• Il Verbi Riflessivi
• Il-verbi Malti
• Il Verbi Bil Malti
• Il Verbi Maltin

A practice deck for the official MFL (MQF Level 1) 'Maltese as a Foreign Language' course by the Lifelong Learning System. Based on materials by is-Sa Chiara Vassallo. Attention: These are not official course materials, just help prepared by one of the students. If you find any errors, please report them to tonid-at-tonid.net. Il-Verbi (Verbs). Coniugazione del verbo inglese eat: past tense, present, past perfect, future. Verbi irregolari e modelli dei verbi inglesi. Traduzione in contesto di eat, con esempi d'uso reale. Elenco completo dei verbi irregolari inglesi. Elenchi, metodi ed esercizi per conoscere perfettamente i verbi! Video didattico per la scuola primaria. Ms Josepha Spiteri B.A.(Hons) PGCE Paġna 2 Fil-Laboratorju tal-Malti 2 Aqta’ sing taħt il-verbi li qed jikkmandaw. Inti qum bil-wieqfa.

Reflexive verbs, generally, are verbs in which the subject and the object are the same; in English, you use the reflexive pronouns myself, yourself, himself, etc.

io mi lavo=I wash myself
tu ti lavi=you wash yourself
lui/lei si lava=he/she washes him/herself
noi ci laviamo=we wash ourselves
voi vi lavate=you wash yourself
loro si lavano=they wash themselves

But things are not so simple. Reflexive verbs often

1. replace the use of the possessive in English:
mi lavo le mani=I wash my hands
si mette i pantaloni=he/she puts on his/her pants

2. have a reflexive form but not necessarily a reflexive meaning in English; here are some examples:
accorgersi=to realize
alzarsi=to get up
annoiarsi=to get bored
chiamarsi= to be named
divertirsi=to have fun
lamentarsi=to complain
muoversi=to move (as in Galileo's famous 'Eppur si muove')
trasferirsi=to move

3.sometimes non-reflexive verbs can be used in a reflexive form:
mi sono comprato una macchina=ho comprato una macchina (per me)
ci siamo mangiate una pizza=we ate a pizza

4. in the plural, non-reflexive verbs can be used with reflexive pronouns to indicate a reciprocal construction--some fun verbs are included here ;-)
ci siamo innamorati=we fell in love with each other
ci siamo baciati=we kissed each other
ci siamo abbracciati=we embraaced each other

Also:

**Reflexive verbs always take essere, never avere.
**Reflexive pronouns precede a conjugated verb or are attached to the infinitive.
**If the infinitive is preceded by a form of dovere, potere, volere, the reflexive pronouns can either precede the conjugated verb or be attached to the infinitive.

noi vogliamo alzarci=noi ci vogliamo alzare
non devi fermarti=non ti devi fermare

ACCORDO DEL PARTICIPIO PASSATO

Normally, as with all verbs that take essere, the past participle agrees with the subject.

Mi sono messa i pantaloni=I put my pants on
Ci siamo lavate i denti=we brushed our teeth
Sara si è vestita bene=Sara dressed well

If a direct object pronoun precedes the verb, however, the past participle agrees with it rather than with the subject. Obviously, these are all going to be cases of double object pronouns, since you will have the reflexive pronoun + the direct object pronoun

Ti sei portata l'ombrello? Sì, me lo sono portato
Vi siete lavate i denti? Sì ce li siamo lavati

USING 'PRENDERE' ('to take') AND OTHER regular VERBS ENDING IN '-ERE'

Prendere (to take) is like the George Clooney of verbs. Very famous, a little ubiquitous, and sometimes shows up in things when you're not expecting him.

Prendere is an example of the 'second conjugation' (otherwise known as 'verbs that end in -ere'). This means that the rules you're about to learn about our George Clooney of verbs will also apply to a great many other Italian verbs that end in -ere.

Yet another reason to be a Clooney fan.

Conjugating Prendere

Here's how prendere changes depending on who's doing all the taking — Just knock '-ere' off the end of the infinitive and add these endings:

• -o
• -i
• -e
• -iamo
• -ete
• -ono

(Note: If you've already seen my lesson on thefirst conjugation, -are, see if you can spot the difference. They're quite similar.)

So now our word for George Clooney 'to take' (prendere) will look like this...

Prendere (to take)

Other verbs like prendere

Once you've mastered prendere, are a few other verbs that follow the same set of rules.

Il Verbi Riflessivi

The many faces of prendere

I mentioned before that prendere sometimes shows up when you're not expecting it. Here you can see it in action, and occasionally acting strangely (from an English-speaker's perspective).

Interesting 'taking' idioms

To me, little idioms and supermarket shelves are the places to gain interesting insights into a culture. Prendere just happens to make a star appearance in a number of fun/weird Italian idioms.

Il-verbi Malti

For instance, if your date suggested that he would love to take you by the throat, you might be inclined to introduce him to your pepper spray. But in Italian, 'Prendere per la gola' means to seduce somebody by preparing delicious food.

It's similar to the English saying 'the way to a man's heart is through his stomach', which also seems rather murderous when you think about it.

The following idioms are all ways of saying that you're making fun of someone. They're similar to 'pulling someone's leg' in English.

If you want to encourage someone to seize the moment, you can tell them to do the following:

Il Verbi Bil Malti

And to end on the inexplicable: Here's the Italian equivalent of the English proverb 'to kill two birds with one stone'.

Il Verbi Maltin

The idea of solving two problems with one action is the same, but in the Italian version no birds get killed. (Probably because a bean is used instead of a stone.)