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Pasta – part 2 Posted by Serena on Oct 3, 2010
La Storia della Pasta (The History of Pasta) Above, preparazione della pasta nel XIV secolo. (pasta preparation in the 14th century). Origins Pasta, which is so closely linked to Italian culture, is in fact a universal foodstuff whose origins can be traced back to l’età neolitica, circa 8000 a.C. (the new stone age, around 8000…
A Controversial Question Posted by Serena on Sep 30, 2010
I recently received a comment from a reader, called Natalia De Luca on the subject of Gli Alpini, about which I recently wrote a series of articles. The comment comes in the form of a question: "Why are woman [sic.] and non registered military people allowed to join an alpini regiment, some are even of…
Misleading Word of the Day – part 7 Posted by Serena on Sep 27, 2010
Today’s ‘misleading word’ is yet another ‘false friend’, i.e. an Italian word that sounds more or less the same as an English word, but has a different meaning: Italian word sounds like English actual meaning geniale genial ingenious, talented The English word genial is usually defined as: ‘jovial’, ‘kindly’, ‘sociable’, etc. It also has the…
Indovinello – the answers Posted by Serena on Sep 24, 2010
Firstly, well done those of you who took the time to have a go at my indovinello (quiz) despite the technical difficulties of links not working correctly. Here are the correct answers: 1. which word describes the strident noise made by the cicala? Answer: Il frinire is the characteristic screeching sound produced by cicadas 2…
Misleading Word of the Day – part 6 Posted by Serena on Sep 21, 2010
Every now and then, when I’m interpreting or translating between Italian and English, examples of ‘falsi amici’ (false friend) pop up and cause ‘un po’ di casino’ (a bit of confusion). Falsi amici or ‘false cognates’ are words which sound the same in both English and Italian but which in reality have different meanings, often…
Pasta – part 1 Posted by Serena on Sep 18, 2010
If you follow my blogs you will know that I generally prefer to write about the less stereotypical, or well known aspects of Italian culture. So why write about something so simple and obvious as pasta, we all know what it is, right? Try typing the word ‘pasta’ into the Google search engine and you…
Indovinello Update Posted by Serena on Sep 16, 2010
I just wanted to tell those of you who subscribe to my blog that I have updated yesterday’s Indovinello due to the fact that the links were dead. You can now use the search terms that I have posted in the updated blog by carefully following my instructions. I’m investigating the link problem in order…