la festa? / Quando è la festa? = When is the party?
• Quand’era la festa / Quando era la festa? = When was the party?
• Quand’eravamo qui / Quando eravamo qui? = When were we here?

Note that when Italians talk about specific hours of the day, they tend to favour the expression a che ora over quando.

• A che ora vieni stasera? = At what time are you coming tonight?

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How to Say “Why” in Italian – Perché

Perché is the question word for why in Italian.

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• Perché vuoi imparare l’italiano? = Why do you want to learn Italian?
• Perché non vieni con me? = Why don’t you come with me?

A substitute for perché is per quale motivo which translates to for what reason in English.

• Per quale motivo hai deciso di smettere? = For what reason did you decide to stop?

It is also used in the set phrase perché no which means why not.

• Vuoi uscire con me? – Perché no. = Do you want to go out with me? – Why not.

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How to Say “How” in Italian – Come

Come is the word for how (and sometimes what) in Italian.

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It is used when you are inquiring about the condition of someone/something or the means/manner in which something is done.

• Come sta Marco? = How is Marco?
• Come si dice questo in giapponese? = How do you say this in Japanese?
• Come ha fatto a vincere? = How did he win?

Phonetically speaking, getting rid of the final e and replacing it with an apostrophe flows much better when combining come with essere. It sounds more natural and Italians do it automatically. However, skipping the elision is not incorrect. Note that when used with this verb, come often assumes the meaning what + like rather than how.

• Com’è l’università? = How is university? / What is university like?
• Com’era la festa? = How was the party? / What was the party like?
• Com’erano i ragazzi? = How were the guys? / What were the guys like?

An expression you’ll come across all the time is come mai which means how come.

• Come mai non mangi? = How come you’re not eating?

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How to Say “How much / many” in Italian – Quanto

Quanto is the only question word on this list with feminine and plural forms.

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Quanto (mas. singular) and quanta (fem. singular) are used to describe quantities of uncountable objects while quanti (mas. plural) and quante (fem. plural) are used for countable objects.

• Quanto zucchero vuoi? = How much sugar do you want?
• Quanta salsa hai messo? = How much sauce did you put on?
• Quanti animali ci sono? = How many animals are there?
• Quante persone vengono? = How many people are coming?

When talking about money (soldi), the Italians use the plural quanti. This is because in Italian, soldi is a plural noun whereas in English, it is considered a collective singular noun.

• Quanti soldi vuoi? = How much money do you want?

They can be preceded by prepositions such as in (in) or per (for).

• In quante siamo stasera? = How many of us (women) are there tonight?
• Per quanti devo apparecchiare? = For how many (people) must I set the table?
• Per quanto devo aspettare? = For how long must I wait?

Quanto is an extremely useful question word because it can be combined with vocabulary concerning time, distance and measurements.

• Quanto tempo ci vuole? = How much time / How long does it take?
• Quanto dista* la stazione? = How far is the station?

Note: dista is from the verb distare, which means to be distant, or to be apart.

In this case as well, cutting off the final o and replacing it with an apostrophe is completely optional when using è and essere in the imperfect tense. As you may have guessed at this point, the elision tends to be more popular in spoken Italian.

• Quant’è lungo il film? / Quanto è lungo il film? = How long is the film?
• Quant’era grande? / Quanto era grande? = How big was it?
• Quant’erano piccoli? / Quanto erano piccoli? = How small were they?

Quanto is also used in the set phrase Quanti anni hai? which means How old are you? (Lit: How many years do you have?) You would never say Quanto sei vecchio? in Italian to inquire about someone’s age.

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How to Say “Which” in Italian – Quale

The last question word on this list is quale or which.

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It can be used in the singular (quale) or plural form (quali).

• Quale treno prendi? = Which train are you taking?
• Quali treni prendi? = Which trains are you taking?

It can also be preceded by a preposition such as a (to) or per (for) for example.

• A quale stazione scendi? = At which station are you getting off?
• Per quale azienda lavori? = For which company do you work?

Important: with the verb essere, quale has to obey some unique rules that can be a bit confusing for learners.

The correct form is to ditch the e and skip the apostrophe. This is because, unlike the other examples above, qual exists as an autonomous form so there is no need to denote the absence of the e.

• Qual è la tua stagione preferita? = Which is your favourite season?
• Qual era la tua stagione preferita? = Which was your favourite season?

Note that in Italian literature, especially historical literature, you may find qual’è with the apostrophe (just to make things more confusing). In the modern Italian however, the apostrophe is not used.

In the third person plural, the elision is not incorrect but the tendency is to keep the final i:

• Quali erano i tuoi giocattoli preferiti? = Which were your favourite toys?

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Well, that’s it! Why not ask us a question in the comments below? We’ll do our best to answer you! 😉

Cultural and trade relations
between Italy and England brought many Italian words into English.
The earliest Italian borrowing came into English in the 14-th
century, it was the word «bank» /from the Italian «banko» —
«bench»/. Italian money-lenders and money-changers sat in the
streets on benches. When they suffered losses they turned over their
benches, it was called «banco rotta» from which the English word
«bankrupt» originated. In the 17-th century some geological terms
were borrowed : volcano, granite, bronze, lava. At the same time some
political terms were borrowed: manifesto, bulletin.

But mostly Italian is famous
by its influence in music and in all Indo-European languages musical
terms were borrowed from Italian : alto, baritone, basso, tenor,
falsetto, solo, duet, trio, quartet, quintet, opera, operette,
libretto, piano, violin.

Among the 20-th century
Italian borrowings we can mention : gazette, incognitto, autostrada,
fiasco, fascist, diletante, grotesque, graffitto etc.

Spanish
borrowings.

Spanish borrowings came into
English mainly through its American variant. There are the following
semantic groups of them:

a) trade terms: cargo,
embargo;

b) names of dances and musical
instruments: tango, rumba, habanera, guitar;

c) names of vegetables and
fruit: tomato, potato, tobbaco, cocoa, banana, ananas, apricot etc.

GERMANIC
BORROWINGS

English belongs to the
Germanic group of languages and there are borrowings from
Scandinavian, German and Holland languages, though their number is
much less than borrowings from Romanic languages.

Scandinavian
borrowings.

By the end of the Old English
period English underwent a strong influence of Scandinavian due to
the Scandinavian conquest of the British Isles. Scandinavians
belonged to the same group of peoples as Englishmen and their
languages had much in common. As the result of this conquest there
are about 700 borrowings from Scandinavian into English.

Scandinavians and Englishmen
had the same way of life,their cultural level was the same, they had
much in common in their literature therefore there were many words in
these languages which were almost identical, e.g.

ON OE
Modern E

syster
sweoster sister

fiscr
fisc fish

felagi
felawe fellow

However there were also many
words in the two languages which were different, and some of them
were borrowed into English , such nouns as: bull, cake, egg, kid,
knife, skirt, window etc, such adjectives as: flat, ill, happy, low,
odd, ugly, wrong, such verbs as : call, die, guess, get, give, scream
and many others.

Even some pronouns and
connective words were borrowed which happens very seldom, such as :
same, both, till, fro, though, and pronominal forms with «th»:
they, them, their.

Scandinavian influenced the
development of phrasal verbs which did not exist in Old English, at
the same time some prefixed verbs came out of usage, e.g. ofniman,
beniman. Phrasal verbs are now highly productive in English /take
off, give in etc/.

German
borrowings.

There are some 800 words
borrowed from German into English. Some of them have classical roots,
e.g. in some geological terms, such as: cobalt, bismuth, zink,
quarts, gneiss, wolfram. There were also words denoting objects used
in everyday life which were borrowed from German: iceberg, lobby,
rucksack, Kindergarten etc.

In the period of the Second
World War the following words were borrowed: Volkssturm, Luftwaffe,
SS-man, Bundeswehr, gestapo, gas chamber and many others. After the
Second World War the following words were borrowed: Berufsverbot,
Volkswagen etc.

Holland borrowings.

Holland and England have
constant interrelations for many centuries and more than 2000 Holland
borrowings were borrowed into English. Most of them are nautical
terms and were mainly borrowed in the 14-th century, such as:
freight, skipper, pump, keel, dock, reef, deck, leak and many others.

Besides two main groups of
borrowings (Romanic and Germanic) there are also borrowings from a
lot of other languages. We shall speak about Russian borrowings,
borrowings from the language which belongs to Slavoninc languages.

Russian
borrowings.

There were constant contacts
between England and Russia and they borrowed words from one language
into the other. Among early Russian borrowings there are mainly words
connected with trade relations, such as: rouble, copeck, pood,
sterlet, vodka, sable, and also words relating to nature, such as:
taiga, tundra, steppe etc.

There is also a large group of
Russian borrowings which came into English through Rushian literature
of the 19-th century, such as : Narodnik, moujik, duma, zemstvo.
volost, ukase etc, and also words which were formed in Russian with
Latin roots, such as: nihilist, intelligenzia, Decembrist etc.

After the Great October
Revolution many new words appeared in Russian connected with the new
political system, new culture, and many of them were borrowed into
English, such as: collectivization. udarnik, Komsomol etc and also
translation loans, such as: shock worker, collective farm, five-year
plan etc.

One more group of Russian
borrowings is connected with perestroika, such as: glasnost,
nomenklatura, apparatchik etc.

ETYMOLOGICAL
DOUBLETS

Sometimes a word is borrowed
twice from the same language. As the result, we have two different
words with different spellings and meanings but historically they
come back to one and the same word. Such words are called
etymological doublets. In English there are some groups of them:

Latino-French
doublets.

Latin English from Latin
English from French

uncia inch
ounce

moneta mint
money

camera camera
chamber

Franco-French
doublets

doublets borrowed from
different dialects of French.

Norman
Paris

canal
channel

captain
chieftain

catch
chaise

Scandinavian-English
doublets

Scandinavian
English

skirt
shirt

scabby
shabby

There are also etymological
doublets which were borrowed from the same language during different
historical periods, such as French doublets: gentil — любезный,
благородный, etymological doublets are: gentle — мягкий,
вежливый and genteel — благородный. From the
French word gallant etymological doublets are : ‘gallant — храбрый
and ga’llant — галантный, внимательный.

