Becoming Italian Word by Word

Giving Thanks in the Italian Language

Thank you

Italians don’t observe the all-American holiday of thanksgiving (la festa del ringraziamento). There are Italian words, but no cultural equivalents for the Pilgrim fathers (padri pellegrini) and the American Indians (Amerindi) who came together to celebrate the harvest (il raccolto) in the new world (il Nuovo Mondo). Italians do eat turkey (tacchino) and pumpkin (zucca) but not in the traditional way (modo tradizionale) that Americans prepare them on Thanksgiving.

At this time of expressing gratitudine, I would like to thank (ringraziare) all of you -- more than 450,000 -- who have visited my website, followed my blog, or read La Bella Lingua: My Love Affair with Italian, the World’s Most Enchanting Language. 

And so I say  grazie (thanks), grazie infinite (endless thanks), grazie mille (thanks a thousand, literally, but it translates as thanks a million), molte grazie (thank you very much), and grazie di cuore (thanks from the heart).

Italian appreciation (like everything else) becomes more effusive on paper. If you are writing a lettera di ringraziamento (a thank-you letter) for a gift, a meal, or a kindness, you might use phrases such as: 

*Non so come ringraziarLa -- I don’t know how to thank you (formal) 

*Grazie per la squisita ospitalità -- thank you for your exquisite hospitality 

*Grazie infinite per la Sua (formal)/ tua (informal) gentilezza -- thank you for your kindness 

*La ringrazio per tutto quello che ha fatto per me -- thank you for all that you have done for me (formal) 

*Il più affettuoso grazie per...la cena, il regalo, ecc -- most affectionate thanks for…the dinner, the gift, etc. 

*Le porgo i miei più sentiti ringraziamenti -- I profer to you my most heartfelt thanks (formal) 

*Non trovo parole per dirLe quanto ci ha fatto piacere -- I cannot find the words to tell you how much pleasure it gave me 

So what do you say when someone thanks you? Here are some options: 

*Prego -- please, not at all, comparable to "you're welcome"

*Di niente -- It’s nothing 

*Non c’è di che -- Not at all 

*Ma immaginati!  Ma figurati! -- That’s all right (literally, imagine or fancy that) –

*Non dirlo neanche -- Don’t even mention it 

*Non dire sciocchezze -- Don’t be silly (to friends) 

*È il minimo che potessi fare -- It is the least I can do 

*È stato un piacere -- It was a pleasure 

And then there's my husband's favorite: L'onore e tutto mio! -- The honor is all mine.

Words and Expressions 

ingraziarsi -- to curry favor 

grazie a Dio -- thank God 

Grazie, a buon rendere! -- Thank you, I owe you one! 

essere grato di –- to appreciate, to be grateful for

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language.  

If I could show my appreciation in a song, this is the one I'd choose. You can find the lyrics on the youtube site. 

 

Top 10 Tips for Learning the Italian Language (Part 2)

i migliori consigli

the best tips

In my last post, I shared five of the strategies that helped me learn and love la bella lingua. The secret of the next five is having fun as you acquire a second tongue. 

6. Play. Word games in any language strengthen the brain and boost memory. In Italian giochi di parole, such as cruciverba (crosswords), enigmi (puzzles), and anagrammi (anagrams) add the extra bonus of building your vocabulary. You can buy inexpensive puzzle books at newsstands in Italy or play online.  Another fun option is playing the Italian versions of popular board games, such as Monopoly and Scarabeo (Scrabble), with friends or fellow students. Or you can ask an Italian to teach you card games such as Scopa and Briscola. (Just don’t bet any money on them.)

7. Mingle. Join a bocce team or a Vespa club. Watch a soccer match in an Italian bar or restaurant. Take cooking classes taught by Italians. Go to Italian street festivals. For informal opportunities to speak Italian, look for a local conversation group at www.meetup.com. Enroll in a class at schools, community centers, Italian cultural organizations -- or, best of all, in Italy.

8. Don’t be afraid of tripping over your tongue. “Sbagliando si impara,” Italians say. “You learn by making mistakes.” Focus on communicating, not speaking in diagram-able sentences. If you can’t think of the correct tense, just say the infinitive of a verb -- parlare for “speak”, for example -- or stick to the present tense. And by all means, use your hands. That’s molto italiano.

