bitful

Andiamo in vacanza con gli amici
We are going on holiday with friends.
Literally: '(We) leave in holiday with the friends'.

Yesterday I booked a cheap weekend in Madrid (never been, love Spain, very excited!) folllowed by a week in Ibiza on the way back (as you do).

And the here and now was conveniently shaken off for a bit.

Partiamo per la Spagna in luglio.
We are leaving for Spain in July.
Literally: '(We) leave for the Spain in July'.

If you want to find out more

In English you have 'We leave' and 'We are leaving'. The latter is used in English when you are in the process of doing something (in which case Italian has a matching construction 'Stiamo partendo'), or to express a planned intention like here - but that is translated in Italian with the simple present tense 'We leave'.

When Italians claim to you that their language is pronounced as it's written, feel free to reply 'Palle' (bollocks). Mostly yes, but there are exceptions. Fortunately, the exceptions follow rules, and you'll find a few in today's phrases:

• GL always fuses into a single sound a bit similar to the Y in Yesterday. Never pronounced GL as in GLad.
• Similarly, GN is a single sound, hard to describe, possibly absent in English, similar to the Spanish Ñ in piÑata. Never as the GN in iGNite.
• Oh, and C and G can have two sounds each (compare 'vaCanza' and 'amiCi' in the first Italian phrase above), but that's for another day.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 24th, 2008 at 8:28 am and last modified on January 24th, 2008 at 8:49 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.