{"id":3183,"date":"2014-07-04T09:50:36","date_gmt":"2014-07-04T07:50:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rickzullo.com\/?p=3183"},"modified":"2021-09-11T23:22:20","modified_gmt":"2021-09-11T21:22:20","slug":"speaking-italian-has-ruined-my-english","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/speaking-italian-has-ruined-my-english\/","title":{"rendered":"Speaking Italian has ruined my English"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"speaking<\/a>
Parla come mangi!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This week\u2019s theme for our Italy Expat Blogger Roundtable (official name and acronym to be announced VERY soon) is language learning and speaking Italian.\u00a0 Now, I’ve written before on various aspects of this topic, from my first encounter with Italian in Italy<\/a>, to the later stages of my language learning journey<\/a>.\u00a0 I’ve talked about the many diverse dialects<\/a> throughout the country, and even scratched out a little eBook on the subject<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And I’ve also discussed the other side of the coin, which is Teaching English to Italians<\/a>.\u00a0 Perhaps this last one is a good jumping off point for what I\u2019d like to discuss today: \u00a0How teaching English while speaking Italian has ruined my English language skills.\u00a0 These days, I catch myself saying, \u201cI make a shower now,\u201d instead of \u201cI\u2019m going to take a shower now.\u201d\u00a0 Or, \u201cLet\u2019s repose ourselves for a few minutes,\u201d instead of \u201cLet\u2019s rest for a while.\u201d\u00a0 And then there the times when I say a perfectly correct English sentence, but replace one of the objects with an Italian noun.\u00a0 For example, \u201cPut the baby in the passeggino,<\/em> please.\u201d\u00a0 Nothing wrong with the word \u201cstroller,\u201d but I happen to prefer passeggino.<\/em>\u00a0 Of course, there are circumstances where there simply isn\u2019t an English equivalent, such as \u201cDarn it! There\u2019s another sciopero<\/em><\/strong> in Rome today!\u201d\u00a0 Or better still, when the English just isn\u2019t strong enough to convey the emotion.\u00a0 \u201cPorca puttana!<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong> There\u2019s another sciopero<\/em> in Rome today!\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Speaking Italian in the English Language<\/h2>\n

We all know that many Italian words have made their way into everyday English over the course of time, especially in the areas of food (pizza, pasta), music (piano, aria), and organized crime (mafia, vendetta).\u00a0 So these terms we are already familiar with and don\u2019t require translation.\u00a0 Other words such as paparazzi, graffiti, and ghetto are also used frequently, if usually mispronounced.<\/p>\n

Likewise, there are many English words that have been directly adopted by the Italians without translating them.\u00a0 Some of these words are club, flirt, bar, and shopping.\u00a0 Terms relating to business and technology are particularly common, such as meeting, staff, marketing, computer, fax, and mouse.\u00a0 There are some practical reasons for this.\u00a0 Imagine instead of \u201cmouse\u201d you had to say something like, \u201cdispositivo di puntamento elettronico.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 Of course, you could just say \u201ctopo\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 (literally: mouse), but every time I suggest this translation, my wife scrunches up her nose as if I had just emitted a foul odor.<\/p>\n

Or sometimes they take an English word and make it Italian by adding an Italian suffix.\u00a0 For example, the verb, \u201cto download\u201d should be translated as \u201cscaricare,\u201d<\/em> but instead you\u2019ll often hear an Italian say, \u201cdownloadare.\u201d<\/em> Why they opt for the bastardized English word when the Italian word is perfectly fine, I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

Et tu, americano?<\/h2>\n

However, we should also point out that there are many words that Italian and English already share due to common etymology or root word origin.\u00a0 These are referred to as \u201ccognates,\u201d or words that look similar and have nearly identical meanings.\u00a0 (This term derives from the Latin cognatus<\/em>, meaning blood relative.)\u00a0 The list of cognates is long, and being alert to them can give you a jump start in learning Italian.\u00a0 A few examples of these are as follows: farmacia\u2014pharmacy; intelligente\u2014intelligent; necessario\u2014necessary; dividere\u2014to divide; studiare\u2014to study; and so on.\u00a0 An awareness of these similar terms can provide a huge initial boost to your vocabulary without actually memorizing new words.\u00a0 Sometimes I even invent them up on the spot, and more often than not, they turn out to be correct.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, there are letter groupings that can help you decipher many words.\u00a0 For example, the English suffix, \u201ction\u201d becomes, \u201czione\u201d in Italian, such as station, stazione.\u00a0 Or the English, \u201cly\u201d translates as, \u201cmente.\u201d (e.g. probably = probabilmente).\u00a0 The English \u201cous\u201d turns into \u201coso\u201d (e.g religious = religioso), the \u201cy\u201d ending becomes \u201cia\u201d (e.g. copy = copia).<\/p>\n

Then there are also the false<\/em> cognates, which are sometimes referred to as \u201cfalse friends.\u201d\u00a0 These are tricky little buggers, and they still catch me off guard once in a while.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a few that\u2019ll spin your head around:<\/p>\n