italian

Minimela e maxifragola
Mini-apple and maxi-strawberry
Literally: 'Mini-apple and maxi-strawberry'.

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I'll admit it: this was the smallest apple I could find in my bag of Tesco value odd-sized ones (not glossy enough to be marked up and sold on as 'Fun-size snack apples', I guess).

Still, Dr B.'s monster strawberry is huuuge. But that's alright, because Tesco's stupid nutritional labelling says that it's only 22 calories a serving (a serving being ten strawberries).

Not ten of these babies, sweetheart.

La fragola è più grande della mela
The strawberry is bigger than the apple
Literally: 'The strawberry is more big of-the apple'.

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If you want to find out more

Good news: some things are much easier to say in Italian than they are in English. Take 'more than', for instance. I'll use the words 'pretty' and 'handsome' as an example (which by the way in Italian are conveniently 'bella' and 'bello'):

• prettier than = più bella di
• more handsome than = più bello di

And that's all. No need to know whether the word you are using takes the ending -er (harder, better, faster, stronger) or needs to follow the 'more … than' pattern (more tired, more interesting, more hardworking). They will all be translated as 'più … di'.

'Migliore' (better) and 'peggiore' (worse) are the only exceptions I can think of that are commonly used.