9. Spend time in Italy every day. If you don't have time or money for a trip abroad, bring a little Italy into your life. Drink an espresso. Eat some pasta. Have a gelato. Listen to a Puccini aria. Wear something Italian (shoes are a great choice). Visit the websites of ex-pats, happy wanderers, and travel bloggers.

10. Be swept away. I fell so madly, gladly, giddily in love with Italian that I spent years researching and writing La Bella Lingua: My Love Affair with Italian, the World’s Most Enchanting Language. The more you know about how Italian became Italian, civilized the Western world, and enriched every aspect of our culture and life, the more Italian you’ll want to know.

For something entirely different, sit in on an Italian class with Monty Python:

Top 10 Tips for Learning the Italian Language (Part 1)

 
 

 imparare l'italiano

learning Italian

Since the publication of LA BELLA LINGUA in 2009, many readers have written to tell me that they've been inspired to study Italian. Yet while Italian is easy to love, it can be hard to learn. In honor of the eleventh annual "Settimana della Lingua Italiana" (Italian Language Week), I am re-posting some secrets for acquiring l’italiano. Here are the first five, with five more to come in my next blog: 

1. Fill your ears. Modern Italian sprang from the volgare, the rough-and-ready street Latin of ancient Rome. Spoken for centuries before the vernacular was captured on paper, Italian remains a language for the ear. Listening primes the brain for understanding. I started listening to beginner Living Language CDs in my car years ago and drove my way through the entire series. You also can download podcasts to your iPod, MP3 player, or cell phone, and listen on planes, trains, buses, and places in between.

2. See it, say it, stick it. Train yourself to say the Italian word (if only to yourself) for things you look at every day: il cielo for sky, la sedia for chair; il pane for bread. (It’s always best to memorize the masculine or feminine article along with a word.) Put a post-it note with the Italian name on objects, such as il tavolo (table) or lo specchio (mirror), around the house. Don’t remove one until you’ve memorized the term.

3. Read. Go to onlinenewspapers.com  for a sampling of Italian language papers. Just scanning the headlines will give you a sense of common words and names in the news. Try to get your hands on Italian comics (seriously). If you’re young or young at heart, you’ll delight in the adventures of Topolino (Mickey Mouse). Italian action comics, with heroes such as Tex, a time-traveling cowboy, and the sauve jewel thief Diabolik, “king of terror,” provide a fun way to improve your vocabulary and reading skills.  

4. Watch. Movies allow you to see and hear Italian in action. Rent classics such as Roma, città aperta or La dolce vita. By all means, read the English subtitles but leave the sound on so you can absorb the rhythm of the language. Among the movies I watch time and again are: Fellini’s Amarcord and E la nave va, Il Postino, Pane e tulipani, and anything with Marcello Mastroianni, particularly the biography  "Si, mi ricordo" ("Yes, I Remember"), made by the woman who shared the last decades of his life.

5. Sing. Even if you can’t carry a tune, singing along with popular Italian songs can introduce you to everyday vocabulary and improve your pronunciation. At www.youtube.com you’ll find everything from charming ninnenanne (lullabies) such as Stella stellina to pop tunes like Volare (below) and famous operatic arias. 

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language. 

 

Sex Matters in the Italian Language

maschio, femmina

masculine, feminine

“Non vedo l’ora di vedere il mostro!” I declared to a friend in Florence.

When she broke out laughing, I knew I had done it again. I had meant to say, “I can’t wait to see the exhibit (la mostra).” Instead I said I couldn’t wait to see the monster.

This is the difference gender can make in Italian.   I walked into a florist’s and asked for a bunch of flowers. Or so I thought. Instead of un mazzo, I could have ended up with una mazza (a sledgehammer or club). I once said that I adore the scent of lavender—but instead of lo spigo, I said la spiga (ear—as in corn). I’ve complained about a pain, not in the neck (il collo), but in the glue (la colla). I’ve asked for una foglia (leaf) when I wanted un foglio (sheet of paper) to write something down. In my most mortifying strafalcione (linguistic blunder), I proclaimed in a crowded restaurant that my husband and I were enjoying our apartment's view of  the roofs  of Rome—except that instead of the masculine tetti I used the feminine slang tette, which translates as “tits.”

