My Italian is nearly nonexistent compared to all of you! I have seen in many places that when you want to ask for something, ie "I want . . ." you say vorrei. Yet as I study the language I feel like I should be saying voglio. Can someone enlighten me? Thanks.

The difference is "I would like" (vorrei) vs. I Want....it's just a little more polite. Like saying "Gimme the butter!" vs, "Would you pass the butter?"

Thank you Art and Barb. And another question. Is vorrei derived from volere or is it a different verb?

Hi Bill and Kristin, great fun meeting you in Savannah (if only for a brief moment).

One website that I refer to for help with verbs/conjugations is HERE. The page I've linked to is for
vorrei, but you can type in "volere" in the "Look up" space above in the blue bar.
I use the site very often!

Hope this helps.

Pokey

Hi LoveItaly
"vorrei" is the 1st person singular of the conditional tense of "volere":
the whole conditional tense looks like this:

vorrei
vorresti
vorrebbe

vorremmo
vorreste
vorrebbero

it is irregular because the stem is irregular ie vorr + endings

if you treated it as if it were a regular verb you would get volerei etc. But this is the conditional of the verb volare, which as well as being the name of a famous song means "to fly" which is another thing entirely from volere.

Thanks so much - what a good find. Savannah was great - wonderful introduction for us to the Slow Travel folks. Bill

Pokey,
That's a great site. Thanks for sharing it.

pokey, awesome site!! Thanks so much for posting it!

... and I thought everyone knew about Word Reference.

The other translation/dictionary etc site that Giulia always recommends is Hoepli, which IMO might even be comprehensive.

quote:

Originally posted by David:
... and I thought everyone knew about Word Reference.

Word reference is great. And, if you cannot find what you are looking for in the dictionary, they are more than happy to help you out on the forums.