Showing your sweet side and your better half.
I meant to ask our friend and Italian barista: “where is your better half?” referring to her husband. What came out of my mouth was: dov’è il tuo dolce lato. That was followed by laughter. Oops! I got burned by a false friend and a too-literal translation. The correct way is to say la tua dolce metà.
“Dolce lato” sounds like an overly sweet new dessert. “Dolcelatte” is a similar to gorgonzola. So maybe I asked her where her cheese was?
Other traps include:
- Sono freddo — “I’m a cold person” VS Ho freddo — “I’m cold”. Italian uses avere (to have) for physical states.
- Prendo una foto — “I’ll take this photo” (with me, almost like grab it) VS Faccio una foto - “I’ll take a photo” (take a picture).
- Ti ho perso — “I lost you” (in the crowd, e.g.) VS Mi sei mancato — “I missed you”.
They all share the same pattern because you recognize the words, you trust the structure and the sentence is technically understandable. But it lands…off.
No comments:
Post a Comment
All comments are moderated. If your comment doesn't appear right away, it was likely accepted. Check back in a day if you asked a question.