bitful

Ah, January. Not only is it a dark, cold month, and facing work after the holidays is an ordeal, but my one and only pleasure and pastime is spoilt, because

In gennaio la palestra è piena di gente
In January the gym is full of people
Literally: In January the gym is full of people (same word sequence, for once).

I prefer exercising when the gym is not too crowded, so I can go about my own business efficiently and not wait for twenty minutes for three sweaty guys to stop hogging the bench. So I usually go very early in the morning before going to work, and on Saturday and Sunday as soon as the gym opens.

January? Full. All the sodding time. I am thrilled that so many people want to do something about their health. Good for them. However, knowing that statistically a ridiculously high percentage will be back on the couch eating crisps in four weeks time makes me want to take a month out and just go out for runs.

But in seven weeks time my body has to come on holiday with me to Australia, and I want it to look OK. So unless I start running on my hands, I'll have to use the gym to train the upper body.

Roll on February: my birthday, Australia, and on top of that

In febbraio la palestra è vuota
In February the gym is empty
Literally: In February the gym is empty (again, both languages use the same exact word sequence)

If you want to find out more

• It is possibly more correct to say 'A gennaio' instead of 'In gennaio'. It is certainly more frequent, at least according to Google. I chose the latter because it is easier to remember if your first language is English.
• Months of the year (like days of the week) do not start with upper case in Italian.
• 'Gente' ('people') is singular (considered like a single entity, almost like a person) in Italian but plural (a group) in English. You need to keep this in mind when you use it in a sentence, for instance 'People are curious' translates to 'La gente è curiosa' (literally: The people is curious).

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 6th, 2008 at 5:41 am and last modified on January 6th, 2008 at 6:01 am, and is filed under italian. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.