Italian Simple Prepositions Of Place A, In, Da, Per [preposizioni Semplici Di Luogo In Italiano]

Tutorial Transcript

Hi everyone and welcome back to my channel! Hi everyone and welcome back to my channel! In today's video we'll talk about simple prepositions of location, so we'll talk about the prepositions "a", "in", "da" and "per". In this video I don't want to give you a list of instructions about when and how to use these prepositions, but I would like you to understand the logic behind the use of these prepositions. Therefore I will divide these prepositions according to their function. So I will speak first about "a", "in" and "from", and we will see their roles, because, based on the verbs with which we use them, the function changes, and then at the end of the video we will see the preposition "per", which is the easiest, because it is used with just two verbs, that is "passare" and "partire". Ok, practically I have already told you how to use the preposition "per". Very well, let's see some examples right now so that we can take it away and concentrate on "a", "da" and "in". So, "per" is the simplest preposition among location prepositions, because it's used only with these two verbs: "passare" and "partire". So if I say "I'm leaving for Turin" it means that I'm leaving for Turin, i.e. towards Turin, to go to Turin. Another example with the other verb "passare" is: "When I return home, I'll go past the park." It could mean that I will go "through" a park when I'm going home or that I'll be passing by a park, so "near" a park. Now we come to the simple prepositions of place that are a little more complex: "a", "in", "da". I want talk about these prepositions according to their function. So we have three functions: being in a place, going to a place, coming from a place. "Being in a place" - what does that mean? It means that the action is static (in location), there is no movement and therefore we should also use verbs that are used to indicate a static position: to reside, to live, to be (temporarily), to remain, to stay. All these verbs, together with the preposition "a" or "in", have an element of being in a place, so there is no movement, there is a position in a specific location. Therefore, in this context we use the preposition "a" when we need to specify the name of a city or a small island. For example: I'm in Rome, I'm in Milan, I'm staying in Verona, I live in Turin or I live in Capri, I live in Panarea, I live in Hong Kong etc. And then we use "a" also for generic places, such as "home", "school", "supermarket", "store", etc. On the other hand, we use "in" when we have names of regions, names of countries names of continents and names of big islands. I'm staying in Italy, I live in Veneto, I'm in Jamaica. However, we also use "in" for a series of generic place names that have certain characteristics, that is, the word ends in -cia or in -eria, such as pharmacy ("farmacia"), fish shop ("pescheria"), Butcher's shop ("macelleria"), cafeteria, or with words ending in -teca, so library ("biblioteca"), wine bar ("enoteca"), etc. And then also with another set of words that we simply must remember, like: church ("chiesa"), gym ("palestra"), office ("ufficio"), swimming pool ("piscina"). OK? So (to recap) these prepositions "in" and "a" perform the function of being in a place if they are preceded by static verbs. Now let's see the function of motion to place. "Moto a luogo" means movement towards a place, movement in the direction of a place. Here too we always have "a", "in", and this time we also have "da". Playing this role, we will have verbs like to go, to travel, to run, to return. The rules for "a" and "in" are the same as we have seen before for the act of being in a place, so I will always say "I go to Rome" ("a"), "I go to Madagascar" ("in"), "I go to Japan" ("in"). For this act of going to a place, we also have the preposition "da" which is a special case, because for this case "da" is followed by a person's name, therefore it is not "da" place, but is "da" person. In fact for this I would say "motion to a person" instead of "motion to a place ", but this is simply to make you understand the reasoning. I'll give you the classic example that is done in these cases, that is: "I go to my grandmother". Now, this is a movement of motion to a location because there is the verb "to go", but there is the preposition "da" because after (the verb) there is a person; my grandmother. So "I go to my grandmother" means "I go to my grandmother's house" or "I go where my grandmother is". Same thing with a phrase like "I go to the dentist"; in this case, however, I do not go to the dentist's home, but I go to the dentist's office or wherever the dentist is. Ok? So this is a particular use of the preposition "da" (usually translated as "from") which actually carries out the function of motion to place, because there is a movement towards a place (where there is a particular person). Ok? So you have to concentrate on the role of the (whole) sentence, not on the individual prepositions, because if you only think that "da" means "from" ...yeah? for example...then you won't understand, because I say "I go from my grandmother". Obviously if you get stuck on the literal tranlsation, the use of "da" as for motion to a place will never make sense to you. I do not recommend doing the translation directly into your language in the case of prepositions, I always recommend you to concentrate on function of prepositions and not on meaning that you attributed to the preposition itself. Now let's see the last function, which is that of motion from a place and so here again we find the preposition "da". When it is a motion from a place it means that it is the action opposite to the motion to a place, so if with the motion to place, I go from a point A to a point B, with motion from place I go back, OK? So from B to A. With motion from place we can use verbs come, come back, leave. We always use "da" plus the place, then "I come from school", "I come back from the church", "I leave the station". With some prepositions, as you may have noticed from the examples, you need to add the article, especially when it comes to generic places - the station, the church - because in Italian with the noun it is mandatory to use the definite article and therefore we must include it in the preposition. That's all there is for today's video. I hope you find it useful, I hope you can better understand the use of prepositions of place in Italian, of simple prepositions of place. If you want to watch other videos on prepositions, I recently made a video on time prepositions and in the past, further back in the past, I made videos on all the simple prepositions and also on articulated ones. If you want to go see these videos, I'll leave you all the links in the description below. Thanks very much for watching this video and we'll see each other in the next one. See you soon bye!