Sometimes
etymological doublets are the result of borrowing different
grammatical forms of the same word, e.g. the Comparative degree of
Latin «super» was «superior» which was borrowed into English with
the meaning «high in some quality or rank». The Superlative degree
(Latin «supremus»)in English «supreme» with the meaning
«outstanding», «prominent». So «superior» and «supreme» are
etymological doublets.

SEMASIOLOGY

The branch of lexicology which
deals with the meaning is called semasiology.

WORD —
MEANING

Every word has two aspects:
the outer aspect (its sound form) and the inner aspect (its meaning)
. Sound and meaning do not always constitute a constant unit even in
the same language. E.g. the word «temple» may denote «a part of a
human head» and «a large church» In such cases we have homonyms.
One and the same word in different syntactical relations can develop
different meanings, e.g. the verb «treat» in sentences:

a) He treated my words as a
joke.

b) The book treats of poetry.

c) They treated me to sweets.

d) He treats his son cruelly.

In all these sentences the
verb «treat» has different meanings and we can speak about
polysemy.

On the other hand, one and the
same meaning can be expressed by different sound forms, e.g. «pilot»
, and «airman», «horror» and «terror». In such cases we have
synonyms.

Both the meaning and the sound
can develop in the course of time independently. E.g. the Old English
/luvian/ is pronounced /l^v / in Modern English. On the other hand,
«board» primariliy means « a piece of wood sawn thin» It has
developed the meanings: a table, a board of a ship, a stage, a
council etc.

LEXICAL MEANING
— NOTION

The lexical meaning of a word
is the realization of a notion by means of a definite language
system. A word is a language unit, while a notion is a unit of
thinking. A notion cannot exict without a word expressing it in the
language, but there are words which do not express any notion but
have a lexical meaning. Interjections express emotions but not
notions, but they have lexical meanings, e.g. Alas! /disappointment/,
Oh,my buttons! /surprise/ etc. There are also words which express
both, notions and emotions, e.g. girlie, a pig /when used
metaphorically/.

The term
«notion» was introduced into lexicology from logics. A notion
denotes the reflection in the mind of real objects and phenomena in
their relations. Notions, as a rule, are international, especially
with the nations of the same cultural level. While meanings can be
nationally limited. Grouping of meanings in the semantic structure of
a word is determined by the whole system of every language. E.g. the
English verb «go» and its Russian equivalent «идти» have some
meanings which coincide: to move from place to place, to extend /the
road goes to London/, to work /Is your watch going?/. On the other
hand, they have different meanings: in Russian we say :»Вот он
идет» , in English we use the verb «come» in this case. In
English we use the verb «go» in the combinations: «to go by bus»,
«to go by train» etc. In Russian in these cases we use the verb
«ехать».

The number of meanings does
not correspond to the number of words, neither does the number of
notions. Their distribution in relation to words is peculiar in every
language. The Russian has two words for the English «man»: «
мужчина» and «человек». In English, however, «man»
cannot be applied to a female person. We say in Russian: «Она
хороший человек». In English we use the word «person»/
She is a good person»/

Development
of lexical meanings in any language is influenced by the whole
network of ties and relations between words and other aspects of the
language.

POLYSEMY

The word «polysemy» means
«plurality of meanings» it exists only in the language, not in
speech. A word which has more than one meaning is called
polysemantic.

Different meanings of a
polysemantic word may come together due to the proximity of notions
which they express. E.g. the word «blanket» has the following
meanings: a woolen covering used on beds, a covering for keeping a
horse warm, a covering of any kind /a blanket of snow/, covering all
or most cases /used attributively/, e.g. we can say «a blanket
insurance policy».

There are some words in the
language which are monosemantic, such as most terms, /synonym,
molecule, bronchites/, some pronouns /this, my, both/, numerals.

There are two processes of the
semantic development of a word: radiation and concatination. In cases
of radiation the primary meaning stands in the centre and the
secondary meanings proceed out of it like rays. Each secondary
meaning can be traced to the primmary meaning. E.g. in the word
«face» the primary meaning denotes «the front part of the human
head» Connected with the front position the meanings: the front part
of a watch, the front part of a building, the front part of a playing
card were formed. Connected with the word «face» itself the
meanings : expression of the face, outward appearance are formed.

In cases of concatination
secondary meanings of a word develop like a chain. In such cases it
is difficult to trace some meanings to the primary one. E.g. in the
word «crust» the primary meaning «hard outer part of bread»
developed a secondary meaning «hard part of anything /a pie, a
cake/», then the meaning »harder layer over soft snow» was
developed, then «a sullen gloomy person», then «impudence» were
developed. Here the last meanings have nothing to do with the primary
ones. In such cases homonyms appear in the language. It is called the
split of polysemy.

In most cases in the semantic
development of a word both ways of semantic development are combined.

HOMONYMS

Homonyms are words different
in meaning but identical in sound or spelling, or both in sound and
spelling.

Homonyms can appear in the
language not only as the result of the split of polysemy, but also as
the result of levelling of grammar inflexions, when different parts
of speech become identical in their outer aspect, e.g. «care» from
«caru» and «care» from «carian». They can be also formed by
means of conversion, e.g. «to slim» from «slim», «to water»
from «water». They can be formed with the help of the same suffix
from the same stem, e.g. «reader»/ a person who reads and a book
for reading/.

Homonyms can also appear in
the language accidentally, when two words coincide in their
development, e.g. two native words can coincide in their outer
aspects: «to bear» from «beran»/to carry/ and «bear» from
«bera»/an animal/. A native word and a borrowing can coincide in
their outer aspects, e.g. «fair» from Latin «feria» and «fair «
from native «fager» /blond/. Two borrowings can coincide e.g.
«base» from the French «base» /Latin basis/ and «base» /low/
from the Latin «bas» /Italian «basso»/.

Homonyms can develop through
shortening of different words, e.g. «cab» from «cabriolet»,
«cabbage», «cabin».

Classifications
of homonyms.

Walter
Skeat classified homonyms according to their spelling and sound forms
and he pointed out three groups: perfect homonyms that is words
identical in sound and spelling, such as : «school» — «косяк
рыбы» and «школа» ; homographs, that is words with the
same spelling but pronounced differently, e.g. «bow» -/bau/ —
«поклон» and /bou/ — «лук»; homophones that is words
pronounced identically but spelled differently, e.g. «night» —
«ночь» and «knight» — «рыцарь».

Another
classification was suggested by A.I Smirnitsky. He added to Skeat’s
classification one more criterion: grammatical meaning. He subdivided
the group of perfect homonyms in Skeat’s classification into two
types of homonyms: perfect which are identical in their spelling,
pronunciation and their grammar form, such as :»spring» in the
meanings: the season of the year, a leap, a source, and homoforms
which coincide in their spelling and pronunciation but have different
grammatical meaning, e.g. «reading» — Present Participle, Gerund,
Verbal noun., to lobby — lobby .

A more detailed classification
was given by I.V. Arnold. She classified only perfect homonyms and
suggested four criteria of their classification: lexical meaning,
grammatical meaning, basic forms and paradigms.

According to these criteria
I.V. Arnold pointed out the following groups: a) homonyms identical
in their grammatical meanings, basic forms and paradigms and
different in their lexical meanings, e.g. «board» in the meanings
«a council» and « a piece of wood sawn thin»; b) homonyms
identical in their grammatical meanings and basic forms, different in
their lexical meanings and paradigms, e.g. to lie — lied — lied, and
to lie — lay — lain; c) homonyms different in their lexical meanings,
grammatical meanings, paradigms, but coinciding in their basic forms,
e.g. «light» / «lights»/, «light» / «lighter», «lightest»/;
d) homonyms different in their lexical meanings, grammatical
meanings, in their basic forms and paradigms, but coinciding in one
of the forms of their paradigms, e.g. «a bit» and «bit» (from «
to bite»).

In I. V.
Arnold’s classification there are also patterned homonyms, which,
differing from other homonyms, have a common component in their
lexical meanings. These are homonyms formed either by means of
conversion, or by levelling of grammar inflexions. These homonyms are
different in their grammar meanings, in their paradigms, identical in
their basic forms, e.g. «warm» — «to warm». Here we can also have
unchangeable patterned homonyms which have identical basic forms,
different grammatical meanings, a common component in their lexical
meanings, e.g. «before» an adverb, a conjunction, a preposition.
There are also homonyms among unchangeable words which are different
in their lexical and grammatical meanings, identical in their basic
foms, e.g. « for» — «для» and «for» — «ибо».

SYNONYMS

Synonyms
are words different in their outer aspects, but identical or similar
in their inner aspects. In English there are a lot of synonyms,
because there are many borrowings, e.g. hearty / native/ — cordial/
borrowing/. After a word is borrowed it undergoes desynonymization,
because absolute synonyms are unnecessary for a language. However,
there are some absolute synonyms in the language, which have exactly
the same meaning and belong to the same style, e.g. to moan, to
groan; homeland, motherland etc. In cases of desynonymization one of
the absolute synonyms can specialize in its meaning and we get
semantic synonyms, e.g. «city» /borrowed/, «town» /native/. The
French borrowing «city» is specialized. In other cases native words
can be specialized in their meanings, e.g. «stool» /native/,
«chair» /French/.

Sometimes one of the absolute
synonyms is specialized in its usage and we get stylistic synonyms,
e.g. «to begin»/ native/, «to commence» /borrowing/. Here the
French word is specialized. In some cases the native word is
specialized, e.g. «welkin» /bookish/, «sky» /neutral/.

Stylistic synonyms can also
appear by means of abbreviation. In most cases the abbreviated form
belongs to the colloquial style, and the full form to the neutral
style, e.g. «examination’, «exam».

