• Join
  • FAQ
  • How to learn Italian
  • Shop (online lessons)
  • Shop (ebooks)
  • Recent Articles
  • “Best of”
  • Sitemap
  • Other resources
  • Course Finder
  • Cookies and Privacy

Online Italian Club

  • Home
  • Start here
  • Six Levels!
  • Grammar
  • Listening
  • Conversation
  • Vocabulary
  • Dialogues
  • Verbs
  • Literature
  • History

Italian Grammar Lessons: Finché, Finché Non, Affinché

Be careful with ‘finché’, ‘finché non’ and ‘affinché’!

‘Affinché’ is straightforward. It means ‘in order to’.

‘Finché’ is much trickier. It can often be translated as ‘until’, though its meaning may change when used with the negation ‘non’.

When the meaning of finché is ‘fino al momento in cui’, the use of the negative adverb ‘non’ is optional. For example:

Studiavo finché mi sono addormentato. = Studiavo finché non mi sono addormentato. (= fino al momento in cui mi sono addormentato.)

Tutto andava bene finché cominciò a piovere. = Tutto andava bene finché non cominciò a piovere.

In contrast, when finché means ‘per tutto il tempo che’, the use of ‘non’ completely changes the meaning of the sentence. For example:

Sono stato bene finché ho abitato a Roma = Sono stato bene per tutto il tempo che sono stato a Roma.

Sono stato bene finché non ho abitato a Roma = Sono stato bene prima di andare a vivere a Roma.

Back to Italian lesson on: finché

Contact us

EASY READERS LLP
Registered in England, no. OC439580
Tregarth, The Gounce,
Perranporth, Cornwall
TR6 0JW
E-mail: info@easyreaders.org

Cookies and Privacy

Read the Cookies and Privacy policy for all our websites.

Looking for something?

  • Free Italian Exercises
  • Online Italian Lessons
  • Italian Easy Readers

Don't know what to click? Sitemap

 

 

© OnlineItalianClub.com 2017