Seconda lezione di italiano

Hi everybody!
If you spent the last two weeks practicing reading, we can now move on to some basis of grammar.
Try to read the following dialog:

Mauro: Ciao, Anna!
Anna: Ciao Mauro, come stai?
Mauro: Sto bene, e tu?
Anna: Bene, grazie. E' un bel giorno oggi.
Mauro: Anche tu sei bella!
Anna: Grazie...
Mauro: Abbiamo la classe oggi?
Anna: Si, come ogni giorno.
Mauro: Bene, ho il libro, e sono pronto!

Now, if you know that BENE means good, CLASSE is a lesson, GIORNO = day, OGGI = today, ANCHE = also, BELLA, BELLO, BEL = nice, beautiful, OGNI = every, LIBRO = book, PRONTO = ready, try to translate the dialog yourself.

Did you get the point? I hope so.
We will now translate the whole dialog:
Mauro: Hi, Anna!
Anna: Hi Mauro, how are you?
Mauro: I'm good, and you?
Anna: Good, thank you. It's a beautiful day today.
Mauro: You are also beautiful!
Anna: Thanks...
Mauro: Do we have a lesson today?
Anna: Yes, same as every day.
Mauro: Good, I have th book and I'm ready!

So, now, when you have the whole translation, you can write down the phrases that you can use in every-day-conversation, such as:
Come stai? Bene, grazie.
E' un bel giorno oggi.
Sono pronto! if you are a male or sono prontA! if you are a female.

You will also notice the usage of words such as IL, LA and UN. Those are Italian articles, but we shall put them aside for now. We will get back to it once we learn some basic verbs and nouns. They will not make any difference in your understanding.
What really IS IMPORTANT are the two main verbs of Italian language, and they are both used here. We will now write them down, and you MUST now those two verbs even if someone wakes you up in the middle of the night! The verbs are TO BE and TO HAVE, and they are, same as in English, used to form other tenses than present. They are (needless to say) irregular, so you must learn them by heart:

TO BE
io sono - I am
tu sei - you are
lui, lei è - he, she is (there is no word in Italian for neutral gender)
noi siamo - we are
voi siete - you are
loro sono - they are

TO HAVE
io ho- I have
tu hai- you have
lui, lei ha - he, she has
noi abbiamo- we have
voi avete- you have
loro hanno - they have
MIND YOU: we never pronounce H in Italian!!

As you may see, each person has its own form of verb, so you can simply use, for example SEI, and it will be clear that you sad YOU ARE, it is not obliged that you say TU SEI.

TIP: Try to read the dialog as many times as possible. After several readings, you should almost know it by heart. That is a good way of making some kind of patterns in your brain, so later, you will be able to use different words in the same form of sentence.
Good luck with your reading, I will get back to you soon with more new information and some exercises!
Ciao!
Milica