Among stylistic synonyms we
can point out a special group of words which are called euphemisms.
These are words used to substitute some unpleasant or offensive
words, e.g «the late» instead of «dead», «to perspire» instead
of «to sweat» etc.

There are also phraseological
synonyms, these words are identical in their meanings and styles but
different in their combining with other words in the sentence, e.g.
«to be late for a lecture» but «to miss the train», «to visit
museums» but «to attend lectures» etc.

In each group of synonyms
there is a word with the most general meaning, which can substitute
any word in the group, e.g. «piece» is the synonymic dominant in
the group «slice», «lump», «morsel». The verb « to look at»
is the synonymic dominant in the group «to stare», «to glance»,
«to peep». The adjective «red’ is the synonymic dominant in the
group «purple», «scarlet», «crimson».

When speaking about the
sources of synonyms, besides desynonymization and abbreviation, we
can also mention the formation of phrasal verbs, e.g. «to give up»
— «to abandon», «to cut down» — «to diminish».

ANTONYMS

Antonyms
are words belonging to the same part of speech, identical in style,
expressing contrary or contradictory notions.

V.N.
Comissarov in his dictionary of antonyms classified them into two
groups : absolute or root antonyms /»late» — «early»/ and
derivational antonyms / «to please’ — «to displease»/ . Absolute
antonyms have different roots and derivational antonyms have the same
roots but different affixes. In most cases negative prefixes form
antonyms / un-, dis-, non-/. Sometimes they are formed by means of
suffixes -ful and -less.

The
number of antonyms with the suffixes ful- and -less is not very
large, and sometimes even if we have a word with one of these
suffixes its antonym is formed not by substituting -ful by less-,
e.g. «successful» -»unsuccessful», «selfless» — «selfish».
The same is true about antonyms with negative prefixes, e.g. «to
man» is not an antonym of the word «to unman», «to disappoint»
is not an antonym of the word «to appoint».

The
difference between derivational and root antonyms is not only in
their structure, but in semantics as well. Derivational antonyms
express contradictory notions, one of them excludes the other, e.g.
«active»- «inactive». Absolute antonyms express contrary notions.
If some notions can be arranged in a group of more than two members,
the most distant members of the group will be absolute antonyms, e.g.
«ugly» , «plain», «good-looking», «pretty», «beautiful»,
the antonyms are «ugly» and «beautiful».

Leonard
Lipka in the book «Outline of English Lexicology» describes
different types of oppositeness, and subdivides them into three
types:

a)
complementary, e.g. male -female, married -single,

b)
antonyms, e.g. good -bad,

c)
converseness, e.g. to buy — to sell.

In
his classification he describes complimentarity in the following way:
the denial of the one implies the assertion of the other, and vice
versa. «John is not married» implies that «John is single». The
type of oppositeness is based on yes/no decision. Incompatibility
only concerns pairs of lexical units.

Antonymy
is the second class of oppositeness. It is distinguished from
complimentarity by being based on different logical relationships.
For pairs of antonyms like good/bad, big/small only the second one of
the above mentioned relations of implication holds. The assertion
containing one member implies the negation of the other, but not vice
versa. «John is good» implies that «John is not bad», but «John
is not good» does not imply that «John is bad». The negation of
one term does not necessarily implies the assertion of the other.

An
important linguistic difference from complementaries is that antonyms
are always fully gradable, e.g. hot, warm, tepid, cold.

Converseness
is mirror-image relations or functions, e.g. husband/wife,
pupil/teacher, preceed/follow, above/below, before/after etc.

«John
bought the car from Bill» implies that «Bill sold the car to John».
Mirror-image sentences are in many ways similar to the relations
between active and passive sentences. Also in the comparative form:
»Y is smaller than X, then X is larger than Y».

L.
Lipka also gives the type which he calls directional opposition
up/down, consiquence opposition learn/know, antipodal opposition
North/South, East/West, ( it is based on contrary motion, in opposite
directions.) The pairs come/go, arrive/depart involve motion in
different directions. In the case up/down we have movement from a
point P. In the case come/go we have movement from or to the speaker.

L.
Lipka also points out non-binary contrast or many-member lexical
sets. Here he points out serially ordered sets, such as scales / hot,
warm, tepid, cool, cold/ ; colour words / black, grey, white/ ; ranks
/marshal, general, colonel, major, captain etc./ There are gradable
examination marks / excellent, good, average, fair, poor/. In such
sets of words we can have outer and inner pairs of antonyms. He also
points out cycles, such as units of time /spring, summer, autumn,
winter/ . In this case there are no «outermost» members.

Not
every word in a language can have antonyms. This type of opposition
can be met in qualitative adjectives and their derivatives, e.g.
beautiful- ugly, to beautify — to uglify, beauty — ugliness. It can
be also met in words denoting feelings and states, e.g. respect —
scorn, to respect — to scorn, respectful — scornful, to live — to
die, alive — dead, life — death. It can be also met among words
denoting direction in space and time, e.g. here — there, up — down ,
now — never, before — after, day — night, early — late etc.

If
a word is polysemantic it can have several antonyms, e.g. the word
«bright» has the antonyms «dim», «dull», «sad».

LOCAL VARIETIES OF ENGLISH

ON THE BRITISH ISLES

On the British Isles there are
some local varieties of English which developed from Old English
local dialects. There are six groups of them: Lowland /Scottish/ ,
Northern, Western, Midland, Eastern, Southern. These varieties are
used in oral speech by the local population. Only the Scottish
dialect has its own literature /R. Berns/.

One of the best known dialects
of British English is the dialect of London — Cockney. Some
peculiarities of this dialect can be seen in the first act of
«Pigmalion» by B. Shaw, such as : interchange of /v/ and /w/ e.g.
wery vell; interchange of /f/ and /0/ , /v/ and / /, e. g/ fing
/thing/ and fa:ve / father/; interchange of /h/ and /-/ , e.g.
«’eart» for «heart» and «hart» for «art; substituting the
diphthong /ai/ by /ei/ e.g. «day» is pronounced /dai/; substituting
/au/ by /a:/ , e.g. «house» is pronounced /ha:s/,«now« /na:/ ;
substituting /ou/ by /o:/ e.g. «don’t» is pronounced /do:nt/ or
substituting it by / / in unstressed positions, e.g. «window» is
pronounced /wind /.

Another feature of Cockney is
rhyming slang: «hat» is «tit for tat», «wife» is «trouble and
strife», «head» is «loaf of bread» etc. There are also such
words as «tanner» /sixpence/, «peckish»/hungry/.

Peter Wain in the «Education
Guardian» writes about accents spoken by University teachers: «It
is a variety of Southern English RP which is different from Daniel
Jones’s description. The English, public school leavers speak, is
called «marked RP», it has some characteristic features : the
vowels are more central than in English taught abroad, e.g. «bleck
het»/for «black hat»/, some diphthongs are also different, e.g.
«house» is pronounced /hais/. There is less aspiration in /p/, /b/,
/t/ /d/.

The American English is
practically uniform all over the country, because of the constant
transfer of people from one part of the country to the other.
However, some peculiarities in New York dialect can be pointed out,
such as: there is no distinction between / / and /a: / in words:
«ask», «dance» «sand» «bad», both phonemes are possible. The
combination «ir» in the words: «bird», «girl» «ear» in the
word «learn» is pronoinced as /oi/ e.g. /boid/, /goil/, /loin/.In
the words «duty’, «tune» /j/ is not pronounced /du:ti/, /tu:n/.

BRITISH AND
AMERICAN ENGLISH

British and American English
are two main variants of English. Besides them there are : Canadian,
Australian, Indian, New Zealand and other variants. They have some
peculiarities in pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary, but they are
easily used for communication between people living in these
countries. As far as the American English is concerned, some
scientists /H.N. Menken, for example/ tried to prove that there is a
separate American language. In 1919 H.N. Menken published a book
called «The American Language». But most scientists, American ones
including, criticized his point of view because differences between
the two variants are not systematic.

American English begins its
history at the beginning of the 17-th century when first
English-speaking settlers began to settle on the Atlantic coast of
the American continent. The language which they brought from England
was the language spoken in England during the reign of Elizabeth the
First.

In the earliest period the
task of Englishmen was to find names for places, animals, plants,
customs which they came across on the American continent. They took
some of names from languages spoken by the local population —
Indians, such as :»chipmuck»/an American squirrel/, «igloo»
/Escimo dome-shaped hut/, «skunk» / a black and white striped
animal with a bushy tail/, «squaw» / an Indian woman/, »wigwam»
/an American Indian tent made of skins and bark/ etc.

Besides Englishmen, settlers
from other countries came to America, and English-speaking settlers
mixed with them and borrowed some words from their languages, e.g.
from French the words «bureau»/a writing desk/, «cache» /a hiding
place for treasure, provision/, «depot’/ a store-house/,
«pumpkin»/a plant bearing large edible fruit/. From Spanish such
words as: »adobe» / unburnt sun-dried brick/, »bananza»
/prosperity/, «cockroach» /a beetle-like insect/, «lasso» / a
noosed rope for catching cattle/ were borrowed.

Present-day New York stems
from the Dutch colony New Amsterdam, and Dutch also influenced
English. Such words as: «boss», «dope», «sleigh» were borrowed
.

The second period of American
English history begins in the 19-th century. Immigrants continued to
come from Europe to America. When large groups of immigrants from the
same country came to America some of their words were borrowed into
English. Italians brought with them a style of cooking which became
widely spread and such words as: «pizza», «spaghetti» came into
English. From the great number of German-speaking settlers the
following words were borrowed into English: «delicatessen»,
«lager», «hamburger», «noodle», «schnitzel» and many others.

During the second period of
American English history there appeared quite a number of words and
word-groups which were formed in the language due to the new poitical
system, liberation of America from the British colonialism, its
independence. The following lexical units appeared due to these
events: the United States of America , assembly, caucus, congress,
Senate, congressman, President, senator, precinct, Vice-President and
many others. Besides these political terms many other words were
coined in American English in the 19-th century: to antagonize, to
demoralize, influential, department store, telegram, telephone and
many others.

