11458 How not to speak Italian

When I first visited our village, I confidently told my local bar owner that I had a 'big meat' at home.

That old chesnut 'Carne' and 'Cane':reallyembarrassed:

I even asked if he wanted to see a photo...

I told my astonished neighbour that I had twenty fish on my new tree. It was only when she said ‘ that would be your aquarium tree, would it?’ that I realised my mistake.

My OH went one better and told someone he was waiting for a gnocchi replacement, when it should have been ginocchi! It caused much hilarity!

What you should never do is translate "I'm so excited" as sono eccitato (or even worse, sono eccitata)!

I once asked a [male] waiter for a spicy 'penis' [in slang] because I couldn't pronounce 'penne' correctly when asking for penne arrabiata.

My Italian friend thought it was hilarious - his English wife [language teacher] was a bit shocked.

By the noise from the kitchen - the chef was moderately amused as well

Rather similar to the penne, a male guest once asked if he could be excused to have a pipi (as I heard). A little surprised that he was clearly under the impression that we non Italians were not furnished with a bathroom, we shrugged and said - why not?
So he went downstairs and returned with his pipe to smoke!

I remember feeling quite proud of my newly learnt Italian phrase. I said sono vegetariana, non mangia cane.
They said We dont serve dog, we keep the dog outside and there is no dog in the minestrone.

When a fresh bowl of figs were brought to the Italian family table, Pilch said loudly how he just loved figgi...uproar and laughter..the Italian men said "so do we"!!!!! Figgi means ladies bits, Ficci means figs
S

I've done almost exactly the same thing as Pilch. Shopping in Naples, I asked for a kilo of "fiche" instead of "fichi". People howled with laughter and to this day, I simply wont say the word "fig" in Italian as the memory of the embarrassment has given me such a phobia about making the same mistake again.

[quote=alan h;108515]I once asked a [male] waiter for a spicy 'penis' [in slang] because I couldn't pronounce 'penne' correctly when asking for penne arrabiata.

[/quote]

Stinging for days I bet:laughs:

I asked the bloke behind the counter in the builders' merchants if I could borry his penis (penna) to write something on my ricevuta. Oh how we laughed:no:

I have been known to ride a cabbage and eat horse soup.

'cavolo' and 'cavallo' respectively.

Falling into the same trap as Nielo, I asked a vendor in Venice for a fish-flavoured mineral water. He gave me the peach one without batting an eyelid.

Happily, it works the other way too. My wife was struggling to find the English term "weeping willows", and her first stab at it was "sweeping pillows".

But first prize goes to a friend of mine who went into a soft furnishings shop in Caracas to buy two cushions (cujines - forgive me if the spelling is wrong). However, her otherwise good Spanish failed her and she asked for a pair of cojones. The salesman, determined to milk it for all it was worth, asked if she would repeat this to his colleague, as he wasn't quite sure that he had understood. To the hilarity of these two, she asked if she could have a pair of cojones, large ones, in different colours, to put on her sofa. With the two of them reduced to helpless laughter, she didn't get what the joke was, and flounced out. She was enlightened later by a kind friend, and eventually saw the funny side of it herself.

[quote=gradese;108542]

But first prize goes to a friend of mine who went into a soft furnishings shop in Caracas to buy two cushions (cujines - forgive me if the spelling is wrong). However, her otherwise good Spanish failed her and she asked for a pair of cojones. The salesman, determined to milk it for all it was worth, asked if she would repeat this to his colleague, as he wasn't quite sure that he had understood. To the hilarity of these two, she asked if she could have a pair of cojones, large ones, in different colours, to put on her sofa. With the two of them reduced to helpless laughter, she didn't get what the joke was, and flounced out. She was enlightened later by a kind friend, and eventually saw the funny side of it herself.[/quote]

To save others googling it, cojones are testicles and I bet the Venezualan equivalent of Mr Humphries (Are You Being Served?) didn't know where to look!:laughs:

The 12 year old daughter of our Italian friends who own the agriturismo we stay at in Le Marche was showing my husband and I around the abandoned, crumbling church in the field near their house, which still had some frescoes inside.

I remarked to her there were so many places for her to discover, but instead of saying scoprire, I said scopare, which means to fornicate!

My friend (never me), greeted the people in my village with an enthusiastic 'Buenos Aires'.

My husband asked a 2 year old if me was "stronzo"- he meant "stanco"- luckily the parents saw the funny side! We also had an amusing conversation with an Italian whose English was about as good as our Italian was 3 years ago. He told us he delivered jam- it turned out it was ham.Oh he said so what's jam in Italian-preservativo (condom) replied my husband. Eventually we got the right word

My parents came to stay with my boyfriend's (now husband) parents several years ago - my mum had just started learning Italian. My father in law makes typical Ligurian rabbit stew...my mum remarked on how delicious the "coglione" was...
Now, where she even learnt that word it beyond me!!!! (my OH of course...)