If these transformations weren’t confusing enough, body parts tend to change gender in the plural. Il braccio (arm) becomes le braccia; il sopracciglio (the eyebrow), le sopracciglia; il dito (finger), le dita; il ginocchio (knee), le ginocchia; il labbro (the lip), le labbra; l’osso (the bone), le ossa.

Other words, for no reason I can decipher, also do a gender flip in the plural. A wall, for instance, is masculine: il muro. But put two walls together and they become feminine: le mura. The sheet (il lenzuolo) I put on the bed may be masculine, but the sheets (le lenzuola) I hang up to dry are feminine. I break un uovo (an egg) but scramble le uova (the eggs).

While the words for trees (alberi) are masculine, the names of their fruit are feminine. La mela (the apple) comes from il melo (the apple tree); the cherry (la ciliegia) from il ciliegio (the cherry tree); the peach (la pesca) from il pesco (the peach tree)--but the limone from l'albero di limone. If you want un’arancia but ask for un arancio, you could end up with an orange tree on your plate.

A conversation about animals can be equally confounding. A male cat is a gatto and a female one a gatta, but some animals are always masculine, such as coniglio (rabbit), delfino (dolphin), topo (mouse), corvo (crow),  scoiattolo (squirrel), and  serpente. Others are always feminine: aquila (eagle), balena (whale), pantera (panther), rondine (sparrow), scimmia (monkey), tigre (tiger), vipera (viper), and volpe (fox). A male monkey is una scimmia maschio; a female bunny, un coniglio femmina.

It’s enough to make me want to press la mia fronte (my forehead) against il fronte (front) of the nearest building and sigh.

Gender-Bending Words

Masculine                   Feminine

Il ballo (dance)           la balla (bale, bundle)

il colpo (blow)            la colpa (fault)

il costo (cost)             la costa (coast)

il filo (thread)            la fila (line)

il mento (chin)           la menta (mint)

il pizzo (lace)             la pizza

il porto (port)             la porta (door)

il testo (text)             la testa (head)

il velo (veil)               la vela (sail)

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language. 

Becoming a Knight of the Italian Language

Il Cavaliere

The Knight

The President of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano, has awarded me the highest honor the government can bestow on a foreigner: honorary knighthood, with the title of Cavaliere dell’ Ordine della Stella della Solidarietà Italiana (Knight of the Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity) in recognition of La Bella Lingua as "an invaluable tool for promoting the Italian language."  The onorificenza (honor) was presented at a ceremony at the Italian Consulate in San Francisco on March 25. (Photo above; i will post more at my website in the coming week.)

Italy has a long tradition of honoring citizens who have served their country in extraordinary ways with a cavalierato (knighthood). Individuals in the military and in civilian life may be named to a specific ordine cavalleresco (knightly or chivalrous order), depending on the nature of their achievements. The noun cavaliere is always masculine, and both male and female knights are referred to as Cavaliere, abbreviated as Cav.

After World War II the Italian government created the Ordine della stella della solidarietà italiana (Order of the star of Italian solidarity) to honor and express appreciation to those outside the country who  contributed to the reconstruction of Italy (la ricostruzione dell’Italia). This designation is now conferred upon Italian expatriates and foreigners (stranieri, like myself) who have contributed to la preservazione dell'italianità (the preservation of the Italian spirit) and il prestigio nazionale all'estero (the national prestige abroad) through various activities.

The first mentioned is la promozione della lingua italiana (promotion of the Italian language), and I am proud that LA BELLA LINGUA has served this worthy purpose. Other honorees have been recognized for their volunteer work, philanthropy, scientific and technological research, commercial ventures, and la promozione eno-gastronomica (promotion of wine and gastronomy).

The nomination process involves an advisory committee called Il Consiglio dell’Ordine, whose members include  il Capo del Cerimoniale Diplomatico della Repubblica (the head of Diplomatic Ceremony for the Republic). They make recommendations to the Ministro degli Esteri (Foreign Minister), who presents the final nominees to Il Presidente della Repubblica.