There are
some differences between British and American English in the usage of
prepositions, such as prepositions with dates, days of the week BE
requres «on» / I start my holiday on Friday/, in American English
there is no preposition / I start my vacation Friday/. In Be we use
«by day», «by night»/»at night», in AE the corresponding forms
are «days» and «nights». In BE we say «at home» , in AE —
«home» is used. In BE we say «a quarter to five», in AE «a
quarter of five». In BE we say «in the street», in AE — «on the
street». In BE we say «to chat to somebody», in AE «to chat with
somebody». In BE we say «different to something», in AE —
«different from someting».

There are
also units of vocabulary which are different while denoting the same
notions, e.g. BE — «trousers», AE -«pants»; in BE «pants» are
«трусы» which in AE is «shorts». While in BE «shorts» are
outwear. This can lead to misunderstanding. There are some
differences in names of places:

BE AE BE
AE

passage hall
cross-roads intersection

pillar box mail-box the
cinema the movies

studio, bed-sitter
one-room appartment

flyover overpass zebra
crossing Pxing

pavement sidewalk tube,
uderground subway

tram streetcar flat
apartment

surgery doctor’s office
lift elevator

Some names of useful objects:

BE AE BE
AE

biro ballpoint
rubber eraser

tap faucet
torch flashlight

parcel package
elastic rubber band

carrier bag shopping bag
reel of cotton spool of thread

Some words connected with
food:

BE AE
BE AE

tin can
sweets candy

sweet biscuit cookie
dry biscuit crackers

sweet dessert
chips french fries

minced meat
ground beef

Some words denoting personal
items:

BE AE
BE AE

fringe bangs/of hair/
turn- ups cuffs

tights pantyhose
mackintosh raincoat

ladder run/in a stocking/
braces suspenders

poloneck turtleneck
waistcoat vest

Some words denoting people:

BE AE
BE AE

barrister, lawyer,
staff /university/ faculty

post-graduate graduate
chap, fellow guy

caretaker janitor
constable patrolman

shopassistant shopperson
bobby cop

If we speak about cars
there are also some differences:

BE AE BE
AE

boot trunk
bumpers fenders

a car, an auto,
to hire a car to rent a car

Differences in the
organization of education lead to different terms. BE «public
school» is in fact a private school. It is a fee-paying school not
controlled by the local education authorities. AE «public school»
is a free local authority school. BE «elementary school» is AE
«grade school» BE «secondary school» is AE «high school». In BE
« a pupil leaves a secondary school», in AE «a student graduates
from a high school» In BE you can graduate from a university or
college of education, graduating entails getting a degree.

A British university student
takes three years known as the first, the second and the third years.
An American student takes four years, known as freshman, sophomore,
junior and senior years. While studying a British student takes a
main and subsidiary subjects. An American student majors in a subject
and also takes electives. A British student specializes in one main
subject, with one subsidiary to get his honours degree. An American
student earns credits for successfully completing a number of courses
in studies, and has to reach the total of 36 credits to receive a
degree.

Differences
of spelling.

The reform in the English
spelling for American English was introduced by the famous American
lexicographer Noah Webster who published his first dictionary in
1806. Those of his proposals which were adopted in the English
spelling are as follows:

a) the delition of the letter
«u» in words ending in «our», e.g. honor, favor;

b) the delition of the second
consonant in words with double consonants, e.g. traveler, wagon,

c) the replacement of «re»
by «er» in words of French origin, e.g. theater, center,

d) the delition of
unpronounced endings in words of Romanic origin, e.g.

catalog, program,

e) the replacement of «ce»
by «se» in words of Romanic origin, e.g. defense, offense,

d) delition of unpronounced
endings in native words, e.g. tho, thro.

Differences
in pronunciation

In American English we have
r-coloured fully articulated vowels, in the combinations: ar, er, ir,
or, ur, our etc. In BE the sound / / corresponds to the AE /^/, e.g.
«not». In BE before fricatives and combinations with fricatives «a»
is pronounced as /a:/, in AE it is pronounced / / e.g. class,
dance, answer, fast etc.

There are some differences in
the position of the stress:

BE AE
BE AE

add`ress adress
la`boratory `laboratory

re`cess `recess
re`search `research

in`quiry `inquiry
ex`cess `excess

Some words in BE and AE have
different pronunciation, e.g.

BE AE
BE AE

/`fju:tail/ /`fju:t l/
/`dousail / /dos l/

/kla:k/ /kl rk/
/`fig / /figyer/

/ `le3 / / li:3 r/
/lef`ten nt/ /lu:tenant/

/ nai / /ni: r/
/shedju:l/ /skedyu:l/

But these differences in
pronunciation do not prevent Englishmen and American from
communicating with each other easily and cannot serve as a proof that
British and American are different languages.

Words can be classified
according to the period of their life in the language. The number of
new words in a language is always larger than the number of words
which come out of active usage. Accordingly we can have archaisms,
that is words which have come out of active usage, and neologisms,
that is words which have recently appeared in the language.

ARCHAISMS

Archaisms are words which are
no longer used in everyday speech, which have been ousted by their
synonyms. Archaisms remain in the language, but they are used as
stylistic devices to express solemnity.

Most of these words are
lexical archaisms and they are stylistic synonyms of words which
ousted them from the neutral style. Some of them are: steed /horse/,
slay /kill/, behold /see/, perchance /perhaps/, woe /sorrow/ etc.

Sometimes a lexical archaism
begins a new life, getting a new meaning, then the old meaning
becomes a semantic archaism, e.g. «fair» in the meaning «beautiful»
is a semantic archaism, but in the meaning «blond» it belongs to
the neutral style.

Sometimes the root of the
word remains and the affix is changed, then the old affix is
considered to be a morphemic archaism, e.g. «beautious» /»ous»
was substituted by «ful»/, «bepaint» / «be» was dropped/,
«darksome» /»some» was dropped/, «oft» / «en» was added/.
etc.

NEOLOGISMS

At the present moment English
is developing very swiftly and there is so called «neology blowup».
R. Berchfield who worked at compiling a four-volume supplement to NED
says that averagely 800 neologisms appear every year in Modern
English. It has also become a language-giver recently, especially
with the development of computerization.

New words, as a rule, appear
in speech of an individual person who wants to express his idea in
some original way. This person is called «originater». New lexical
units are primarily used by university teachers, newspaper reporters,
by those who are connected with mass media.

Neologisms
can develop in three main ways: a lexical unit existing in the
language can change its meaning to denote a new object or phenomenon.
In such cases we have semantic neologisms, e.g. the word «umbrella»
developed the meanings: «авиационное прикрытие»,
»политическое прикрытие». A new lexical unit
can develop in the language to denote an object or phenomenon which
already has some lexical unit to denote it. In such cases we have
transnomination, e.g. the word «slum» was first substituted by the
word «ghetto» then by the word-group «inner town». A new lexical
unit can be introduced to denote a new object or phenomenon. In this
case we have «a proper neologism», many of them are cases of new
terminology.

Here we can point out several
semantic groups when we analize the group of neologisms connected
with computerization, and here we can mention words used:

a) to denote different types
of computers, e.g. PC, super-computer, multi-user, neurocomputer /
analogue of a human brain/;

b) to denote parts of
computers, e.g. hardware, software, monitor, screen, data, vapourware
/ experimental samples of computers for exhibition, not for
production/;

c) to denote computer
languages, e.g. BASIC, Algol FORTRAN etc;

d) to denote notions connected
with work on computers, e.g. computerman, computerization,
computerize, to troubleshoot, to blitz out / to ruin data in a
computer’s memory/.

There are also different types
of activities performed with the help of computers, many of them are
formed with the help of the morpheme «tele», e.g. to telework, to
telecommute / to work at home having a computer which is connected
with the enterprise for which one works/. There are also such words
as telebanking, telemarketing, teleshopping / when you can perform
different operations with the help of your computer without leaving
your home, all operations are registered by the computer at your
bank/, videobank /computerized telephone which registers all
information which is received in your absence/.

In the sphere of lingusitics
we have such neologisms as: machine translation, interlingual / an
artificial language for machine translation into several languages /
and many others.

In the sphere of biometrics we
have computerized machines which can recognize characteristic
features of people seeking entrance : finger-print scanner / finger
prints/, biometric eye-scanner / blood-vessel arrangements in eyes/,
voice verification /voice patterns/. These are types of biometric
locks. Here we can also mention computerized cards with the help of
which we can open the door without a key.

In the sphere of medicine
computors are also used and we have the following neologisms:
telemonitory unit / a telemonitory system for treating patience at a
distance/.

With the
development of social activities neologisms appeared as well, e.g.
youthquake — волнения среди молодежи,
pussy-footer — политик, идущий на компромисы,
Euromarket, Eurodollar, Europarliament, Europol etc.

In the
modern English society there is a tendency to social stratification,
as a result there are neologisms in this sphere as well, e.g.
belonger — представитель
среднего
класса,
приверженец
консервативных
взглядов.
To this group we can also refer abbreviations of the type yuppie
/young urban professional people/, such as: muppie, gruppie, rumpie,
bluppie etc. People belonging to the lowest layer of the society are
called survivers, a little bit more prosperous are called sustainers,
and those who try to prosper in life and imitate those, they want to
belong to, are called emulaters. Those who have prospered but are not
belongers are called achievers. All these layers of socety are called
VAL /Value and Lifestyles/ .

The rich belong also to jet
set that is those who can afford to travel by jet planes all over the
world enjoying their life. Sometimes they are called «jet plane
travellers».

During Margaret Thatcher’s
rule the abbreviation PLU appeared which means «People like us» by
which snobbistic circles of society call themselves. Nowadays /since
1989/ PLU was substituted by «one of us».

There are a
lot of immigrants now in UK , in connection with which neologisms
partial and non-partial were formed /имеющие право жить
в стране и его антоним/.

