There are many ways to say "che brutta figura," some more ...um... polite than others. Let's say the most common and least offensive are:

che figuraccia

che vergogna (what shame)

or, simply, che figura.

Ciao ragazzi!

Some questions!

Che bella figura is not clear, is it to say. I am so smart!

Also in telefonino the "ino" is the diminutive form right so I can also use it as amorino? What other examples can u give me.

fare una bella figura (lit. to make a beautiful figure) could be translated as "to make a good impression".
Basically it is when you do something and everyone in the room goes "OOoohhh, he knows what's up".

-ino is a suffix use to make things smaller or cuter, so yes, you can say "amorino" (I would suggest to use a cheesy and high pitched voice for that;) )

other examples:

- tazza (cup) --> tazzina (small cup)

- tavolo (table) --> tavolino (small table)

- gatto (cat) --> gattino (cute little cat)

E brava Catherine, e bravo Marco!

Tanti tanti auguri per ItalianPod!

P.S.: Really unforgivable to forget your mobile in your pocket at theater while performing Don Giovanni... Poor Mozart, poor Da Ponte!! 

BTW this the full text of the aria of Leporello you can hear in the dialogue:

Madamina, il catalogo è questo
Delle belle che amò il padron mio;
un catalogo egli è che ho fatt'io;
Osservate, leggete con me.
In Italia seicento e quaranta;
In Alemagna duecento e trentuna;
Cento in Francia, in Turchia novantuna;
Ma in Ispagna son già mille e tre.
V'han fra queste contadine,
Cameriere, cittadine,
V'han contesse, baronesse,
Marchesine, principesse.
E v'han donne d'ogni grado,
D'ogni forma, d'ogni età.
Nella bionda egli ha l'usanza
Di lodar la gentilezza,
Nella bruna la costanza,
Nella bianca la dolcezza.
Vuol d'inverno la grassotta,
Vuol d'estate la magrotta;
È la grande maestosa,
La piccina e ognor vezzosa.
Delle vecchie fa conquista
Pel piacer di porle in lista;
Sua passion predominante
È la giovin principiante.
Non si picca - se sia ricca,
Se sia brutta, se sia bella;
Purché porti la gonnella,
Voi sapete quel che fa.

I'm aware this is not newbie stuff, anyhow you can find the English translation and some more information here

thanks for posting the lyrics of the aria, I also think it's an interesting cultural topic, even for newbies.

Catherine just created a post in the conversations section called Italian Opera where we can talk more about it!!

yes, you can say amorino, actually I'm afraid it's a perfect "false friend" in Italian, because in its proper meaning is  a technical word, referring to a mythological subject in renaissance and baroque painting.

Well, he's a little child... a child with a beautiful pair of wings like this or this ...

I would like to know if these are two women talking together and if yes, why do they say ..... vieni da solo instead of da sola?

Thank you very much.

Karin

Tommaso

You're correct - if the conversation had taken place between two women, it would have been vieni da sola. In fact if I want to discuss things that I do alone I say da sola. For example:

Stasera ceno da sola. (Tonight I'm eating dinner alone)

Non voglio andare da sola. (I don't want to go alone).

In the dialogue there is a man and a woman, so the woman says to her companion, "la prossima volta ci vieni da solo."

Lunetta, you'll have to excuse Tommaso, our voice talent and academic developer, his masculine ego has been a bit bruised...

What is the difference in usage? Are they time markers for when something happened in the past either recently or a while ago?

Thanks,

Michelle

let me give some partial, personal, unofficial suggestion:

scorso comes from the  verb scorrere that in Italian means to flow, and it's also used in time expression, quite if the time was a fluid, a river....

so you'll find expression like this:

lo scorrere del tempo (flow of time)

then we tipically use in these :

il mese scorso (last month)

l'anno scorso (last year)

or even

la lezione scorsa (last lesson)

so they're referring to the month, the year, or the lesson whose course has just finished, accomplished.

So I'd say, the attention is on the fact that you're speking of something having a time duration.

In the case of ultimo you're simply saying that something is the last in a sequence of space or time, no matter if they have a duration or not, so you could say:

l'ultima carta (the last playing card)

questo è l'ultimo bicchiere di vino

(this is the last glass of wine)

but also

l'ultima lezione (last lesson)

P.S. Now it must be about 4am or so in China, so, waiting tomorrow, I hope this could help you. In effect in a few hour time in Shanghai will be a new day, then I guess you could ask for some better and more professional reply from the official staff of IP.

Ho sempre fiducia negli lezioni "partial, personal, unofficial" che danno i "veterani" come tu (lei? aargh!). Grazie bene per il tuo appoggio simpaticissimo. P/s: Ho scelto la parola "veterani" perché tu mi fa venire al mente l'immagine di una persona che tolga (toglie?) la spoletta della granata con i suoi dente. On the front lines of the Italian grammar wars, it's nice to have covering fire from people like you! Thanks!

And of course, thank you also to Tommaso (I knew you were a guy!), Catherine, and Marco.

Thanks so much for your detailed discussion of the differences between ultimo and scorso. I think your explanation will be very helpful for our users.

Auntie - nice to see you on ItalianPod!

Question for everyone:

Perhaps you guys would like to describe a brutta figura moment? Maybe bella figura would be better?

You guys are doing a great job!

thx a lot for every one!

Italiano is so easy for me as a turk. Because grammer is like turkish. Actually english was so difficult I'am so eager to learn italiano. Because sounds get me excited

And actually that's interesting, I didn't know that italian and turkish grammar are similar!

So we hope that u'll keep on studying italian with us ;-)