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Buondì.
A quickie today, written early yesterday morning at Gate 19 of Bologna’s Marconi airport.
I was there to board a flight to the UK, to visit my folks in Cornwall, which is the pointy bit on the map, bottom left, opposite Britain’s bum/butt, down across the sea from Wales, which rather looks like a pig’s head.
Don’t know who Marconi was? We have an entertaining ebook which tells his story. It’s level B1/B2 (intermediate/upper-intermediate) though not on offer, given that I’m sort-of on holiday and can’t be doing with the inevitable customer service hassles that half-price ebooks seem to generate. But April 25th was International Marconi Day, believe it or not, so maybe look at the free sample chapter (.pdf).
Anyway, if you’re reading this article, I arrived safely and published it while drinking my breakfast coffee today, Wednesday. I expect it’s raining in Cornwall, it usually is. I’ll look out the window in a bit to see. Never mind, though, there’ll be Cornish pasties (if you don’t know what they are, good, more for me!) And proper beer.
As I type, I’m sitting next to two women who are speaking Italian and sometimes Spanish, which is interesting. And there are the usual airport announcements in Italian, French, and of course English.
Nothing much is happening right now at Marconi International Airport, it being only half past eight on a Tuesday morning at the end of April. So every ten minutes an automated announcement interupts the peace to remind waiting passengers that
“It is forbidden to leave the luggage unattended!”
a phrase which has been winding me up for decades, whenever I travel through this airport, multiple times each visit.
No, no, no! I silently scream.
The problem being that the English translation is a grammatical copy/paste from the Italian original.
Grrr!
Not with me? Then there’s a teaching point, I promise you.
In English the ‘definite article’ (= ‘the’ in English, ‘il/la/lo/gli etc.’ in italiano) is used to refer to known things, as the name suggests.
So, the girl sitting next to me, the automated announcements, the irritating grammar mistake, and so on.
When, in English, I want to ‘refer’ to something you know (the USA), something which is unique (ditto), or something which we’ve already mentioned (the weather in Cornwall), I use ‘the’. Singular? Plural? No difference, same article, all nice and simple.
Italian grammar being intentionally complicated, in order that teachers and blog writers can earn a living, the definite articles are different according to the gender of the noun following them, vary according to the spelling of that noun, and specify whether it’s singular or plural.
Che palle.
However the grammar complications, while a pain in the butt, don’t present problems of meaning. After all, a definite article is a definite article, right? Whether in English or Italian?
Wrong. In italiano, the concept of ‘definite’ is stretched to include things like ‘abstract’ nouns (l’amore, la religione, la filosofia, la verità) but also, as with the airport announcement, uncountable nouns, leading to translated monostrosities like:
“It is forbidden to abandon THE luggage/THE suitcases/THE personal belongings/THE bags containing THE duty-free purchases in the airport.”
Yuk. Watch out for that one. Italians never learn it, however many times I remind them, but you totally can.
For instance, ‘the Italy’, ‘the sport’, ‘the football/soccer’, ‘the Italian cooking’ all sound daft in English (depending on the context) but are spot on in italiano. Once you’ve noticed that, it’s easy to remember.
And from then on, when telling people (in italiano) how much you adore l’Italia, lo sport, il calcio, la cucina italiana, and so on, you’ll use the definite article and so really sound like a local.
Another thing that’s always bugged me about that airport announcement (“It is forbidden to leave the luggage unattended!”) is that whoever did the translation could have / should have transposed the elements that make up the sentence.
Phrasing the English version in one of the various ways that a native English speaker would communicate the same concept, though structurally dissimilar, would have been more professional. And the result less grating to my ear.
For instance “Luggage must not be left unattended”, which besides being free of maddening definite articles, eliminates the pointless ‘It is’ (actually just ‘Is’) structure that’s so ubiquitous in italiano:
“E’ bella, Bologna.”
“E’ difficile, l’italiano.’
And ad nauseum.
Second teaching point of the day: if you want to speak (and understand) more natural italiano, discard the initial subject or subject pronoun at least 80-90% of the time.
You heard, probably in elementary school, that English sentences follow the pattern Subject > Verb > Object?
S.V.O. is easy to understand and remember. However, in italiano, sentences are typically just V.O.
So instead of “Maria è bella” go with “E’ bella, Maria’, which is a verb-first pattern, the subject coming later, and only if necessary to whatever your communicative purpose is.
If we all already know that we’re admiring Maria, then totally don’t bother with the subject at all:
“E’ bella.”
Simple, short, ubiquitous, but totally wrong in English.
In italiano you’ll only need bother with the subject prounoun when emphasizing who you mean, for example in this pair of contrasting clauses:
“Lei è bella, io sono intelligente, invece.”)
Sono interessante gli errori, si può imparare tanto!
Translation?
Errors are interesting. You can learn a lot from them.
See how those two sentences are not structured in the same way? Give yourself a pat on the back for each difference you can notice.
Besides the Italian/Spanish women to my left, there’s now an Italian ‘ragazza’ to my right, a university student judging by the thesis I can see her typing on her laptop (psychiatry?) while at the same time recording noisy WhatsApp messages directly into my right ear.
Boarding now. Wish me a good flight!
What I’m reading/watching this week
Courtesy of the library app, I’ve read much of The Economist, The Guardian Weekly, The Week, and Money Week, all weekly magazines (the clue is in the names), because I’m trying to break free from the hourly/daily news cycle. But I have been looking at an Italian newspaper, ‘il Fatto Quotidiano’ most days, trying to figure out its weird political stances (i.e. that Israeli leader Netanyahu is worse than Russian dictator Putin.) The writing is accessible, at least. Also the Western Morning News, to keep in touch with my roots.
I finally finished ‘Il divo Claudio’ by Robert Graves, having had to borrow the ebook three times from the local library app to get through its four-hundred-odd pages. Fortunately, no one else wanted to read it in all that time. I must be a person of sophisticated tastes. Anyway, now I’m reading the much, much shorter ‘L’Arte di Spendere Soldi’ by Morgan Housel, which I had to queue up for in the library app, as there were sixteen other would be spendthrifts ahead of me. The best I can say so far is that it’s vaguely thought-provoking. And short.
TV-wise, we’re still on Series 1 of ER (in English), and the various characters’ love lives are starting to sort themselves out. I had a Bug-free weekend (Stefi took him to Rimini where he threw balls into the sea for someone’s dog) but was too cumulatively tired to waste Saturday night on a film, so went to bed instead.
P.S.
And here’s the inevitable reminder to read/listen to Tuesday’s bulletin of news from EasyItalianNews.com, which I haven’t, as I was on airplanes and trains all day yesterday. But I will.
Reading/listening practice will help you consolidate the Italian you’re studying, expand your vocabulary, and build vital comprehension skills.
EasyItalianNews.com is FREE to read/listen to.
Subscribing, and so receiving all three text + audio bulletins of ‘easy’ news via email each week – on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays – is also FREE.
Just enter your email address on this page and click the confirmation link that will be sent to you.
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