The word-group «welfare
mother» was formed to denote a non-working single mother living on
benefit.

In
connection with criminalization of towns in UK volantary groups of
assisting the police were formed where dwellers of the neighbourhood
are joined. These groups are called «neighbourhood watch», «home
watch». Criminals wear «stocking masks» not to be recognized.

The higher society has
neologisms in their speech, such as : dial-a-meal, dial-a-taxi.

In the
language of teen-agers there are such words as : Drugs! /OK/, sweat
/бег на длинные дистанции/, task /home
composition /, brunch etc.

With the development of
professional jargons a lot of words ending in «speak» appeared in
English, e.g. artspeak, sportspeak, medspeak, education-speak,
video-speak, cable-speak etc.

There are different semantic
groups of neologisms belonging to everyday life:

a) food e.g. «starter»/
instead of «hors d’oevres»/, macrobiotics / raw vegetables, crude
rice/ , longlife milk, clingfilm, microwave stove, consumer
electronics, fridge-freezer, hamburgers /beef-, cheese-, fish-, veg-
/.

b) clothing, e.g. catsuit
/one-piece clinging suit/, slimster , string / miniscule bikini/,
hipster / trousers or skirt with the belt on hips/, completenik / a
long sweater for trousers/, sweatnik /a long jacket/, pants-skirt,
bloomers / lady’s sports trousers/.

c) footwear e.g. winklepickers
/shoes with long pointed toes/, thongs /open sandals/, backsters
/beech sandals with thick soles/.

d) bags, e.g. bumbag /a small
bag worn on the waist/, sling bag /a bag with a long belt/, maitre /
a small bag for cosmetics/.

There are also such words as :
dangledolly / a dolly-talisman dangling in the car before the
windscreen/, boot-sale /selling from the boot of the car/, touch-tone
/a telephone with press-button/.

Neologisms can be also
classified according to the ways they are formed. They are subdivided
into : phonological neologisms, borrowings, semantic neologisms and
syntactical neologisms. Syntactical neologisms are divided into
morphological /word-building/ and phraseological /forming
word-groups/.

Phonological neologisms are
formed by combining unique combinations of sounds, they are called
artificial, e.g. rah-rah /a short skirt which is worn by girls during
parades/, «yeck» /»yuck» which are interjections to express
repulsion produced the adjective yucky/ yecky. These are strong
neologisms.

Strong neologisms include also
phonetic borrowings, such as «perestroika» /Russian/, «solidarnosc»
/Polish/, Berufsverbot / German /, dolce vita /Italian/ etc.

Morphological and syntactical
neologisms are usually built on patterns existing in the language,
therefore they do not belong to the group of strong neologisms.

Among
morphological neologisms there are a lot of compound words of
different types, such as «free-fall»-»резкое падение
курса акций» appeared in 1987 with the stock market crash
in October 1987 /on the analogy with free-fall of parachutists, which
is the period between jumping and opening the chute/. Here also
belong: call-and-recall — вызов на диспансеризацию,
bioastronomy -search for life on other planets, rat-out — betrayal in
danger , zero-zero (double zero) — ban of longer and shorter range
weapon, x-rated /about films terribly vulgar and cruel/, Ameringlish
/American English/, tycoonography — a biography of a business tycoon.

There are also abbreviations
of different types, such as resto, teen /teenager/, dinky /dual
income no kids yet/, ARC /AIDS-related condition, infection with
AIDS/, HIV / human immuno-deficiency virus/.

Quite a number of neologisms
appear on the analogy with lexical units existing in the language,
e.g. snowmobile /automobile/, danceaholic /alcoholic/, airtel
/hotel/, cheeseburger /hamburger/, autocade / cavalcade/.

There are many neologisms
formed by means of affixation, such as: decompress, to disimprove,
overhoused, educationalist, slimster, folknik etc. Phraseological
neologisms can be subdivided into phraseological units with
transferred meanings, e.g. to buy into/ to become involved/, fudge
and dudge /avoidance of definite decisions/, and set non-idiomatic
expressions, e.g. electronic virus, Rubic’s cube, retail park, acid
rain , boot trade etc.

Changes in pronunciation.

In Modern British English
there is a tendency to change pronunciation of some sounds and
combinations of sounds due to the influence of American English and
some other factors. These changes are most noticeable in the speech
of teachers and students of the universities in the Southern part of
England /Oxford, Cambridge, London/.

There are the following
changes in pronouncing vowels:

a) shortening of long vowels,
especially at the end of the word and before voiceless consonants,
e.g. see, keep;

b) lengthening of short vowels
before voiced consonants, e.g. big, good, come, jam etc. In such
adjectives which end in /d/ lengthening of the vowel is observed all
over England, e.g. bad, sad, glad, mad etc.

c) drawling of stressed
syllables and clipping of unstressed syllables.

d) In unstressed syllables / /
is pronounced instead of / i /, e.g. /b `ko:z/, /`evid ns/ etc.

e) In the words consisting of
three or more syllables there is a tendency to have two main
stresses,e.g. /`nes `s ri/, /`int `restin/.

f) The diphthong /ou/ is
pronounced / u/,e.g. home /h um/, go /g u/.

g) the diphthong / u / is
pronounced /o:/, e.g. sure /sho:/.

Vowels can also change under
the influence of consonants:

a) after fricatives and
consonants /n/ and /m/ /ju:/ is pronounced as /u:/, e.g. resume,
music, news, enthusiasm.

b) before fricatives and
combinations of fricatives with consonants «a« is pronounced as /
/, e.g. dance, answer, class, fast.

The pronunciation of some
consonants is also changed :

a) after a vowel /r/ is
pronounced ,e.g. /ka:r/ , /ha:rt/.

b)There appears an intrusive
/r/ in the combinations where after the final vowel / / there is a
vowel at the beginning of the next word, e.g. the idea of, Asia and
Europe/ on the analogy with word combinations there is, there are/.

c) /p/ and /t/ are glotalized
in the middle of the word,e.g. matter is pronounced as /`m ? /,
happy as /`h ? i/.

d) /s/ is used instead of /sh/
before /i/ in the structure of suffixes, e.g. social /`sousi l/,
negotiate / ni`gousi,eit/;

e) /l/ is vocalized at the end
of the word, e.g. full/ ful/( close to /v/ in sound).

f) /sh/ is voiced in the
intervocal position in some geographical names, e.g . «Asia»,
«Persia»;

g) combinations of sounds
/dj/, /tj/ , /sj/ in such words as duke, tube, issue have two
variants of pronunciation: /d3u:k/ and /dju:k/, /chu:b/ and /tju:b/,
/`ishu:/ and /`isju:/;

g) pronunciation approaching
spelling is being developed, e.g. often /`oftn/, forehead / fo:`hed/
etc;

h) /t/ and/d/ at the end of
words are not pronounced, e.g. «half past five’ /`ha:f
`pa:s`faiv/, «old man» /`oul `m n/.

LEXICOGRAPHY

The theory and practice of
compiling dictionaries is called lexicography. The history of
compiling dictionaries for English comes as far back as the Old
English period, where we can find glosses of religious books /
interlinear translations from Latin into English/. Regular bilingual
dictionaries began to appear in

the 15-th century
/Anglo-Latin, Anglo-French , Anglo-German/.

The first unilingual
dictionary explaining difficult words appeared in 1604, the author
was Robert Cawdry, a schoolmaster. He compiled his dictionary for
schoolchildren. In 1721 an English scientist and writer Nathan Bailey
published the first etymological dictionary which explained the
origin of English words. It was the first scientific dictionary, it
was compiled for philologists.

In 1775 an English scientist
compiled a famous explanatory dictionary. Its author was Samuel
Johnson. Every word in his dictionary was illustrated by examples
from English literature, the meanings of words were clear from the
contexts in which they were used.. The dictionary was a great success
and it influenced the development of lexicography in all countries.
The dictionary influenced normalization of the English vocabulary.
But at the same time it helped to preserve the English spelling in
its conservative form.

In 1858 one of the members of
the English philological society Dr. Trench raised the question of
compiling a dictionary including all the words existing in the
language. The

philological society adopted
the decision to compile the dictionary and the work started. More
than a thousand people took part in collecting examples, and 26 years
later in 1884 the first volume was published. It contained words
beginning with «A» and «B». The last volume was published in 1928
that is 70 years after the decision to compile it was adopted. The
dictionary was called NED and contained 12 volumes.

In 1933 the dictionary was
republished under the title «The Oxford English Dictionary»,
because the work on the dictionary was conducted in Oxford. This
dictionary contained 13 volumes. As the dictionary was very large and
terribly expensive scientists continued their work and compiled
shorter editions of the dictionary: «A Shorter Oxford Dictionary»
consisting of two volumes. It had the same number of entries, but far
less examples from literature. They also compiled «A Concise Oxford
Dictionary» consisting of one volume and including only modern words
and no examples from literature.

The American lexicography
began to develop much later, at the end of the 18-th century. The
most famous American English dictionary was compiled by Noah Webster.
He was an active stateman and public man and he published his first
dictionary in 1806. He went on with his work on the dictionary and in
1828 he published a two-volume dictionary. He tried to simplify the
English spelling and transcription. He introduced the alphabetical
system of transcription where he used letters and combinations of
letters instead of transcription signs. He denoted vowels in closed
syllables by the corresponding vowels, e.g. / a/, /e/, / i/, / o/,
/u/. He denoted vowels in the open syllable by the same letters, but
with a dash above them,e.g. / a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/. He denoted
vowels in the position before /r/ as the same letters with two dots
above them, e.g. / a/, /o/ and by the l etter «e» with two dots
above it for the combinations «er», «ir», «ur» because they are
pronounced identically. The same tendency is preserved for other
sounds : /u:/ is denoted by /oo/, /y/ is used for the sound /j/ etc.