Now that I've learned what coglione is - I made a right one out of myself when, trying to boost my figura with a local mate. I sang and then explained what I thought were the lyrics from this belter from Laura. "e resto immobile qui, senza parlare..." All was ok until I said I thought it meant "you left your furniture here without even asking me!":no::no:

Listen out at around 50 seconds [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18zgN7Lci1A"]YouTube - LAURA PAUSINI -Come Se Non Fosse Stato Mai Amore- S.Siro[/ame]

several years ago I went into a farmacia and asked for shampoo anti farfalla (butterfly) instead of anti forfora (dandruff)

[quote=F Bower;108624]several years ago I went into a farmacia and asked for shampoo anti farfalla (butterfly) instead of anti forfora (dandruff)[/quote]

This one made me roar:laughs::laughs:

[quote=Charles Phillips;108508]What you should never do is translate "I'm so excited" as sono eccitato (or even worse, sono eccitata)![/quote]

ok little Italian lesson for me, i am doing ok and I know I make lots of mistakes and my friends are so polite and just smile...

So what do I say for I am excited , I have been told also not use this word...and just say happy but sometimes I am excited... :Dancing_biggrin:

So What is coglione????

My "big book" has coglione down as "d#ck head, tw#t, #rseh#le" as for excited I'd say I'm struggling too. Agitato seems to be for animals. Linguists where are you?

[quote=debswad;108743]ok little Italian lesson for me, i am doing ok and I know I make lots of mistakes and my friends are so polite and just smile...

So what do I say for I am excited , I have been told also not use this word...and just say happy but sometimes I am excited... :Dancing_biggrin:
[/quote]

[I]I[/I]f you are excited you could be described a[I]s : [/I] emozionato, commosso, turbato. :spinny:

Or to '[I]get excited' [/I]you would[I]: [/I] emozionarsi, animarsi :jiggy:

[quote=Ghianda;108750]My "big book" has coglione down as "d#ck head, tw#t, #rseh#le" as for excited I'd say I'm struggling too. Agitato seems to be for animals. Linguists where are you?[/quote]

thank you this helps, nobody ever teaches me the bad words..... now i look forward to being in a situation to use it.....might go out for a drive now!!:laughs:

i remember my mistake, i had just finished dancing with my friends, it was my first lesson and i could not speak alot of Italian especially the strange accent they speak here, i thought they asked me if i was cold ( hai freddo) and responded yes...they all packed their bags fast , got in the car and drove me home at such a speed..i arrived home and looked in my dictionary and realised they asked me if i was in a hurry..(Fretta)..:wideeyed: how embaressing they still laugh at me now.

"sono eccitato/a" would translate as "I'm excited" but it's meant in another way - "I'm turned on - sexually excited".

Hi

There are some books to help with 'dirty Italian'. I bought them to give a lighter note to OH's efforts to learn italian, but he's still on sono, sei, è. etc.

Dictionary of Italian Slang and Colloquial Expressions. by Daniela Gobetti. Barrons 1999. isbn. 13: 978-0-7641-0432-9 or isbn 10: 0 -7641-0432-2
and
Dirty Italian by Gabrielle Euvino. Ulysses Press 2007 isbn. 13: 978 1- 56975-566.2 or isbn 10: 1-56975-566-3

Got them both through Amazon.co.uk

We've both off to school next week for a month's intensive italian. so wish us luck. Head already aching with the revision

[quote=juliancoll;108764]"sono eccitato/a" would translate as "I'm excited" but it's meant in another way - "I'm turned on - sexually excited".[/quote]

Ican see how that could get me in a mess with the men i dance with...thats why the women told me not to say it..:wideeyed:

Live dangerously Debswad - erect (excuse the pun) a sign outside your house and see what turns up! :bigergrin:

When my husband was staying at our house and it was being restored by our builders, he really had very little Italian, but was desperate to make conversation. Every time he went off in the car to the brico or the builders merchants he wanted to tell them he was leaving site, and said his only word of Italian, "andiamo!". It was only after some time that he convinced them that they did not have to go with him!

You could get really in a fix with 'sesso', 'stesso', and 'spesso'.:veryconfused:

When my sister first went to Italy to university, she stayed in a nun-run university digs (don’t ask! Just think Italian mum in the 60’s!!) in a 4-storey building. The only phone was on the ground floor and her room on the top floor (no lift), so when one day we rang from England she had to dash down 4 flights of stairs – on her return back up she gasped to one of her friends “Mamma mia, ho fatto tutte le scale in una balena” meaning to say she had run up the stairs in a flash of lightning. It was only when her friend stopped laughing that she told her she had actually said “in a whale, una balena” and not “in a flash, un baleno” This has now passed into our family lexicon and we always do things in whales and not in a hurry any more!

Treating my parents to a slap-up meal in a posh restaurant in Forte dei Marmi (aren't they all posh?), I thought I'd impress the waitress with my grasp of the language. After paying the bill, she pointed out I seemed to have left a €5 note behind..
My reply? Questa e' la mancia (This is the tip). Or at least that's how it should have come out.
What I ended up saying was: "Questa e' la minchia" . Which is a vulgar slang term for penis...

My husband's neighbour's elderly mother had been bed bound with bad legs for a week so when he saw the son he asked how his mother's "gamberi" were.

Prawns instead of "gambe" (legs)!! We all burst out laughing poor thing.

I have a real mental block with "camion"(lorry) and "camino" (chimney) which amused the girls I worked with at the estate agency no end.

After we had bought our house, and before we started work on the renovation, I used to spend a fair bit of time at the village circolo (Bar). I've never suffered from lack of confidence, and having studied French and German, assumed I had a natural flair for Italian too.

I remember explaining to my wife one day that I had just been speaking with the Harbour Master from La Spezia. About 18 months later (once we had arrived in the village to live) I found out that Luciano was in fact a carpenter and I'd got a bit confused over what "una porta" was.:twitcy: