Piove di nuovo, perciò guarderemo i libri

Given The Seffalice has little understanding of English grammar, getting to grips with Italian grammar has proved tricky. In an effort to spread the confusion we'll be posting some tips here, particularly for the aid of those visiting us for skiing in Italy in January. I'll expect all instructions to the blood wagon to be given in perfectly constructed Italian.

The BBC-published Italian Grammar has the most comprehensible explanations we've found so far, so I'll be paraphrasing from it liberally.

In Italian, where adjectives and nouns are next to each other, adjectives normally (but not always) follow the noun (and change their ending to match the gender and quantity of the noun, so "il vino rosso", "i vini rossi", "la scarpa rossa", "le scarpe rosse").

There are some rules as to which adjectives always go after and which always before their noun.

After:
- colour, shape, nationality
- those with an adverb (adverb = very, too, so, rather etc)

Before:
- demonstrative (this entrance, that direction),
- possessive (my food, your bill, his fault, etc),
- ordinal numbers (first class, second wind, etc)
- the following pairs of common adjectives: bello/brutto, buono/cattivo, lungo/breve, grande/piccolo

Still with us? Anyway, now we get to the really interesting bit. An adjective that normally goes before a verb can be placed after it for emphasis (and vice-versa), so "Che penne breva!" means "What a short piece of penne pasta!" (be careful to pronounce this one exactly).

But, before you all go hogwild with hyperbole, beware!: some adjectives change their meaning depending upon whether they are used before or after the noun.
From Italian Grammar:
- "un grand'uomo" is "a great man", but "un uomo grande" is "a big man"
- "la stessa cosa" is "the same thing" but "la cosa stessa" is "the thing itself"
- "un vecchio amico" is "an old friend" but "un amico vecchio" is "an elderly friend"

Qui ha finito la lezione di oggi.