Suzy

✩ applied linguistics: english and italian with translation programme ✩ literature ✩ ravenclaw

[asorceria]

30 days of consuming Italian

(day thirty) I have done it, guys! I actually made it through. to be honest, I doubted myself because I usually struggle with productivity challenges. but this was an exciting experience and worthwhile, too. my vocabulary genuinely expanded which is the most important part of this little experiment. I think I might continue with daily italiano learning but I’d probably update weekly now. I hope you guys are doing great ❤️

[asorceria]

30 days of consuming Italian

(day twenty-nine) this is how far I got in duo. I’m lowkey proud of myself because I usually give up after one lesson. I must admit I have learnt quite a bit of useful vocab 🥳

[asorceria]

30 days of consuming Italian

(day twenty-seven and twenty-eight) guys, I’ve finished the collection of Italian short stories! the seventh story is about vikings, kind of boring but I flew through it. the last one is about a woman who becomes invisible, which helps her improve her life a bit. this one’s more my cup of tea. I’m sharing some of the vocab I came across:

la pattuglia, a patrol

la oscurità, darkness

la scarsezza, shortage

la burrasca, a storm

il presentimento, a premonition

i nativi, natives

le bibite, drinks

l’alba, dawn

[asorceria]

30 days of consuming Italian

(day twenty-six) I have read a story about a dragon. at the end, there was this little twist involving a spy and an emperor (got serious palpatine vibes). the stories are becoming more and more dark.

interesting vocab:

il malvagio, evil

il cliente assiduo, a regular customer

la daga, dagger

in rovina, in ruins

inoffensivo, harmless

l’imperatore, an emperor

[asorceria]

30 days of consuming Italian

(day twenty-four and twenty-five) didn’t update yesterday because I only did duo. today, however, I got back to reading the short stories. I finished the one about a mysterious chest. to say the least, it was very dramatic. reading in italiano is so much easier ever since I’ve started utilising technology in learning because I can just use the function to look up an unfamiliar word and move along with the story. I’ll probably be more productive in the days to come, considering my uni is closed for the next two weeks.

word of the day: tergiversare, to beat around the bush

[asorceria]

(10.03.2020) a rollercoaster of a day; I found out that universities are being closed because of the virus and now I’ll have some time off uni. I’ll try to catch up on my reading because I’ve been reading virginia far too long

[asorceria]

(09.03.2020) a calmer and slower day. this first line speaks to me so much: I hate darkness and sleep and night, and lie longing for the day to come.

[asorceria]

30 days of consuming Italian

(day twenty-three) got the idioms and proverbs addition on duo and thought I’d share some of them:

essere una biblioteca ambulante, to be a walking encyclopaedia

battere il ferro finché è caldo, to strike the iron while it’s hot

essere duro come un mulo, to be stubborn as a mule

non piangere sul latte versato, not to cry over spilled milk

costare un occhio della testa, to cost an arm and a leg

[mirroir]

“Still,” wrote van Gogh in a letter, “a great deal of light falls on everything.”

[quotemadness]

“So therefore I dedicate myself to myself, to my art, my sleep, my dreams, my labors, my sufferances, my loneliness, my unique madness, my endless absorption and hunger - because I cannot dedicate myself to any fellow being.”

— Jack Kerouac

[asorceria]

30 days of consuming Italian

(day twenty...twenty-two) didn’t update because literally all I’ve been doing is duolingo. I’m reaching the third checkpoint. soon I’ll be done with the whole course

[vronsk-aya]

ITALIAN EXPRESSIONS

Raga - short for “ragazzi”; literally: “guys” (probably the most used)

Dai - it can be translated to “come on” and it’s pronounced like the English word “die” (so yeah it can create a little bit of misunderstanding)

Meno Male! - literally “less bad!”; but it means “thank God!”

Magari! - literally “maybe”; it’s the italian equivalent of “I wish!”

Basta - it means “that’s enough” “stop it” “enough”

Boh - literally this emoji: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ or “to have no clue”. (“Did we have homework for today” “boh”)

Quattro gatti - literally “four cats”; it means very few people. (Alla festa eravamo in quattro gatti - at the party we were in four cats)

Come Dio comanda - literally “as God commands”; something done properly, like it should be.

Spettegolare - to gossip

Toccare ferro - literally “to touch iron”; italian equivalent for “knock on wood” (yeah we touch iron instead)

alzare il gomito - literally: “to raise the elbow”; to drink too much (if someone raised the elbow he drank more than he should have)

Siga - short for “sigaretta” which means cigarette (would be “ciga” in English? Did I just invented a new slang word? Idk)

Ci sta - literally: “it fits” it means “that’s cool” “sounds good”

Fatti furbo - literally: “make yourself smart”; it means something like “wake up!” “open your eyes!”

Un limone - literally: “a lemon”; it’s a make out session

[langsandlit]

Only some of these are actual expressions, but apart from that, I’d like to add some notes:

raga or ragà: it’s s usually only used with vocative functions, i.e. to address your group of friends, e.g. raga/ragà, domani che facciamo? But in general they can’t be used as a shortened form of ragazzi. 

dai: as well as being used as “come on!”, as in to encourage someone to do something, we also use dai to beg someone informally, especially if we want someone to stop doing something to us (the -i is usually very long). Dai, smettila di farmi il solletico “Please stop tickling me”.

magari: some more detailed uses.

ci sta: it’s not used like that everywhere, because I’ve never heard it being used it like that so it might be regional. Ci sta usually is a colloquial way to say “that’s understandable/reasonable”, e.g. «A quel punto lo hanno licenziato.», «Ci sta.» “at that point they fired him”, “That’s reasonable”; ci sta che ti sia arrabbiato “it’s understandable you got mad”. Though ci sto means “I’m up/down”, e.g. «Vogliamo andare al cinema?», “Ci sto» “Do you want to go to the pictures?”, “I’m down”.

un limone: same as above, it’s regional and also ugly but more forward since limonare means “to snog”. 

[achillesthetic]

Et tu, overwhelming fear of academic failure?

[asorceria]

30 days of consuming Italian

(day nineteen) I’ve been stuck with these boringly easy categories on duo like numbers, determiners or presente indicativo, which makes me so annoyed. on the other hand, I started the next section of stories about some mysterious chest (lo scrigno). I hope it doesn’t end with another cliffhanger, I can’t bear them anymore. these stories are designed to drive people insane.

[asorceria]

30 days of consuming Italian

(day eighteen) I wish I could start uni late every day because I can actually be productive in the morning. I read another chapter of that pirate story and nothing was resolved but somehow it was the ending? I scrolled farther and there’s nothing more, another section starts and it’s about a new thing. did the author of these stories want to drive people insane? because it’s working. today’s favourite phrase is fare finta di niente which means act as though nothing happened 🤗

[trap-mind]

will i end the semester or will the semester end me??? stay tuned

[langsandlit]

Do what you want with this information, but afterthoughts or sudden and abrupt exclamations of doubt or disbelief in Italian are introduced by the conjunction ma “but”. It’s very to common to start questions or exclamations with this conjunction, despite the general rule to never open a sentence with one.

For example Chi sei? is simply asking “who are you?”, but Ma chi sei? translates as “who do you think you are?”.