Classification
of dictionaries

All dictionaries are divided
into linguistic and encyclopedic dictionaries. Encyclopedic
dictionaries describe different objects, phenomena, people and give
some data about them. Linguistic dictionaries describe vocabulary
units, their semantic structure, their origin, their usage. Words are
usually given in the alphabetical order.

Linguistic dictionaries are
divided into general and specialized . To general dictionries two
most widely used dictionaries belong: explanatory and translation
dictionaries. Specialized dictionaries include dictionaries of
synonyms, antonyms, collocations, word-frequency, neologisms, slang,
pronouncing, etymological, phraseological and others.

All types of dictionaries can
be unilingual ( excepting translation ones) if the explanation is
given in the same language, bilingual if the explanation is given in
another language and also they can be polilingual.

There are a lot of explanatory
dictionaries (NED, SOD, COD, NID, N.G. Wyld’s «Universal
Dictionary» and others). In explanatory dictionaries the entry
consists of the spelling, transcription, grammatical forms, meanings,
examples, phraseology. Pronunciation is given either by means of the
International Transcription System or in British Phonetic Notation
which is different in each large dictionary, e.g. /o:/ can be
indicated as / aw/, /or/, /oh/, /o/. etc.

Translation dictionaries give
words and their equivalents in the other language. There are
English-Russian dictionaries by I.R. Galperin, by Y.Apresyan and
others. Among general dictionaries we can also mention Learner’s
dictionaries. They began to appear in the second half of the 20-th
century. The most famous is «The Advanced Learner’s Dictionary»
by A.S. Hornby. It is a unilingual dictionary based on COD, for
advanced foreign learners and language teachers. It gives data about
grammatical and lexical valency of words. Specialized dictionaries of
synonyms are also widely used, one of them is «A Dictionary of
English Synonyms and Synonymous Expressions» by R.Soule. Another
famous one is «Webster’s Dictionary of Synonyms». These are
unilingual dictionaries. The best known bilingual dictionary of
synonyms is «English Synonyms» compiled by Y. Apresyan.

In 1981 «The Longman Lexicon
of Contemporary English» was compiled, where words are given in 14
semantic groups of everyday nature. Each word is defined in detail,
its usage is explained and illustrated, synonyms, antonyms are
presented also. It describes 15000 items, and can be referred to
dictionaries of synonyms and to explanatory dictionaries.

Phraseological dictionaries
describe idioms and colloquial phrases, proverbs. Some of them have
examples from literature. Some lexicographers include not only
word-groups but also anomalies among words. In «The Oxford Dicionary
of English Proverbs» each proverb is illustrated by a lot of
examples, there are stylistic references as well. The dictionary by
Vizetelli gives definitions and illustrations, but different meanings
of polisemantic units are not given. The most famous bilingual
dictionary of phraseology was compiled by A.V. Koonin. It is one of
the best phraseological dictionaries.

Etymological dictionaries
trace present-day words to the oldest forms of these words and forms
of these words in other languages. One of the best etymological
dictionaries was compiled by W. Skeat.

Pronouncing dictionaries
record only pronunciation. The most famous is D. Jones’ s
«Pronouncing Dictionary».

Dictionaries of neologisms are
: a four-volume «Supplement to NED» by Burchfield, «The Longman
Register of New Words»/1990/, «Bloomsury Dictionary of New Words»
/1996/.

SEMINARS

Seminar 1

Language units.

The smallest language unit.

The function of a root
morpheme.

The main function of suffixes.

The secondary function of
suffixes.

The main function of prefixes.

The secondary function of
prefixes.

Splinters and their formation
in English.

The difference between affixes
and splinters.

Structural types of words in
English.

The stem of a word and the
difference beween a simple word, a stem and a root.

The difference between a block
compound and a nominal benomial.

The difference between a word
and a phraseological unit.

The similarity between a word
and a phraseological unit.

Analyze the following lexical
units according to their structure. Point out the function of
morphemes. Speak about bound morphemes and free morphemes. Point out
allomorphs in analyzed words:

accompany unsystematic
forget-me-not

computerise
expressionless reservation

de-restrict
superprivileged moisture

lengthen clannish
pleasure

beautify workaholic
reconstruction

beflower inwardly
counterculture

specialise moneywise
three-cornered

round table Green Berets
to sandwich in

Seminar 2.

Affixation.

Classification of suffixes
according to the part of speech they form.

Classification of suffixes
according to the stem they are added to.

Classification of suffixes
according to their meaning.

Classification of suffixes
according to their productivity.

Classification of suffixes
according to their origin.

Classification of prefixes
according to their meaning.

Classification of prefixes
according to their origin.

Classification of prefixes
according to their productivity.

Analyze the following derived
words, point out suffixes and prefixes and classify them from
different points of view:

to embed
nourishment unsystematic

to encourage inwardly
to accompany

translatorese
dispensable clannishness

to de-restrict
workaholic jet-wise

reconstruction to
overreach thouroughly

afterthought
foundation childishness

transgressor to
re-write completenik

gangsterdom pleasure
concentration

refusenik
counter-culture brinkmanship

allusion
self-criticism to computerise

slimster
reservation translation

Seminar 3

Compound words.

Characteristic features of
compound words in different languages.

Characteristic features of
English compounds.

Classification of compound
words according to their structure.

Classification of compound
words according to the joining element.

Classification of compound
words according to the parts of speech.

Classification of compound
words according to the semantic relations between the components.

Ways of forming compound
words.

Analyze the following compound
words:

note-book
speedometer son-in-law

to job-hop
brain-gain video-corder

fair-haired
forget-me-not Anglo-Russian

teach-in
back-grounder biblio-klept

theatre-goer
well-dressed bio-engineer

to book-hunt mini-term
to baby-sit

blood-thirsty
good-for-nothing throw-away

do-gooder skin-head
kleptomania

sportsman
para-trooper airbus

bus-napper cease-fire
three-cornered

tip-top brain-drain
bread-and-butter

Compare the strucure of the
following words:

demagougery tablewards
heliport

tobbacoless money-wise
non-formal

booketeria go-go
motel

counter-clockwise to
frontpage productivity

giver-away
newly-created nobody

Seminar 4.

Conversion.

Conversion as a way of
wordbuilding.

Different points of view on
the nature of conversion.

Semantic groups of verbs which
can be converted from nouns.

The meanings of verbs
converted from adjectives.

Semantic groups of nouns which
can be converted from verbs.

Substantivised adjectives.

Characteristic features of
combinations of the type «stone wall».

Semantic groups of
combinations of this type.

Analyze the following lexical
units:

to eye a find
to slim

a grown-up to
airmail steel helmet

London season resit
sleep

a flirt a read
handout

to weekend a
build-up supersonics

a non-formal to
wireless to submarine

to blue-pencil to
blind — the blind — blinds

distrust a jerk
to radio

news have-nots
the English

to co-author to water
to winter

a sit-down
mother-in-law morning star

undesirables a walk
a find

dislike log
cabin finals

Seminar 5.

Shortenings and
abbreviations.

Lexical and graphical
abbreviations,the main differences between them.

Types of graphical
abbreviations.

Types of initias,
peculiarities of their pronunciation.

Lexical shortenings of words,
their reference to styles.

Compound-shortened words,
their structural types.

Analyze the following lexical
units:

aggro /aggression/ Algol
/ algorythmic language/

apex /eipeks/ — advanced
purchased excursion/ payment for an excursion ninety days before the
time of excursion/

A-day /announcement Day — day
of announcing war/

AID / artifitial insemination
by a donor/

AIDS / acquired immunity
deficiency syndrome/

Ala / Alabama/ a.s.a.p.
/as soon as possible/

bar-B-Q ,barb /barbecue/
to baby-sit / baby-sitter/

A-level /advanced level/ BC
/birth certificate/

burger /hamberger/
Camford, Oxbridge

CALL /computer-assisted
language learning/

CAT /computer-assisted
training/

cauli / cauliflower/ COD /
cash on delivery/

COBOL / k ubol/ /common
business-oriented language/

co- ed comp /komp, k
mp/ /accompaniment/

DINKY /double income ,no kids
yet/

E-Day /entrance day //Common
Market/ expo/exposition/

edbiz/ educational business/
el-hi / elementary and high

schools/, ex lib/ex libris/
/from the library of/

etc Euratom fax
/facsimile/

G-7 / group of seven: GB,
Germany, Japan, France, Canada, Italy, Spain/. FORTRAN /formula
translation/.

Seminar 6.

Phraseological
units.

Ways of forming phraseological
units.

Semantic classification of
phraseological units.

Structural classification of
phraseological units.

Syntactical classification of
phraseological units.

Analyze the following
phraseological units according to their meaning, structure,
syntactical function and the way they are formed:

When pigs fly /never/.
To leap into marriage.

To be a whipping boy. To
be behind scenes.

Girl Friday /a man’s
assistant/. Fire in the belly.

Man Friday /a true friend/.
A dear John.

To be on the beam.
Game, set and match.

Country and western. To
jump out of one’s skin.

As smart as paint.
It’s my cup of tea.

Robin Crusoe and Friday /
seats at a theatre divided by a passage/. Fortune favours fools. To
be in the dog house.

The green power.
Green Berets.

Culture vulture. To
get off one’s back.

To make headlines. On
the nose.

With a bump. To
have a short fuse.

To vote
with one’s feet. Nuts and bolts.

Blackboard jungle.
The sky is the limit.

Cash and carry. To
nose out.

To sandwich in.
Berlin wall.

A close mouth catches no
flies. To speak BBB.

To sound like a computer.
As dull as lead.

Last but not least.
On the stroke of.

Seminar 7.

Phraseological
units.

Students choose ten
phraseological units from Koonin’s dictionary of phraseological
units and a unilingual dictionary of idioms and analyze them in the
written form. During the seminar they analyze their phrasological
units chosen from dictionaries at the blackboard.

Seminar 8.

Borrowings.

Classification of borrowings
according to the language from which they were borrowed:

Latin borrowings.

French borrowings.

Italian borrowings.

Scandinavian borrowings.