I am, for once, senza parole (without words). To receive un’onorificenza così particolare, così grande, dal governo d’Italia (an award so special, so great, from the government of Italy) is  a great and unexpected honor. However, the recognition does not belong only to me.  I accepted the beautiful medallion (in three sizes and forms for various occasions) con profonda umiltà e gratitudine a nome di tutti coloro che considerano la lingua italiana uno dei più bei regali che Italia ha fatto al mondo intero (with profound humility and gratitude in the name of all who consider the Italian language one of the most beautiful gifts that Italy has made to the world).

To the government of Italy and to the many Italian sostenitori (supporters) of La Bella Lingua, grazie di cuore (thanks from the heart). Viva l’italiano!

Words and Expressions

cavaliere errante –- knight errant 

cavaliere servente –- ladies’ man

cavalleria –- chivalry

Il Cavaliere–- political nickname for Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi

Click below for a particularly moving rendition of Italy’s national anthem, Fratelli d’Italia, sung a cappella by Roberto Benigni at this year’s San Remo music festival

 

Dianne Hales is author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language.

10 Reasons to Fall in Love with Italian -- and Italy (Part 2)

 
 

innamorarsi 

 to fall in love

Italian embodies its native speakers’ greatest genius: the ability to transform anything—from marble to melody, from the humble noodle to life itself—into a joyous art While other tongues do little more than speak, Italian thrills the ear, beguiles the mind, captivates the heart, and enraptures the soul. 

Here are five more reasons to fall in love with Italian. 

6. You can immerse yourself in an Italian masterpiece. You can’t sculpt like Michelangelo, paint like Leonardo or design like Armani. But you can read and speak the language that 14th century poets—Dante first and foremost—crafted from the effervescent Tuscan vernacular. Handpicked by writers and scholars in the first official Vocabolario in any Western tongue, Italian words represent “i più bei fiori” (the most beautiful flowers) in the language.

 7. Speaking Italian may be the closest many of us get to singing. What makes Italian so musical are its vigorous vocali (vowels): An Italian “a” slides up from the throat into an ecstatic “aaaah.” Its “e” (pronounced like a hard English “a”) cheers like the hearty “ay” at the end of hip-hip-hooray. The “i” (which sounds like an English “e”) glides with the glee of the double e in bee. The “o” (an English “o” on steroids) is as perfectly round as the red circle Giotto painted in a single stroke for a pope demanding a sample of his work. The macho “u” (deeper, stronger and longer than its English counterpart) lunges into the air like a penalty kick from Italy’s world-champion soccer team, the Azzurri (Blues). 

8. Italian may be our universal mother tongue. Dating back almost three millennia, its primal sounds—virtually identical to those that roared through Roman amphitheaters thousands of years ago—strike a chord in our universal linguistic DNA. According to some scholars, Italian may come closer than any other idiom to expressing what it means to be human. 

9. You’re never too young—or too old—to learn Italian. As brain scans have shown, groping for even the simplest words in a different language sparks new clusters of neurons and synapses. Within weeks in an all-Italian class, preschoolers understand everything happening around them. It takes longer as we get older, but learning a second language later in life provides a different advantage: It helps stave off dementia. 

10. Italians. The more you know of their language, the more you’ll realize how right the British author E.M. Forster was when he urged visitors to drop “that awful tourist idea that Italy’s only a museum of antiquities and art.” His advice: “Love and understand the Italians for the people are more marvelous than the land.” Indeed they are. And if you’re of Italian descent, cherish Italy’s language as a marvelous part of your heritage. 

This may be your last chance to enter our "Fall in Love with Italy" contest, which runs through Monday, February 28, until midnight Pacific time.  Click below to hear me talk about how I fell in love with this luscious language.

A Life Lesson in the Italian Language

I so enjoyed this clever and wise anecdote from Il Gruppo Castelvetrano in Trapani, Sicily,  that I translated  it into English to share with more readers in the holiday season. Click here for the complete Italian version.  

