People often ask me where I get my ideas for blogs, and it’s a difficult question to answer. Take today’s post, for example …

Yesterday morning I walked out onto la terrazza in front of our house and happened to glance at the narrow strip of garden to the right. There, to my surprise, I spotted a small round hole drilled neatly down into the soil. It looked distinctly like it had been burrowed by a rat, and my first thought was: “Se quel buco l’ha fatto un ratto, lui avrà le palle di acciaio!” (If a rat has made that hole he’s got balls of steel) because with our six cats around … well, put it like this, if I was a rodent it wouldn’t be my ideal spot to make my home.

Then another thought occurred to me. I went back indoors and said to Serena: “There’s a strange hole in the garden, and I think it’s been made by a rat”. “Yes”, said Serena, “I saw it yesterday and forgot to tell you”.
“Secondo me”, I said, “quel ratto sta pagando la mancia ai gatti” (In my opinion that rat’s paying a tip to the cats). And then I hesitated: “Wait, is it mancia or manciata? No hang on, it’s mazzette! Damn, what’s that word for the protection money paid to La Mafia?”

Serena: “Well, mancia is tip, like in the restaurant, but you can use mazzette (bundles) or bustarelle (little envelopes), which refer to the bundles of money or envelopes full of cash paid as bribes to people in public office for example. The best word though is ‘il pizzo’, which is the Mafia word for protection money.”

Geoff: “Yes, that’s the word I wanted! In that case what I meant to say was: ‘quel ratto sta pagando il pizzo ai gatti‘ (that rat’s paying protection money to the cats).”

At that point I felt a familiar part of my brain awaken, a few cogs creaked, and then … bingo, out popped a blog!

(N.B. yes, Serena and I often speak in a mixture of English and Italian!)

Basic Money Vocabulary

i soldi (masculine plural) = money

il denaro (masculine singular) = money (older form)

la moneta = the coin/currency

gli spiccioli = small change

il resto = the change

il costo = the cost

il cambio = the currency exchange

il conto = the account

una banconota = a banknote

un/due/tre … euro = one/two/three … euro (N.B. euro does not pluralise)

un centesimo/due/tre … centesimi = one cent/two/three …. cents

la banca = the bank

il bancomat = the cash machine

Verbs

pagare in contanti = to pay with cash

pagare con assegno = to pay by cheque

pagare con la carta = to pay with a credit card

costare/venire = to cost, e.g. quanto costa questa giacca? (how much is this jacket?), quanto vengono le arance? (how much are the oranges?)

guadagnare = to earn, e.g.: Giorgio guadagna un mucchio di soldi (Giorgio earns a lot of money)

ritirare = to withdraw, e.g.: devo ritirare dei soldi dalla banca (I have to withdraw some money from the bank)

versare = to deposit, e.g. ho versato 50 euro sul tuo conto (I’ve deposited 50 Euro into your account)

dovere = to owe money, e.g.: quanto ti devo? (how much do I owe you?)

essere in credito = to be in credit

essere in debito = to be in debt

A Few Idiomatic Expressions

è pieno di soldi = he’s got loads of money (lit: he’s full of money)

abbiamo pagato una barca di soldi = we paid a lot of money (lit: we paid a ship full of money)

ci è costato un occhio della testa = it cost us an arm and a leg (lit: it cost us an eye from the head)

non vale un soldo = it’s worthless (lit: it’s not worth a coin)