German borrowings.

Russian borrowings.

Classification of borrowings
according to the borrowed aspect: phonetic borrowings, semantic
borrowings, translation loans, morphemeic borrowings, hybrids.

Classification of borrowings
according to the degree of assimilation: fully assimilated
borrowings, partly assimilated borrowings, barbarisms. Borrowings
partly assimilated semantically, grammatically, phonetically and
graphically.

Analyze the following
borrowings:

school represent
sky-blue

degree rhythm
immobility

chandelier the Zoo
vase

mot /mou/ hybrid
bouffant

illuminate keenly
communicative

possessiveness to
reproach command

moustache gifted
boutique

skipper cache-pot
well-scrubbed

nouveau riche emphatic
mysteriously

dactyl Nicholas
group

to possess chenile
psychological

garage guarantee
contempt

trait/trei/ triumph
stomach

sympathy cynical
Philipp

schoolboy Christianity
paralyzed

system hotel
cyclic

diphtheria kerchief
dark-skinned.

Seminar 9

Semaciology.

Word and notion.

Lexical meaning and notion.

Polysemy.

Homonyms.

Synonyms.

Antonyms.

Classifications of homonyms
when applied to analysis.

Classifications of antonyms
when applied to analysis.

Analyze the following lexical
units applying the above mentioned classifications of homonyms and
antonyms:

present — absent, present — to
present

like , to like — to dislike —
dislike

sympathy — antipathy

progress — to progress,
regress — to regress

success — failure, successful-
unsuccessful

left — left/to leave/, right
adj. — right n.

inflexible — flexible

unsafe — safe adj. — safe n.

fair n. — fair adj.
unfair, foul

piece — peace

dark-haired — fair-haired

a row — a row /rou/ — /rau/

a fan — a fan

superiority — inferiority

different — similar,
indifferent, alike, difference — similarity

meaningful — meaningless

after prep.- before -before
adv., before conj.

to gossip — a gossip

shapeless — shapy

air — to air — air

fearless — fearful

bright — dim, dull, sad

to fasten — to unfasten

something — nothing

eldest — oldest -youngest

to husband — husband

obscure — to obscure

unaccustomed — accustomed

to exclude — to include

to conceal -to reveal

too — too- two

somewhere — nowhere

a drawer — a drawer

with — without

Seminar 10.

Neology.

Neology «blowup» and the
work of R.Berchfield.

Semantic neologisms,
transnomination and proper neologisms.

Semantic groups of neologisms
connected with computerization.

Social stratification and
neologisms.

Semantic groups of neologisms
referring to everyday life.

Phonological neologisms and
borrowings as strong neologisms.

Morphological and syntactical
neologisms.

Changes in pronunciation.

Analyze the following
neologisms from the point of view of neology theory and also from the
point of view of their morphemic structure and the way they were
formed :

to clip-clip AIDS
coup

sound barrier to
Vice-Preside boutique

to re-familiarize
tourmobile sevenish

to de-dramatize
non-formals to baby-sit

to scrimp and save
fireside chat hide-away

coin-in-the-slot
cashless society memo

We shall overcome. to dish
old wine in new bottles

to-ing and fro-ing
multinationals the Commons

hyperacidity
religiosity D-Day

face-to-face/tuition/
femme-fatalish to the wingtips

to river
singer-songwriter beatnik

communication gap laundered
money cheeseburger

Don’t change horses. to put
a freeze on micro-surgical

SA out-doorsy
medicare

Cold War self-exile
public-schooly

brain-drainer movers
and shakers Euroyuppie

Seminar 11.

Control work on the
analysis of language units. Each student gets six language units of
different types / simple words, derived words, compound words,
phraseological units, combinations of the type «stone wall»,
borrowings, abbreviations, antonyms, homonyms, neologisms ,
abbreviations/ and is to analize them from all points of view which
were studied during the seminars.

Seminar 12.

Lexicography.

Analysis of the control paper.

Historical development of
British lexicography.

Historical development of
American lexicography.

Classification of
dictionaries.

Student reports on
dictionaries they use in their work.

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Ginzburg R.S. et al. A Course
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Кунин А.В.
Англо-русский фразеологический словарь.
М.
1967.

Трофимова З.C.
Dictionary of New Words and New Meanings. Изд. «Павлин»
,1993.

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Why learn the 1000 most common Italian words?

Are you trying to learn Italian?

The best way to get started is to memorize the 1000 most common Italian words.

Many language experts will point out that focusing on the basic vocabulary in any language is the best investment for your time.

You will rarely use complicated or trivial words in your daily life when speaking with friends, colleagues, or family members.

So why not focus on getting familiar with only the words you know you’ll use?

With the basic words, you can make simple phrases for your first Italian  conversation or your next trip to Italy!

With basic Italian words, you’ll start forming sentences in Italian and ultimately have flowing Italian conversations.

Learn how to form sentences in Italian.

How much can you say with 1,000 words?

How much can you understand with the top 1000 most common Italian words?

A study revealed how much you can understand with 1000, 2000, or 3000 words.

Studying the first 1000 most commonly used Italian words in the language will familiarize you with:

• 76.0% of all vocabulary in non-fiction literature
• 79.6% of all vocabulary in fiction literature
• 87.8% of vocabulary in oral speech

Studying the 2000 most commonly Italian used words will familiarize you with:

• 84% of vocabulary in non-fiction
• 86.1% of vocabulary in fictional literature
• 92.7% of vocabulary in oral speech

And studying the 3000 most commonly Italian used words will familiarize you with:

• 88.2% of vocabulary in non-fiction
• 89.6% of vocabulary in fiction
• 94.0% of vocabulary in oral speech

If you’re an ambitious language learner, you can certainly learn 3,000 of the most common words for 94% comprehension.

However, for most of us, we want to optimize for what’s the best return for our time.

Based on this study, it seems that 1,000 most common words are the best bet.

The reason is, you have to memorize 3x (or 2,000 more words) to be able to understand only 6.2% of vocabulary in oral speech.

It doesn’t seem very exciting considering how valuable your time is.

In fact, we’ve seen that most Italian learners can get to a comfortable conversation speaking level with less than 1,000 Italian words.

If you listen to Italian music to learn this beautiful language and improve your Italian pronunciation, choose the right Italian songs because some lyrics aren’t exactly what you’d say in real life.

The same applies to Italian idioms, Italian sayings, verbal phrases, Italian proverbs, Italian quotes, or even Italian swear words.

Frequent Italian words: facts and figures

The Italian language is estimated to be made out of a total of 450000 words with the largest Italian dictionary having over 270000 words.

This can seem a really big and frightening number to someone wanting to start learning Italian, but here’s the good news: you only need to know roughly 5% of the total words to be fluent in Italian.

This means that focusing your efforts on learning the most frequent Italian words you will be fluent in Italian in no time.

What’s even more encouraging is that knowing as little as 100 words helps you understand half of the words in an article or book written in Italian.

Learn the most common 1000 words and you get to a 75% understanding of texts in Italian.

Also, each new word you learn helps you guess the Italian meaning of up to 135 words you have never seen before.

This means that knowing only 1000 words helps you guess up to 135000 Italian words.

Doesn’t seem that frightening now, right?

The problem with lists of common Italian words

Now that you know what you can do with 1000 words in the Italian language, the question is: how to learn these basic Italian words?

Many people make flashcards with word lists.

These word lists are usually generated from a huge multi-billion sample of language called a corpus which ensures all topics and text types are covered and the word list reflects how words are used by real users.

On the internet, you can find quite a few lists of the most 1000 common Italian words like this, this, and this.

Some of these lists of 100, 500, 1000, and 2000 basic Italian words are available for free in PDF or CSV format.

However, many are not very useful because they include “function words” like “for, but, when”.

For example, here are the top 50 words from one of those lists:

non che di e la il un a è per in una sono mi ho si lo ma ti ha le cosa con i no da se come io ci questo qui hai bene sei tu del me mio al solo sì tutto te più della era c lei gli

Does that help? No.

Even though these words are frequent and useful, they don’t make any sense per se and need a context to be practiced and mastered.

Another reason for not using them is how different forms of the same word are counted.

Some wordlists are not lemmatized.

This means that different forms of the same words are not counted together, i.e. goes, went, gone, going and go. This is generally more practical.

Ironically, one of the largest lists of Italian words is made from movie subtitles, which are often a translation of foreign movie scripts. Often, they’re not even professionally translated.

So, they don’t reflect the way an Italian speaker really talk.

In other words, the top 1000 Italian words are not the same for everyone.

The 1000 most used Italian words depend on who uses them, and on their purpose.

Do you want to chat with friends with natural Italian phrases? Travel? Or watch the news in Italian? These situations require a different vocabulary.

The best list of common Italian words

This is what you were looking for: the best list of common Italian words.

The smartest word list for the Italian language I’ve found so far is this.

It’s divided into:

• Italian nouns
• Italian adjectives
• Italian verbs
• Italian function words like and adverbs, prepositions, articles

Judging from the words, I guess they were taken from newspaper articles.

The picture below is a preview. As you can see, the words are arranged according to parts of speech.

Feel free to download it and edit it as you wish.

However, this list lacks a translation.

For my translation, keep reading!

Top 1000 common Italian words with English translation

The list of common Italian words I recommend doesn’t come with an English translation, so I translated the words for you.

Open the spreadsheet below to see the list of the top 1000 most frequent Italian words with English translation:

1. Italian nouns make the longest list
2. Then come Italian adjectives with translation
3. Italian verbs with English translation in the infinitive form
4. Other Italian words include adverbs, prepositions, and adjectives

You may also download the file to edit it as you wish.

To download it in a printable PDF format, just tell me where I should send it.

You’ll receive it immediately!

If you create a free account, you’ll also get other freebies for members. 100% free!

Just tell me where I should send it.

What are the most common words used in Italian?