La storia del barratolo

The Story of the Jar

A professor (un professore), in front of his philosophy class, without saying a word (senza dire parole), takes a big jar (barattolo), and fills it with golf balls (palle da golf). He asks the students if the jar is full (pieno).  They say “Si” (yes).

The professor then takes a box full of little glass  balls (palline di vetro) -- we might call them marbles -- and pours it into the jar. The little balls fill in the empty spaces between the golf balls. The professor asks the students if the jar is full, and they again say yes.

The professor takes a box of sand (una scatola di sabbia) and pours it into the jar. The sand fills all the empty spaces, and the professor again asks if the jar is full. This time the students respond with a unanimous “yes” (un si unanime).

The professor quickly adds two cups of coffee (due tazze di caffé) to the contents of the jar. They fill all the empty spaces (tutti gli spazi vuoti) in the sand. The students laugh...

When the laughter (la risata)  dies down, the professor says, “I want you to understand that this jar represents life (rappresenta la vita). The golf balls are the important things (le cose importanti), like family, children, health, friends, love, the things that fill us with passion (ci appassionano). They are things that, even if we were to lose everything and only they remained, our lives would still be full (le nostre vite sarebbero ancora piene)." 

"The glass balls are the other things that are important to us (le altre cose che ci importanto), like work, home, etc. The sand is all the rest (tutto il resto)—the little things. If before everything you would put the sand in the jar, there would be no room for the little glass balls or the golf balls."

"The same thing (la stessa cosa) happens with life. If we use all our time and energy (tutto il nostro tempo ed energia) on the little things, we will never have space for the really important things."

“Pay attention (fai attenzione) to the things that are crucial for your happiness (cruciali per la tua felicità): play with your children, take time to go to dinner with your partner, practice your favorite sport or hobby. There will always be time to clean house (pulire casa), to cut weeds, to repair the little things."

"Take up first the golf balls, the things that really matter to you.  Set your priorities (stabilisci le tue priorità); the rest is only sand.”

One of the students raises his hand (alza la mano) and asks what the cups of coffee represent.  The professor smiles and says, “It is only to demonstrate that it doesn’t matter how busy our life can seem (quanto occupata possa sembrare la vostra vita).  There is always a place for a cup of coffee with a friend.”

Words and Expressions

vivere una vita piena --to live a full life

fare la vita di Michelangelo -- to make the life of Michelangelo, to make a comfortable life

lasciarsi vivere -- to let oneself live, to take things as they come

sapere vivere -- to know how to live, to know how to get along with people 

 

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language. 

Click below for a stirring anthem to life in both English and Italian:

Playing Hooky in the Italian Language

marinare la scuola

"marinate the school," play hooky

I played hooky the other day. The weather was perfect (faceva bello). The tide (la marea) was out. I didn’t have a deadline (una scadenza) to meet. So I headed for my favorite beach (la mia spiaggia preferita) and walked for miles. Then I felt guilty (in colpa).

“Perchè?” (Why?) an Italian friend asked. “Così fanno tutti.” (Everyone does it.) It’s true. Every country has some equivalent of “playing hooky.” The British “play truant”; the Germans “blaumachen”; the French “faire l'école buissonnière” (make school in the bushes).

But in Italy cutting class -- marinare la scuola (marinate or pickle the school) in standard Italian -– seems to be a national pastime, so widespread that linguists have identified dozens of local expressions for truancy. Here are some examples from various regions:

• Piedmont: tagliare (to cut), bucare (to make a hole), fare sega (to make the saw, to saw)

• Lombardy: scavallare (to frisk about), far cavalletta (to make the grasshopper), impiccare (to hang), salare (to salt)

• Trentino: bruciare (to burn), andare in marina (to go to the marina)

• Veneto: far manca (to make the left), brusare or bruciare (to burn), buco (hole)

• Liguria: fare il ponte (to make the bridge), saltare (to leap or jump)

• Emilia-Romagna: fare fuoco (to make fire), fare fuga (to make flight), fare focaccia (to make focaccia)

• Tuscany: fare chiodo (to make the nail), fare forca (to make the pitchfork), fare sale (to make salt)

