two cents from an italian fan

A serious post... Just a comment from Italy (it may be a nice addition to an episode capsule).

In general Italian language is generally misused, even from the character who are supposed to be mother tongue (ie MIlhouse Grandma) or the voice from Lisa's course tape. I'll write out the italian parts and point out the main errors: The Italian-americans course "Voglio affittare una barca piccola": no real mistake here: just usually we would say "noleggiare" when we speak of car or boat rental "affittare" is more often used for apartments. "Progetto di scaricare questo corpo nell'oceano" "Questo e' quello che prendi per fare domande": awful pronounciation in both phrases. The second one is wrong: we don't say "prendi", a real italian phrase could be "Questo e' quello che tocca a chi fa domande" o "Ecco cosa facciamo a chi fa domande". Both phrases aren't a literal translation though.

Milhouse showing up: "La lingua di arte e la musica": this is incorrect. it should be "La lingua dell'arte e della musica". literally: "The language of the art and of the music". We almost always put articles in front of nouns. "Questi il mio chero-bino sono delle oliva". Brrr... awful pronounciation again and a completely wrong phrase: "Questi, mio cherubino, sono delle olive". This time a literal translation would have do better... As I said before we ALMOST always put the article... This time not, so "IL mio cherubino" is wrong. "Idiota!": this is easy... :) "Milhouse Mussolini Van Houten, parla l'italiano, IDIOTA!": good. Just a notice: Mussolini was a Last name, so maybe Benito Van Houten would do best. "Insegnante": to an italian speaker the gag about being a "masculine" teacher looses sense: even if it's true that we usually distinguish male and female nouns it's not the case of "insegnante" which is the same in male and female form and can be distinguished only by the article. A better choice: "Maestro" which stands for a male teacher instead of "Maestra" which is feminine.

Milhouse 2: "Buongiorno Milhouse" "Perfetto!" "Milhouse: che cosa di nuovo?": another wrong phrase, another too literal translation. It should've been: "MIlhouse, che c'e' di nuovo?" "Ciao Milhouse, come stai?" "Un gelato per la bella ragazza"

And, from my previous post: "Sono cosi' matto a lei! Ho pensato abbiamo avuto qualcosa andando, e poi la prendo con questa sgualdrina" wich sounds like: "I'm so mad at you! I thought there was something going on, and then I catch you with this bitch."

It' a sort of litteral translations. In fact we don't use forms like "I'm mad at someone" or "having something going on". We would have said "Sono furiosa" (yes, we distinguish male and female forms of nouns and adjectives) which is: "I'm furious" and "pensavo ci fosse qualcosa tra noi" (literally:" I think there was something among us". I think it was intentional, to make fun, but I don't know... The whole episode is full of bad spelled sentences. Not that my english is any better... :) I guess that's just the way an italian student may speak so it's what Lisa should say.

Well, excuse my poor english (maybe as poor as the Simpson's italian?) :)

Now I'm looking forward for the forecoming italian episode...

molto snipperini

A delightful post! Many thanks from us non-speakers of Italian.

Al Wesolowsky ha scritto:

Ah, by the way. This may upset you, but here in Italy we have nothing like "Fettuccini Alfredo". It simply don't exist. We have FETTUCCINE, which is a sort of spaghetti, we have someone named Alfredo, but we don't put them in fettuccine...

Also we don't have "Macchiatto" coffe, but MACCHIATO, just one T. And we have PEPERONI not "pepperoni". I was in NY and Miami last march and I was a little surprised on how often you misspell italian words... You may also be surprised on how WE misspell and mispronounce english words...

"Tigers" wrote in message news:438df5ee$0$13255$[email]...

What you've got be worried about is Alfredo putting himself into the fettuccine...

there could be a number of different reasons why "pepperoni" (my spell checker says the way you saw it in new york is correct, but i don't doubt the way it is spelt in italy is how it is over there) is spelt differently in the two countries. first, it could be that you saw an older spelling of the word that was preserved by the italian immigrants to the united states but not in italy itself. there are a number of these differences within the english spoken and written in north america and that in europe.

another might be that the word was changed in order to fit spelling conventions in the united states. for example pepper is spelt with two "P"s.

as for fettuccine alfredo, the alfredo refers to the sauce used or the guy who created the dish (i've found conflicting theories on it), but i'm sure you figured that out when you ordered it. ;)

ah, quick follow up to that post. it turns out pepperoni in the USA refers to the italian sausage known as salame piccante, as peperoni is the italian word for bell pepper.

jsonitsac ha scritto:

Really? I didn't know, I always thought it was pepper...

jsonitsac ha scritto:

I was not so brave to order it... :)

In article , "jsonitsac" wrote:

What about Luigi's fractured English? Any comments on that?

Aaron Xpac3 Mvx3vm

[email] ha scritto:

Not in particular. I think it's a joke about italian emigrants which in fact often didn't speak italian, but only their local dialect. In fact the italian language as we know it was not widely spoken until after WW II with radio and television spreading it to the whole nation.

Before that italian was kind of a literate language. Most writers used it, but the people, especially away from towns couldn't speak it at all. And even today there are lots of variations and accents from region to region.