Let’s start with some of the most common Italian words used in this popular language:

cosa
thing
giorno
day
anno
year
uomo
man
donna
woman
volta (as in “many times”)
time
casa
home
vita
life
tempo
time and weather
mano
hand
ora
now
paese
country, town
momento
moment
parola
word
famiglia
family
padre
father
madre
mother
figlio, figlia
son, daughter
amico
friend
lavoro
work
strada
street
nome
name
acqua
water
gente
people
persona
person
amore
love
mare
sea

What are the 100 most common words in Italian?

Even from a list of 1000 words, it still makes sense to start memorizing the 100 most common Italian words.
That’s your foundation to start forming an Italian phrase and ultimately have flowing conversations.
Indeed, you will rarely use complicated words in your daily conversations with friends, colleagues, or family members.
You find the 100 most common Italian words on the top of the list.
Once you’re done with them, you can move on to the other 900 words.
While apps like Quizlet and Anki are popular choices, I still recommend learning these words by putting them in context, for example in conversations with native speakers.

Learn more about Italian words.

What is the most popular Italian word?

You only need to look at the top of this list of the 1000 most used Italian words.
According to the list above, the most popular Italian word is a noun: cosa.
The word cosa in Italian gets so many colours and flavours according to the context.
Let’s see a few examples:

E’ la cosa piu’ bella che abbia mai visto.
It’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

In this sentence, cosa doesn’t get any specific meaning besides the generic ”thing” we’re referring to.

Cosa mangiamo stasera?
What do we eat tonight?

In this sentence cosa is actually used to refer to something which, in this specific context, can be replaced with “food”.
We give for granted that we’re talking of food because of the type of question we do.
This would already be enough to make it to the top 1000.

Ti ricordi quella cosa che avevi visto tempo fa? L’ho vista anch’io ora!
Do you remember that thing you saw a while ago? I’ve just seen it now!

Again, the use of cosa, in this context, is referred to as a generic “thing” that could be potentially anything (A star? A spoon? A mouse? A spaceship? A waterfall?).

In this 3rd example, is that we use cosa in the same way you’d say “thingy” when you don’t remember the actual name of an object.
“Cosa” is a noun, thus you will need to remember, in this specific 3rd scenario, to also decline it according to what are you referring to/pointing at.
If you’re referring to a piatto (male noun meaning plate, dish) then you should say coso if you’re referring to it.
If you’re referring to some specific breed of conigli (means “rabbits”) then you will need to use the plural form of the noun which would be cosi (sounds a little bit rude).
With so many uses, it’s no wonder that it ranks #1 among the top 1000 most common Italian words in the Italian language.

Learn more about other meanings of the word cosa in Italian.

The most popular Italian word

We just told you the most popular word is cosa. However, deciding which is the most popular Italian word is not so simple.
Here’s another very common Italian word: ciao.
Ciao means hello and is pronounced as “chaw” since it’s a word Italians use every day.
It is mainly used in informal contexts. You can say ciao to friends and family members.
Ciao comes from the Venetian dialect (spoken in the Northeast of Italy), more specifically from the phrase s-ciào vostro, literally meaning “I am your slave”.
In the 17th century, this expression was used by servants when addressing their employers.
Often, s-ciào vostro was shortened to simply s-ciào and then to ciào.
With time, this word lost all its servile connotations and started to be used as an informal greeting (instead of Buongiorno, Buona Sera or Buona Notte).

Read more about the most popular Italian word.

The verb mangiare in Italian

This is probably the most important Italian verb you need to know if you’re planning to go to Italy!
It is well known all around the world that the boot-shaped peninsula has a huge eating culture.
Mangiare is a regular verb of the first conjugation and follows the typical –are pattern:
Io mangio= I eat
Tu mangi= you eat
Lui/Lei mangia= He/she eats
Noi mangiamo= we eat
Voi mangiate= you (plural) eat
Loro mangiano= they eat
Here’s a list of all the Italian meals you will find yourself invited to by your Italian friends:

colazione
breakfast
spuntino
light meal, nibble
pranzo
lunch
merenda
snack
aperitivo
aperitif
cena
dinner
spuntino di mezzanotte
midnight snack

Just so you know, it is incorrect to use mangiare followed by the meals we just described above, so we DO NOT SAY: mangiare colazione, pranzo, etc.
Instead, for colazione, spuntino, merenda, and aperitivo, we use the word fare (to do):

fare colazione
to have breakfast
fare uno spuntino
to have a nibble
fare merenda
to have a snack
fare l’aperitivo
to have an aperitif

To talk about lunch (pranzo) and dinner (cena), we actually use these verbs:

pranzare
to have lunch
cenare
to have dinner

Learn more about the verb mangiare and other Italian food phrases.

Are flashcards useful to learn common Italian words?

Now that we’ve shown you the benefits of focusing on the common words, let’s go over the methods to memorize them.
Casual learners love making flashcards, either on paper, on websites, or apps like Anki, Memrise, and Quizlet.
Anki is a digital flashcard creator that’s fairly popular in the language learning community.
You can use it to create your flashcards and its function goes beyond language learning.
The user interface is not the most modern, but it gets the job done.
Plus, you can use your phone, desktop, or tablet to learn basic Italian words.
Memrise has a more friendly user interface for creating and reading digital flashcards.
Our favorite part about Memrise is the ability to leverage the other digital flashcards that other community members have created.
For learning Italian, you’ll find several flashcard collections you can choose from.
Here’s an example of how to go through flashcards with Quizlet:

Does that help? Maybe, but it has some serious limits.

The problem with flashcards of common words

Now that you’re about to rush to download an app to memorize the top 1000 Italian words, I’ll spoil the fun.
This point is going to upset a lot of people.
Even though flashcard apps are the hottest thing in language learning right now, I’ll tell you to stop using them.
Stop using flashcards. Stop learning vocabulary from list of terms, or decks, or programs. Stop.
It doesn’t work, it’s a waste of time, and it’s creating bad patterns in your brain.
Even if your goal is to memorize these 1000 words, it won’t help you.
It could be Italian numbers, common Italian phrases, anything.
Learning anything (words, phrases, ideas, whatever) against its translation is creating extra steps in your brain.
It’s making you slow. It makes you think slowly, hear slowly, speak slowly.
I have a feeling that many of you reading this have experienced this frustration. I have experienced it, and it’s horrible.
There are few things as frustrating as knowing that you know what something means, but not being able to understand it when you see or hear it.

But the problem is that learning incorrectly is creating a maze that your brain has to run through as it processes every word.

You don’t do that to yourself in English (or whatever your native language), so why are you doing that with a foreign language?
Even if you take nootropics for studying languages to boost brain power, you can still get better results with other methods.

Put words in context

Apps such as Anki, Memrise, and Quizlet focus on traditional single-word flashcard study.
For example, a student of Italian may have a set of flashcards for studying the days of the week, with the basic Italian word on one side and the English translation on the other side.
In contrast, well-designed language courses focus on studying vocabulary in context by prompting the user to fill in the missing word in a sentence or repeating whole sentences.
With context-based flashcards, you’ll learn the meaning of the word, the appropriate situations to use the word, and you’ll also have the chance to learn related vocabulary at the same time.

When presented with vocabulary in rich contexts provided by authentic texts instead of in isolated vocabulary drills, students become more actively engaged in using words, analyzing word meanings, and creating relationships between words.
That’s also the case of the top 1000 Italian words.
This helps develop skills and strategies that will allow them to more easily determine the meaning of unfamiliar words.
A growing number of people have realized that studying in context provides a faster, more enjoyable, and more effective method for studying a large amount of vocabulary.
If you’re currently using a single-word study app and are looking for a better way to learn, here’s the best learning resource for the Italian language.

How to put words in context

One of the great things about learning a foreign language is that you can be creative. You need creativity and motivation to develop your language skills.
This is why, when it comes to vocabulary, one of the best tools you have to memorize new words and grasp their meanings is your own brain.
You could start with the easiest words.
Choose five to ten words that you like and invent a story, a tongue twister, a song, or a poem.
Something that makes sense or that makes you laugh.
You can repeat it and show it to your friends.
Your brain will remember those words in context and that’s your aim.
You could then move onto the next level and choose five to ten words that you find hard to remember.
If what you find difficult is the correct pronunciation, you could invent a tongue twister for each word and repeat it.
You could then invent Italian  stories with those words.
These are just ideas.
You can find your own way to be creative.
The important thing is that you use the vocabulary in context.

Group words into sentences, not categories

These words will form the foundation of your Italian vocabulary.
They’re some of the most frequent words you will encounter, and they’re all easy to learn.
Because these words are grouped together into sentences, they will be much easier to memorize when compared with the typical word lists that you find in language textbooks and classrooms, where you learn colors one day, types of vegetables the next day, members of the family the following day, etc.
Learning entire categories of words is a waste of time because you don’t need all those words and many compete with each other for your memory. After all, they’re similar.

Learn more about Italian vocabulary.

Common Italian phrases

How to use these words in real phrases?
Check out this list of common Italian phrases sorted by context:

• Travel information
• Restaurants
• Hotels
• Making plans
• Attractions
• Food & drink
• Polite expressions
• Culture

Every phrase comes with its English translation.
If you want to practice those words and phrases and not just read them, I recommend audio lessons based on spaced repetition.

The best way to put words in practice: Ripeti con me!

You don’t have to give up on learning the top 1000 Italian words. You only need a good method!
The best way to acquire words and phrases naturally without relying on translation is with a well-designed set of sentences from conversations in the right order.
A focus on audio over text also helps bypass reading habits based on your native language.
This also makes it possible to learn Italian in the car.
The Italian audio course “Ripeti con me!” covers the 1000 most common Italian words in a set of sentences grouped by grammar patterns.
Those patterns are acquired almost unconsciously, while the very act of speaking bypassing translation will get you to think in Italian.
What’s more, since these are audio lessons, you’ll learn the new words with pronunciation.
This course provides plenty of comprehensible input balanced by variety and relevance, in small daily doses (spaced repetition).

Learn more about Ripeti Con Me.verbal phrases