Now that the winter is drawing to a close (teniamo le dita incrociate -let’s keep our fingers crossed) all the plants are coming out of hibernation and are having a competition to see who can grow the fastest. So far l’erbaccia (the weeds) appear to be winning, in fact some of them are managing to grow several centimeters a day, or so it seems to me. Yes, it’s time to get to work on our orto (vegetable garden), and one of the first jobs to do is to repair and rebuild some of the rickety old stone walls that form the three terraces of our land. So… after nearly three fun packed days of shifting rocks and muddy soil siamo stanchi morti (we are dead tired).

In Italian, as you might imagine, we have a colorful selection of ways in which we can tell each other how tired we are. Here are the most common ones:

Avere sonno – ‘to be sleepy’, or literally: ‘to have sleep’, e.g ‘ho sonno’ – I’m sleepy / tired, ‘hai sonno?’ – are you sleepy / tired?, etc.

All of the following express the idea of  ‘being tired, worn out, exhausted, and so on:

Essere stanco/a/i/e or stanco/a/i/e morto/a/i/e  – to be dead tired. N.B. this and the following examples are constructed with the verb essere – to be, and should therefore be modified accordingly, e.g: ‘sono stanca morta’ (I’m dead tired – feminine singular), ‘sono stanco morto’ (I’m dead tired – masculine singular), ‘lui è stanco morto’ (he’s dead tired – masculine singular), ‘lei è stanca morta’ (she’s dead tired – feminine singular), noi siamo stanchi morti (we are dead tired – masculine plural), ‘loro sono stanche morte’, (they are dead tired – feminine plural), and so on.

Essere cotto/a/i/e – literally ‘to be cooked’, e.g. ‘sono cotta!’ – I’m tired out – feminine singular.

Essere sfatto/a/i/e – literally ‘to be undone’, e.g. ‘loro erano sfatti’ – they were exhausted – masculine plural.

Essere sfinito/a/i/e – literally ‘to be finished’, e.g. ‘siamo sfinite’ – we’re worn out – feminine plural.

Essere distrutto/a/i/e – literally ‘to be destroyed’, e.g. ‘eravamo distrutti’ – we were exhausted – masculine plural.

Essere stracco/a/i/e – a dialectic variation on ‘essere stanco’ e.g. ‘Giovanna è stracca’ – Giovanna is tired out – feminine singular.

Essere esausto/a/i/e – literally ‘to be exhausted’, e.g ‘sono esausto’ – ‘I’m exhausted – masculine singular.

Essere a pezzi – literally ‘to be in pieces’, the equivalent of the English  expression ‘to be shattered’, e.g. ‘sono a pezzi!’ (I’m shattered!), ‘i bimbi sono a pezzi!’ (the kids are shattered!), etc.

In part 2 we’ll take a look at some of the expressions which we use when we are mentally exhausted, a condition that I’m all too familiar with when I try to think in two different languages simultaneously!

Alla prossima