Italian All-in-One For Dummies (145 page)

The -orre, -urre, and -arre Verbs

The
-orre, -urre,
and
-arre
verbs are most useful as base verbs from which you can construct other verbs with expanded meanings. See the following tables for their conjugations.

Other incarnations of these kinds of verbs are dependent on the addition of prefixes, as in the following:

Porre
by itself means
to put;
add
pro-,
and it becomes
to
propose;
add
com-,
and it becomes
to compose.

Tradurre
means
to translate;
change the prefix from
tra-
to
de-,
and you have
to deduce.

Trarre
means
to draw conclusions or consequences;
trarre [fuori] da
means
to draw or pull out of
(troubles or a mess, for example). but enhanced forms are more useful:
attrarre
(
to attract
),
contrarre
(
to contract a disease
), and
distrarre
(
to distract
).

Using Irregular Verbs in Idiomatic Expressions

While an English speaker may be born with a silver spoon in his mouth, a similarly endowed Italian is born wearing a shirt. In English, it rains cats and dogs; in Italian, basins full of water. Cultural bias or proclivity also shows up in idiomatic expressions: In English, something can be ugly as sin; in Italian, something truly ugly is
brutto come la fame
(
as ugly as hunger
). In a similar vein, something or someone really good is
buono come il pane
(
as good as bread
).

Both idiomatic expressions and allusions make use of
essere.
When you follow
essere
with the preposition
di,
you indicate possession. For example:
È il libro di Giulio
(
It's Giulio's book
) and
La macchina? È di Luigi
(
The car? It's Luigi's
). You can also use
essere
with
di
to say where you're from, such as
Io sono di Firenze; lui è di Roma
(
I'm from Florence; he's from Rome
).

When you learn a foreign language, it's important not only to understand the literal meaning but also the metaphorical, symbolic, and cultural value of phrases and expressions. Practice this skill with
essere, fare, dare,
and
stare
idiomatic expressions.

Idiomatic expressions with essere

If you want to show off your Italian, use the following
essere
idiomatic expressions:

essere in gamba
(
to be on top of things; to be clever
)

essere al verde
(
to be broke
)

essere in vena
(
to be in the mood
)

essere un Cincinnato
(
to be an honest, simple, humble person
)

essere una Cassandra
(
to predict disaster and not be believed
)