{"id":12,"date":"2009-11-20T15:59:00","date_gmt":"2009-11-20T15:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.katebailward.com\/drivinglikeamaniac\/?p=12"},"modified":"2011-03-31T22:47:45","modified_gmt":"2011-03-31T20:47:45","slug":"floatykatja-and-the-deathly-tobacco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.katebailward.com\/drivinglikeamaniac\/2009\/11\/floatykatja-and-the-deathly-tobacco\/","title":{"rendered":"DLaM and the Deathly Tobacco"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
(image by Whisperwolf<\/a> <\/a>on Flickr)<\/em><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Learning Italian is a bit of a hit and miss affair with me.\u00a0 I have neither the time nor the inclination to sit down with books and learn by rote, so I tend to pick up words and phrases from my students.\u00a0 I’m therefore excellent at asking questions which start, ‘che significa<\/em> …?’ or ‘come si dice<\/em> …?’, and can also reel off a great long list of the names of foods, shops and domestic animals.\u00a0 Actually holding a meaningful conversation with an adult Italian, however, I struggle with.\u00a0 Alex has offered to give me informal lessons, which will be hugely useful.\u00a0 However, there are limits to his knowledge, as I discovered yesterday.<\/div>\n
\n

 <\/p>\n

Last night, for some reason, I became curious about the translation of ‘fioretta’.\u00a0 Fioretta al cacao<\/em> is the cheapest version of chocolate-hazelnut spread that you can buy here.\u00a0 A grade up is nocciola al cacao<\/em>, and then at the top end of the market there is Nutella.\u00a0 The word for hazelnut is ‘nocciola’, so nocciola al cacao<\/em> is obvious in its translation.\u00a0 However, the fioretta al cacao<\/em> that I eat is still just as hazelnutty and chocolatey as Nutella, so why does it not claim nocciola <\/em>in its name?\u00a0 Alex didn’t know the meaning of ‘fioretta’ either, so he turned to the dictionary.\u00a0 First he tried the children’s version, which came up, hilariously, with ‘a small sacrifice’ as a translation.\u00a0 However, the adult dictionary came up with an even better explanation: ‘an act of mortification’.\u00a0 Brilliant!\u00a0 Only in Italy could one mortify oneself with a small chocolate sacrifice before 9am every morning.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

On a roll, we turned to one of our favourite games: translating written Italian literally.\u00a0 This is usually played with the labels on bottles of wine, which may or may not account for the fact that we find it so sidesplittingly funny.\u00a0 This particular bottle was an absolute gem: \u00c9 un rosso potente e diplomatico, ricco di sole e sapidit\u00e0; naso complessa di prugna, more, cuoio, con note che tendono al tabacco morbido<\/em>.\u00a0 A complex pruney nose and notes of deathly tobacco?\u00a0 Genius!\u00a0 I also love the fact that, despite it being potent, it is essentially tactful.\u00a0 What more does one want from a \u20ac1.75 bottle of local wine than the fact that it will kick you in the head but retire discreetly afterwards?<\/div>\n
<\/div>