Ahhh, Italy. A country rich in history, brimming with beautiful people speaking the flowery, romantic language of love. To the untrained ear, general street directions, such as go to the end of the road, turn right, then turn left at the light, are an alluring combination of seducing sounds and amorous gestures.
Then, you learn the language.
Or at least you learn a little.
The last two and half years I’ve spent traipsing from continent to continent and, if I can say so myself, my Italian language skills have skyrocketed.
However, there are still three sets of words that stump me every time.
photo credit: MeRyan
Albergo (hotel)
Albero (tree)
See that little “g” up there? It makes a world of difference. Not only do you pronounce the “g,” but the stress changes, as well leaving me saying, “We have lemon and orange hotels in our yard,” instead of the more geographically correct, “We have lemon trees.”
Other times I’ll surprise ever-patient Italians with the declaration, “We stayed in a great tree in Palermo,” until their quizzical looks and half-smile alert me to my mistake.
photo credit: og2t •• brzegowiec
Pesce (fish)
Pesca (peach)
Yep. Just one final little vowel is the difference between ordering “fish tea” or “peach tea,” and trust me … you don’t wanna try the fish tea.
The “c” in pesce (fish) has a “sh” sound, while the fuzzy little round fruit has a hard c. To complicate matters, the verb “to fish,” or “pescare” coverts back to that hard “c” as the does the word “pescatore,” or fisherman.
You are just not living until you’ve been out on the river … fly peaching.
photo credit: madaise
Retto (a straight, honest person)
Ratto (a rat)
Although you’d think the seemingly similiar letters between Italy’s “ratto” and our own, “rat” would make this an easy word to remember, you are forgetting that sometimes – just sometimes – when you are speaking another language oddly-formed sounds burst from your mouth without consent.
This is my problem with ratto and retto. I’ve only been embarrassed by this once, however, when I innocently tried to give my father-in-law a compliment for doing the right thing, and proudly told him he was “una persona ratto” or a “rat person,” rather than “una persona retta,” an “honest, standup, kind of guy!”
What are some of the biggest problems you have when learning a foreign language? Do these things ever.go.away? Please say yes!
Around The Region
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Mahanoy City: Mayor Nancy Petritsch will sponsor a free Veterans Day lunch at 12:30 p.m. today in the Canteen building, 18-20 E. Centre St. All veterans and friends are welcome.
Muir: Muir Fire Company No. 1 will sponsor a grocery bingo Saturday at the Porter-Tower Lions Club, 517 W. Grand Ave., Tower City. Doors will open at 4:30 p.m. and bingo will begin at 6 p.m. The cost is $20 per pack. Extra packs will be available for $5 each. Everyone is welcome. For more information, call Ann at 717-571- 9378. Refreshments will be available for purchase.
Pottsville: Mahantongo Street will be closed starting at Centre Street from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. today for a large crane that will boost a large box onto the top of the Necho Allen building, according to officials.
Ringtown: Ringtown Valley Fire and Rescue Company will hold an all-you-can-eat breakfast from 8 a.m. to noon Sunday at the firehouse, West Main Street. The cost is $7 for adults and $4 for children. The menu will include sausage, bacon, creamed chipped beef, toast, scrambled eggs, home fries, mackerel, French toast, pancakes, coffee, tea and orange juice. Patrons will be able to eat at the firehall or take breakfasts out. Everyone is welcome. verabradleycouponcodenow.com vera bradley coupon code
Saint Clair: 4-H has announced programs it has undertaken with Tractor Supply Co. stores nationwide – including Tractor Supply at the Coal Creek Commerce Center – to raise funds for local 4-H programming and provide savings for 4-H members who shop at the retailer. The 4-H Paper Clover fundraiser began the first week of November and the TSC Clover Card promotion is available online. The Paper Clover fundraiser is an in-store effort that will benefit state and local 4-H programming in each of the communities where a Tractor Supply Co. store is located. Through Nov. 14, each of the more than 900 stores will allow shoppers the chance to support their local 4-H by purchasing paper clovers at checkout for $1. The Clover Card program is for 4-H’ers, their families, 4-H volunteers and 4-H staff. It will provide members with a 10 percent coupon when signing up, member-only store coupons and notifications of special store promotions for savings on store purchases. With each purchase and use of the card, the member’s local 4-H club will be entered into a monthly drawing for a $500 TSC gift card.
Tremont: American Legion Post 384 and the Tremont Community Organization will sponsor a Veterans Day program at 1 p.m. Sunday at the Robert “Pete” Wiscount Veterans Park. The speaker will be Lt. Col. Starr Seip. The honor guard will include the Pine Grove Area High School JROTC. The Tremont Fire Company Community Band will provide music. The public is invited to attend.
The peach one always gets me! Esp peaches, it’s plural form. One time we were at a lido and they were frying up some fish, my husband told them it smelled good. As he was walking away the lady ran after him and handed him some peaches!! He had said, “pesche”, instead of “pesce”!
Ha. That is cute. I can see you guys all puzzled as to why she was handing you fruit …
South of Rome’s last blog post..La Ruzzola del Formaggio – The Rolling of the Cheese!
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Before I moved here I was taking Italian classes at the Italian Cultural Institute.
