I'm Also Learning Italian

Hello! It's Anna from learningrussianwithanna.tumblr.com. I wanted to keep my Italian learning separate, so join me on this blog!

[unateoriadegliautori]

pasqualino settebellezze (1975)

[sayitaliano]

Social media for Italians

And how we occasionally and affectionately refer to them especially when speaking with or writing to friends:

tumbrl -> il tumblo instagram -> insta, ig (pronunciated roughly: ee-gee) facebook -> feisbuk (we write the actual pronunciation of the word), fb (pronunciated roughly: aeffae-bee), faccialibro (literal Italian translation of "facebook"; no more used probably but there's been a period in which this was pretty common) twitter -> tuitter (we write the actual pronunciation), il social dell'uccellino (= the little bird's social *media*) twitch -> "il social viola" (= the purple social *media*) youtube -> il tubo (= the tube)

(many times we end up reading their name or many English/American brands' names the Italian way: e.g. we may make "spotify" sound "spotifee", or read "apple" as "apple" indeed: ahpplae)

[goodbearblind]

[imalsolearningitalian]

Random Vocab Picked up from Reading Natalia Ginzburg’s “Valentino” in Italian

[alt text: vintage cover of Valentino, a pixelated black and white illustration showing two figures reading in a library]

This is my first time reading an Italian novel that I haven’t previously read in English! Most of it is admittedly going over my head, but it’s thrilling when I understand passages. 

Part 1: Pages 1—36

La portinaia — Concierge 

Il castagno — Chestnut

Bitorzoli — Lumpy

Lo sciatore — Skier

Guadagnare — To earn

Il merlo — Blackbird, fool (i.e. il merlo di famiglia)

Perbene — Decent

Annaspare — To gasp 

La cenere — Ash

Arricciare — To curl up 

Lusso — Luxury

Stirare — To press

Il cestino — Basket, rubbish bin

La seta — Silk 

La sporta — Bag, basket

Le scemenze — Nonsense

Sdebitarsi — ˆTo repay

La fossetta — Dimple

Artrite — Arthritis

La ciliegia — Cherry

Malinconica — Melancholic

La balia — The nurse

Spettinata — Disheveled

Zabaione — Eggnog

Mite — Mild

[dudguacamole]

This is so surreal to type, but I wrote a novel, and it’s now out in Canada! You can buy a copy directly from my publisher, or from Indigo, or Amazon, or request it from your local bookstore. This is a small book from a small press, so it really depends on word of mouth! If you read it and liked it, it really helps if you tell your friends about it, or rate it on Goodreads, or hype it up on Tumblr, or do any of the normal bookstagram stuff. If you read it and hated it, that’s fair too, just don’t tell me (I’m very fragile).

I started writing this book six years ago, when I was living in Budapest. I never intended it to be a novel; it started because my friend asked if I had anything 10,000 words long I would consider submitting to her chapbook series, and once I started writing I just didn’t stop. I had never really written fiction before and the first draft was a total mess. It went through some massive rewrites. I have to thank my editors Emily Keeler and Martha Sharpe for their endless patience and expertise in putting this book together.

The story is about a twenty-five year old named Lucy who has a severe anxiety disorder and is desperate for someone to tell her the right way how to live her life. This manifests in the form of organized religion, mommy issues, rigid social justice frameworks, kinky dominant lovers, and older friends who seem to have it all figured out. I know it sounds heavy, but the most important thing for me writing this book was that it felt funny and real. There are lots of jokes, and a few slapsticky scenes, and some uncomfortable moments, but the external stakes are pretty low (even as Lucy catastrophizes them in her head) because I wanted to write a book where things get messy and go wrong but the woman doesn’t have to suffer some great trauma in the process. Did I do this successfully? I don’t know! That’s for to judge.

Thank you for reading and for all the support. 

[learningrussianwithanna]

Hello! This is the novel I wrote. There’s adult subject matter and it’s not for everyone, but some of you may like it. 

x

Anna

[imalsolearningitalian]

Hello, inactive blog! I’m here to brush up on my italian through Buffy the Vampire Slayer, aka Buffy l'ammazzavampiri.

[Alt text: screencaps of two tweets from my Twitter account, @bananafitz. 

First tweet: “disney+ has all of buffy the vampire slayer dubbed in italian............and my mother said i was wasting my life”

Second tweet: “in the original, giles says "Spanish settlers used to call Sunnydale 'Boca del Infierno,' which translated to 'Mouth of Hell.'"  In this version he says "Spanish settlers used to call it 'Boca del Infierno,' which translates to 'La Bocca dell'Inferno.'"]

[erunion2]

- Cinema Paradiso (1988)

[thepaintedbench]

Cat on Constantine’s Foot, Palatine Museum, Rome

[productiondesign]

Love and Anarchy • 1973 • Lina Wertmüller

[whitepeopletwitter]

[awed-frog]

Turns out this has nothing to do with the plague, it’s even weirder than that - during the Renaissance, Florence didn’t collect any taxes on wine produced ‘for the family’. So obviously some of the city’s richest men decided they’d start selling their wines directly from their own homes instead of selling it through restaurants, thus making a lot more money (no taxes and no middle man). Wine could be bought by the bottle or by the glass, and the fact the customers didn’t set foot inside the house probably a) prevented theft and b) preserved the illusion that the place was not a place of trade.

Occasionally, alms for also left in there.

These ‘buchette del vino’ (literally ‘little wine holes’) are a typical Florentine phenomenon and had been in use until fairly recently; over the last decade people have started restorating and reopening them. There are about 170 of them around Florence. Here are a few ones:

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

not weird. in Italy, the reason is ALWAYS tax evasion

[beginagxin-deactivated20210424]

Jhumpa Lahiri about falling in love with Italian 

[langsandlit]

In Italian, to say someone is a foodie, we say essere una buona forchetta which literally translates to “to be a good fork” and I think that says a lot about us.

[ohyeahpop]

Sophia Loren, New York City, 1954. - Ph. Tony Vaccaro

[imalsolearningitalian]

Ciao Tumblr

C’è molto lungo tempo che ho provato scriver in italiano....non ho usato la lingua in sei o sette mese, ma voglio ritornare. Mio obiettivo è de leggero molto. Puoi mi aiutare? Mi sento di nuova una principante :( 

Sept 1, 2020

[cavatas]

Detail of “Primavera” by Italian Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli 

(late 1470s / early 1480s) 

[20th-century-man]

Sophia Loren / during production of Vittorio De Sica’s Matrimonio all’italiana [English: Marriage Italian-Style] (1964) / photo for Life magazine by Alfred Eisenstaedt.

[learningrussianwithanna]

Tip: do a search for “[target language] Zoom Meetup.” There are a lot of language exchanges happening for cheap or free all over the world. I’ve done a a couple for French and Italian so far, and the quality varies depending on who else shows up and how strong their level is. 

[imalsolearningitalian]

Here’s one in Italian I found!