Last summer, a client of mine asked me to help her find rules to follow in order to be able to rephrase sentences in her own words. She needed this kind of work in view of an exam she was to take in which, among other things, she had to summarise texts.
Having no list of rules for paraphrasing ready-made, following one of the principles of Neurolanguage Coaching®, we decided to prepare it together. The rules contained in it were extracted from sentences, which we paraphrased ourselves, taken from an Italian newspaper. My client Magdalena Schmidt, who works professionally as a proofreader, took care of the drafting of the list itself.
In this short article, with Magdalena's consent, I will share with you the first two rules of the list she prepared. The subsequent rules will be given to you gradually in the following articles.
I hope these rules will be as useful to you as they were to Magdalena.
RULE 1:
Change the grammatical category of a term. For example, change from a noun to a verb and vice versa.
EXAMPLE:
Già oltre 90 mila firme in cinque giorni. (original sentence)
Già oltre 90 mila persone hanno firmato in cinque giorni. (rephrased sentence)
firme (noun) > hanno firmato (verb)
RULE 2:
Play with word order:
EXAMPLE:
Già oltre 90 mila firme in cinque giorni. (original sentence)
In cinque giorni già oltre 90 mila firme. (rephrased sentence)
As you will have noticed, especially in such a simple sentence, this technique does not make any major changes to the original. I therefore recommend using it in conjunction with rule number 1 and the other rules which will be given later.
Despite its simplicity, it allows you to shift the emphasis from one section of the sentence to another. In fact, the original sentence seems to give more emphasis to the "oltre 90 mila firme" while the rephrased one to the "cinque giorni" in which they were obtained.
If you, like Magdalena, need to prepare for an Italian exam or learn how to communicate in Italian for personal or business purposes, consciously knowing how to use various linguistic nuances, please do not hesitate to contact me. I would be happy to give you a demonstration of Neurolanguage Coaching®, the language acquisition methodology I use.
"Neurolanguage Coaching® is the efficient and fast transfer of language knowledge and skills from the Language Coach to the Language Coachee with sustainable effects facilitated by brain based coaching and coaching principles and neuroscience.” (®2012, Rachel Paling)
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