During an oral presentation I said I was excited about something. I thought the word for exited was eccitato. It is not. My professor informed me that the word meant “horny” and said while men might like to hear that I’m “excited” the correct word is “emozionante”.
LOL. That is a new word for me, NYC! Thanks.
nyc/carribbean ragazza’s last blog post..A week from today is a very important holiday…World Nutella Day
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I make plenty of mistakes all the time in French but I mainly think I will just never learn the correct genders for everything. Never. So I will always mess them up as badly as I do now.
Also, strangely, my accent appears to have gotten *worse* recently. I would have thought it would have improved with living here but that seems not to be the case. : (
That is so strange about your accent. I mean, French is SO hard to master (the accent, I mean!) so I know how hard it can be to try. Maybe you are using bigger words and that is why it seems “worse?”
Kim B.’s last blog post..The Last Drive
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The fish one caught me out on two of our holidays but not the last!!
That was has *always* stumped me and now it is a total mental thing for me. I did seriously ask for fish tea. How embarrassing was that?!?!
anne’s last blog post..There are times…
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Kim – luckily in Italian you don’t need to memorise genders and (usually) it’s masculine if it ends in an o and feminine if it ends in an a. Very easy language although I definitely still make mistakes (to be honest I don’t care!)
The words which always get me are:
giacca – jacket
ghiaccio – ice
I’m always asking for jackets in my drink or asking the sales lady if I can try on a bigger ice.
Ha. And I get both of those confused with “ginocchio,” which is knee. Those are all three so similiar!!
kataroma’s last blog post..Solids!
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I am always getting mixed up with prepositions – sul treno, in treno, nel treno? confusing.
Definitely. I never know if something is coming or going! Those little words are important …
Ciaochowlinda’s last blog post..Four-Cheese Eggplant Parmigiana
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My mother got poison, poisson and poussin mixed up in a restaurant in Paris. She thought she was ordering fish and got chicken but pronounced it ‘poison’.
I still don’t pay attention to my genders in plural in Italian and I always say ‘Ti aranci’ rather than ‘ti arangi’!
French was tough for me, too but I didn’t know genders were an option in Italian. What have I been so worried about?!?
Scintilla’s last blog post..Lemon Delicious
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I know this is a *family rated* blog, so I totally understand if you delete this…..but before I started studying Italian, I would occasionally confuse the following 2 words: cannoli and coglioni…..always cracked up my suocero…
Oh that is funny. And no worries on me hitting the delete button. I’ve been thinking of doing “this kind” of post, as well! lol
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That’s just too funny. It’s interesting how easily words can be pronounced similar and mean totally different things.
Oh, Nadine … Sadly for me, it gets worse. These are the “G-rated” mistakes!
Nadine’s last blog post..Meeting Karen & Thank You
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Fish and peaches… I was at a restaurant in Cinque Terre and couldn’t remember the difference and the very nice (as you put it, ever-patient) proprietess said, “Easy! Pesce – fish-eh!” That worked.
Good one! I will think of that next time and I’m sure it will help me, too! Grazie.
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Remind me to tell you my ice cream and condoms story some day! Talk about a language faux pas! But at least now I have a really funny story to tell at parties!
Great attitude. I tell you guys most of my mistakes, too. Sometimes you just gotta laugh at yourself, right?
Joanne at frutto della passione’s last blog post..The Apple Pie Story
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I can’t TELL you how many times I’ve talked about making or eating fish gelato. I HATE that those words are so close together…
I’m with you. Fish gelato? GAG!!! LOL
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@Joanne….ha ha ha!
I can probably guess where you were going with that. I grew up speaking “Calabrise” and studied Italian a couple of years. But sometimes, it is easy to “transform” an American word like preservative to an “Italian” version..preservativi.
My SO is Italian and I was telling him that the jam didn’t have preservatives. Instead, I said it didn’t contain condoms. The look on his face was priceless and my face was red when he explained my error.
Gotta watch that!
Yea, ouch! That is a bad mistake. I was never even worried about that one before you and Joanne … thankyouverymuch.
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scuola v. squalo (school & shark)
In my first Italian course many of the students had pronunciation problems with “gesso” (chalk)… they constantly confused it with Gesù (Jesus).
But then I had to explain to my old company’s cleaner that Polish and polish were not exactly the same word…
My fiancé is constantly confusing hill, hell, hail, and heel.
Oooh, scuola and scualo … good ones! You also make a good point about how confusing English can be. We have a lot of words that are alike, too… but they are easier for us, at least! Right?
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[...] any of you Italian language-learners out there, Cherrye has a few tips on Italian words that sound similar but have very different [...]
[...] Hard to Remember Words in Italian [...]
Many years ago I spent a semester in Florence and my language instructor warned us about making sure to pronounce every single letter in a word, even if a double consonant is present. Namely:
pene and penne (penis/pasta quills)
pena and penna (sorrow/pen)
ano and anno (anus/year)
You don’t want to end up saying, “I have 27 anuses.”
What a difference an “n” makes!
Also, I had problems with quindi (then/therefore) and quindici (the number 15).
I was telling my boyfriend a story that sounded like this, “I realized I missed the bus, fifteen I had to walk to class.”
I learned that one the hard way!
That is funny. And the anusus. I had 29.
Amanda’s last blog post..The Queso Suizo Project: Le Gruyère (Salé)
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