common errors that can hold you back

In English, we always separate the pronouns from verbs, for example ‘I eat bread’. But in Italian, the letter o at the end of the verb mangio indicates that I am eating and so there is no need to use the pronoun io. In order to say that ‘you eat bread’ I would use the word mangi, where the i at the end of the word indicates that you are eating. Lastly, to say that he or she is eating, I would change the word ending to a, mangia. Of course there are other verb endings, and we discuss all of these in the lessons.

In English, we’re fortunate not to have gendered nouns, but this means they can become another early stumbling block for students of Italian. Very often, students become confused by the verb endings 'o' and 'a' that mean I and she/he respectively, and the noun or adjective endings 'o' and 'a' that indicate masculine and feminine respectively. By alerting students to this potential confusion right from the outset, we avoid erroneous assumptions that can hold back progress.