• Umbria: fare salina (to make salty)

• Marche, Lazio: fare sega (to make the saw)

• Molise: fare spago (to make string)

• Campania: fare filone (to make the big wire)

• Puglia: fare fruscio (to make a rustle), saltare la piomba (to salt the lead), fare salasso (to make bloody

• Calabria: scioperare (to go on strike), giocarsela (to make a game of it)

• Sicily: far Sicilia (to make Sicily), stampare (to print), sparare (to shoot), buttarsela (to throw one’s self), fare luna (make moon), fare l'ora (make the hour)

• Sardinia: fare vela (make sail)

By whatever name, skipping school is, as an Italian writer puts it, una delle attività più amate dagli studenti di tutto il mondo (one of the most loved activities of students of all the world.)

Woody Allen, the multi-talented American wit, once explained the allure of this guilty pleasure:  “There are few things in life more enjoyable than playing hooky,” he observed, “It’s like postponing the electric chair.” (Ci sono poche cose nella vita divertenti come marinare la scuola, è come rimandare la sedia elettrica.)

You can find more regional expressions for cutting school, including some in dialect, by clicking here. 

For Italian speakers, the clip below provides excuses for not going to school (le scuse per non andare a scuola). One tip:  For a febbre finta (fake fever), insert a  thermometer  into the mouth of your pet dog. Or you can claim that  you must attend the funeral of a close relative. This excuse, the young narrator cautions, should not be used more than una o due volte (one or two times).

 

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Itaian, the World's Most Enchanting Language.

Strangers in the Italian Language

Gli stranieri

The foreigners

“Statunitense?” a hotel clerk in Italy once asked me. When I looked befuddled, he clarified the question: “La Sua nazionalità?”

“No, no,” I vehemently declared. “Sono americana.” He  kindly explained that he had thought that a “United States-er” was, in fact, an American.

Well, yes—even though we don’t identify ourselves as such. It may be a small world (un piccolo mondo), but we remain foreigners (gli stranieri) in other languages, including Italian.

Some countries—such as l’Austria, l’Australia, il Canada,  l’Iraq, and la Russia--go by the same names in English and Italian. But an Austrian is an austriaco; an Australian, an australiano; a Canadian, a canadese;  an Iraqi, an iracheno, and a Russian, a russo. (Italian does not capitalize the words for citizens of any nation, including gli italiani.)

Italian designates--for reasons unknown to everyone I asked--certain nations as masculine (il Brasile, lo Yemen) and others as feminine (la Tailandia, la Turchia). A man from la Spagna is a spagnolo and a woman a spagnola, a male Mexican, a messicano and a female a messicana. Regardless of gender, a citizen of il Belgio (Belgium) is always a belga; two or more are belgi.

La Francia is home of the francesi; l’Irlanda, of the irlandesi; and la Svizzera, of the svizzeri.   The giapponesi come from il Giappone; the coreani, from la Corea; the cingalesi, from lo Sri Lanka; the bengalesi, from il Bangladesh,  the vietnamiti, from il Vietnam; and the cinesi, from La Cina. The citizens of il Cile (Chile) are cileni; of il Perù, peruviani; of Il Venezuela, venezuelani; and of la Nigaragua, nicaraguensi. 

All the Scandinavian countries follow the same pattern, with norvegesi from la Norvegia, danesi from la Danimarca, finlandesi from la Finlandia, and svedesi from la Svezia. This is not the case for Africa, where the kenyoti come from Il Kenya, the libici from la Libia, the tunisini from la Tunisia, the marocchini from il Marocco, and the congolesi from il Congo.

English speakers refer to the birthplace of their mother tongue by three names: the United Kingdom, Great Britain, and England. The Italian counterparts are il Regno Unito, la Gran Bretagna, and l’Inghilterra. In English, the Dutch come from the country known either as Holland or the Netherlands. In Italian, the olandesi come from l’Olanda or i Paesi Bassi (the low countries).

When Italians ask about my ethnic background, I explain that my grandparents came from la Polonia (Poland). But I was taken aback the first time one responded, “Ah, una polacca!” Although it sounds like the not-very-nice American slang for a Pole, “polacco” and “polacca” are, in fact, the perfectly respectable Italian terms for a Polish man or woman.

