Voted Best Answer
Oct 19, 2012 - 09:16 AM
Hi, Thank you for posting. Sorry for the frustration, but hopefully we can help you clear some questions up.
The reason why Sonia is not teaching Italian anymore is that we wanted a native speaker for the more advanced levels, just as we did with French and Mandarin, but Sonia led the development team for Italian 3 and was involved in deciding which contents would be taught in Italian 3, as well as the way in which these should be explained. As for lesson 3 of Ialian 3, I wouldn't say that Sophie "merely pointed to 3 different GRAPHS and told us to memorize them! What?? No explanation at all of when and why we are supposed to use words, "quel' quei, quegli, and many others." She spends more than 3 minutes explaining the use of quel, quei etc and providing examples. I'll try to explain it again: The words "quello" and "quella" are the equivalent to the English word "That". In both languages, they can be used as pronouns (that is, replacing a noun) or as an adjective (accompanying a noun). Let's see it with an example in English first. You can ask something like:
- Which sandwich do you want?
You can asnwer in two ways to this question:
- I want that sandwich. In this case "that" is working as an adjective, it's accompanying the noun "sandwich" and helps specify which sandwich you want...you want "that sandwich" not "this sandwich", the same way you could say "I want the small sandwich".
Now, if you answer "I want that sandwich" to "Which sandwich do you want?" you are repeating "sandwich" which could be avoided by simply saying "I want that (one)". In this case "that" works as a pronoun, it's replacing "sandwich".
Italian works in exactly the same way:
- Quale panino vuole? Voglio quello. = Which sandwich do you want? I want that (one).
- Qual è la sua valigia? Quella = Which is your suitcase? That (one)
This is the use we taught in levels 1 and 2: quello and quella as pronouns and their plural forms: quelli and quelle. You use "quello" when referring to a masculine noun and "quella" to refer to a feminine noun. "Quelli" is the plural form of "quello" and "quelle" is the plural form of "quella". So the only thing different to the English "that" and "those" is that in Italian words have gender while in English they don't.
What Sophie explains in level 3 is the use of these words when they work as adjectives. As any other adjective, they have to agree in gender and number with the word they're accompanying to. What is different to other adjectives is that "quello" and "quella" imitate the definite article, that's why she says: "The words quella and quello have the articles La and Lo within them. So actually it’s like having the word quel and adding the right article at the end" .
You say:
- La valigia = The suitcase, but you say "L' amica" = The friend(f). The final "a" of the article "la" is dropped because the noun accompanying it starts with a vowel. Well, what Sophie explains is that "quella" and "quello" work like articles so you'd say: "Quella valigia" (That suitcase) but "Quell' amica" (That friend(f)".
The same happens with masculine nouns. She says: "For masculine nouns you have to follow the rules for articles, too." And then she gives some examples:
Lo stadio The stadium
Quello stadio That stadium
L’ aeroporto The airport
Quell’ aeroporto That airport
Il negozio The store
Quel negozio That store
Watch out for this one, it’s not queil, but quel.
More examples:
Voglio comprare quello
(I) want to buy that one
Vedi quello stadio?
Do (you(i)) see that stadium?
Vedi quell’ aeroporto?
Do (you(i)) see that airport?
Vedi quel negozio?
Do (you(i)) see that store?"
The reason why Sonia is not teaching Italian anymore is that we wanted a native speaker for the more advanced levels, just as we did with French and Mandarin, but Sonia led the development team for Italian 3 and was involved in deciding which contents would be taught in Italian 3, as well as the way in which these should be explained. As for lesson 3 of Ialian 3, I wouldn't say that Sophie "merely pointed to 3 different GRAPHS and told us to memorize them! What?? No explanation at all of when and why we are supposed to use words, "quel' quei, quegli, and many others." She spends more than 3 minutes explaining the use of quel, quei etc and providing examples. I'll try to explain it again: The words "quello" and "quella" are the equivalent to the English word "That". In both languages, they can be used as pronouns (that is, replacing a noun) or as an adjective (accompanying a noun). Let's see it with an example in English first. You can ask something like:
- Which sandwich do you want?
You can asnwer in two ways to this question:
- I want that sandwich. In this case "that" is working as an adjective, it's accompanying the noun "sandwich" and helps specify which sandwich you want...you want "that sandwich" not "this sandwich", the same way you could say "I want the small sandwich".
Now, if you answer "I want that sandwich" to "Which sandwich do you want?" you are repeating "sandwich" which could be avoided by simply saying "I want that (one)". In this case "that" works as a pronoun, it's replacing "sandwich".
Italian works in exactly the same way:
- Quale panino vuole? Voglio quello. = Which sandwich do you want? I want that (one).
- Qual è la sua valigia? Quella = Which is your suitcase? That (one)
This is the use we taught in levels 1 and 2: quello and quella as pronouns and their plural forms: quelli and quelle. You use "quello" when referring to a masculine noun and "quella" to refer to a feminine noun. "Quelli" is the plural form of "quello" and "quelle" is the plural form of "quella". So the only thing different to the English "that" and "those" is that in Italian words have gender while in English they don't.
What Sophie explains in level 3 is the use of these words when they work as adjectives. As any other adjective, they have to agree in gender and number with the word they're accompanying to. What is different to other adjectives is that "quello" and "quella" imitate the definite article, that's why she says: "The words quella and quello have the articles La and Lo within them. So actually it’s like having the word quel and adding the right article at the end" .
You say:
- La valigia = The suitcase, but you say "L' amica" = The friend(f). The final "a" of the article "la" is dropped because the noun accompanying it starts with a vowel. Well, what Sophie explains is that "quella" and "quello" work like articles so you'd say: "Quella valigia" (That suitcase) but "Quell' amica" (That friend(f)".
The same happens with masculine nouns. She says: "For masculine nouns you have to follow the rules for articles, too." And then she gives some examples:
Lo stadio The stadium
Quello stadio That stadium
L’ aeroporto The airport
Quell’ aeroporto That airport
Il negozio The store
Quel negozio That store
Watch out for this one, it’s not queil, but quel.
More examples:
Voglio comprare quello
(I) want to buy that one
Vedi quello stadio?
Do (you(i)) see that stadium?
Vedi quell’ aeroporto?
Do (you(i)) see that airport?
Vedi quel negozio?
Do (you(i)) see that store?"