A METHOD TO ANSWER QUESTIONS QUICKLY AND EFFECTIVELY IN ITALIAN

All of us foreign language learners dread random people suddenly turning to us and asking a question in a foreign language. How do we answer it? Where do we begin? Are we going to get stuck? Are we going to get lapses? What verb tense do we use? In fact, what verb?

This can easily turn into a very stressful situation.

Well, you can relax now. Here's a way you can do it.

When you use a method, you’re more likely to get your answer right and faster. A method is like a fixed but malleable scaffolding which follows some sort of modified commutative property—changing elements does not modify its structure. If you practice with a method, then nothing can likely catch you unawares anymore.

With this in mind, consider the structure of a question, which is generally quite simple especially in quick daily conversations. Here’s an example. Imagine you’re in Venice. You don’t look anything like a tourist, so an Italian decides to ask you for some information:

Scusi, mi sa dire dove posso trovare un buon ristorante qua in zona?

First we shove aside a couple of elements that are only there for politeness and courtesy (‘scusi’ and‘mi sa dire’), so we can focus straight on the actual question: “dove posso trovare un buon ristorante qua in zona?”

Now let’s break down the sentence into its key segments:

‘dove’	the unknown or new piece of information.
‘posso trovare’	modal verb ‘potere’ conjugated in the presente indicativo tense.
‘un buon ristorante’	the direct object in this sentence.
‘qua in zona’	some spacial indication to help you formulate a relevant answer (and avoid something like: “there’s a good pizza restaurant near Piazza del Duomo in Milan about 160 miles from here.”)

At this point, all you need is to recycle the key segments above and convert them into an answer:

‘Può trovare’	you need to change the person of the verb for obvious reasons, but the verb and verb tense remain the same.
‘un buon ristorante di pesce’:	we kept the same phrase except that we added one detail to specify the type of restaurant.
‘qua vicino’	I just changed‘qua in zona’ for variety, but it’s totally fine to repeat it especially if you’re not too experienced yet.
‘in Calle dell’Olio, vicino a Campo San Barnaba.’	here we replaced the question word ‘dove’ with the information our Italian friend was looking for.

You might also notice I placed the unknown piece of information at the end of the sentence. That is because it happens to be the most important element and it requires emphasis. In Italian, we mark important elements by moving them to or towards the end of a sentence, or anyway after the verb.

Once you have answered the question, you can add a sentence or two to further elaborate in a totally stress-free environment.   

Try out this method. It’s straightforward and effective. It just needs practicing a bit to establish it as a habit. If you do that, you’re also automatically going to listen more carefully to what people say, which is a skill most learners—and people in general—have never acquired.

And here is how to answer questions effectively and quickly in Italian.

And this is The JP Method.