The combination of “alla"  plus a nationality refers to a characteristic of a particular country. “Un giardino alla giapponese," for instance, is a garden made in the Japanese style. The Italians call a pert little nose  a “naso alla francese” (in the French style) and  a placemat, a tovaglietta all'americana (in the American style).

When I heard one Italian say to another, "Non facciamo le cose all'italiana" (Let’s not do things in the Italian style), I asked  what this means. Her translation:  "Let's do things properly without improvising too much."

Words and Expressions

Paese che vai, usanza che trovi -- Every country  you go to has its own customs

fumare come un turco -- to smoke like a chimney

Tutto il mondo è paese -–  All the world is a village.

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language. 

Click below for a classic song about Italians who want to "fare l'americano" (make or act the American):

 

Guest Blog: Growing Up Bilingual in Italian and English

One Family, Two Languages

Una famiglia, due lingue

by Rebecca Winke

I fell in love with the bel paese during a high school foreign exchange summer in Umbria in 1986, when I met my future husband and began tripping through my first words in Italian. In 1993, after college, I moved to Italy from Chicago and opened an agriturismo in my husband’s renovated family farmhouse at the foot of Mount Subasio near Assisi. I spend my time taking care of guests at Brigolante and of our two sons -- Nicolò, nine, and Leonardo, “five going on six.”  

Raising bilingual and/or bicultural kids crystalizes the poignant truth about how much children belong to you and how much — how excruciatingly, heart-breakingly, humblingly much — they do not. We use OPOL (One Person One Language) in our house, which is a rather inelegant way of saying that I speak English to our sons and my husband speaks Italian.

Conventional wisdom holds that bilingual children speak later than monolingual children and that boys generally speak later than girls. My two bilingual sons spoke so precociously that I often found myself wistfully yearning that this were true.

Almost simultaneously with putting together their first phrases, my children understood grammar. They would often say “I raccont-ed (Italian for told) a story” or “they sposa themselves” (get married). From these linguistic mash-ups, I realized that toddlers—yes, toddlers--already understand the concept of adding a suffix to a verb in English to communicate the past tense and how a reflexive verb works in Italian.

Young children also understand the concept of language as a meta experience. When my older son was just learning his first words, I instructed him in English to say thank you to the butcher. He turned and said, “Grazie!” He already understood that two distinct languages with separate vocabularies needed to be spoken appropriately to two distinct groups of people.

As a parent I’ve come to realize how much of conversation is not a two-way street, even if you are speaking directly to a second person. For example, when I ask my son -- in Italian -- in front of his aunt if he has thanked her for the birthday gift, I’m not so much prompting him as communicating to her, “Listen, if he hasn’t said thank you, it’s not because I’m a bad parent who doesn’t know how to teach manners!” If I announce -- in Italian -- during a play date, “If you don’t keep it down, there will be no ice cream!” I am getting it across to all present that ice cream is on the line, even if you’re not my kid so I can’t scold you directly.

Every family has a private language, laced with inside jokes and references, invented words, and lots of baggage. A bilingual family’s patois is more intricate and exclusive. I end my children’s names in the endearment mou, which is a relic from my Greek heritage. My husband calls them boccia, a word in the disappearing Umbrian dialect for young boy — how he himself was addressed growing up.

We all slip an Italian word into an English sentence or an English word into an Italian sentence for expediency or comprehension (or habit). My sons say they’re nervous when they mean stressed-out (nervoso in Italian), annoyed when they mean bored (annoiato), and uneducated when they mean rude (maleducato). They use taste, smell, and feel indiscriminately (because it’s all the same verb sentire in Italian).

As they grow, my sons’ two languages will fully form and separate, and our little private island with its crazy patchwork of words stitched together with the threads of history and family and culture will slowly vanish. But right now we speak one common language in our house -- the language of love. And we all capisce (understand) ourselves, as my sons would say.

Rebecca blogs about the lovely region she calls home at Rebecca’s Ruminations and wonders what strange winds blew an urban vegetarian to a pig farm in Umbria.

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language.