{"id":13387,"date":"2017-02-03T09:00:44","date_gmt":"2017-02-03T08:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/?p=13387"},"modified":"2017-02-02T21:26:44","modified_gmt":"2017-02-02T20:26:44","slug":"the-foundlings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/the-foundlings\/","title":{"rendered":"The Foundlings"},"content":{"rendered":"

How did you get on with our article I Trovatelli<\/a><\/strong><\/span>? As you will have discovered, it makes extensive use of il passato remoto<\/strong> (the historical past), a tense which is far more common in written, than spoken Italian. Here’s my English translation:
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

I Trovatelli: la storia di come abbiamo trovato ognuno dei nostri gatti.
\nThe Foundling: the story of how we found each of our cats.
\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Mim\u00ec e Coc\u00f2<\/span><\/p>\n

\"C<\/a>

Coc\u00f2 a sinistra e Mim\u00ec a destra, tutti e due nella cesta! Coc\u00f2 to the left and Mim\u00ec to the right, both in the basket.
<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

C’era una volta una mamma gatta col suo gattino. Apparvero all’improvviso in parcheggio una mattina di fine estate. “Di chi sono?” domandammo in giro, “Boh, Miei no” rispondeva la gente del paese, “forse di …”. Ma si vedeva che non erano gatti del paese, perch\u00e9 avevano un’aria dolce, desiderosa d’affetto e di coccole, al contrario di quelli locali, che hanno paura degli esseri umani e scappano via.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Once upon a time there was a mother cat with her (male) kitten. They suddenly appeared in the car park one morning at the end of the summer. “Whose are they?” we asked around, “Huh, not mine” replied the village folk, “maybe they’re …”. But you could see that they weren’t village cats because they had a gentle nature, keen for affection and cuddles, unlike the local ones, who are scared of people and run away.<\/p>\n

Un giorno, tornando a casa, trovammo il micino che frugava fra i cassonetti dell’immondizia, in mezzo ai vetri rotti. Ci avvicinammo e lui cominci\u00f2 a miagolare. Arriv\u00f2 di corsa la madre … zoppicava, teneva una zampina per aria. “Basta cos\u00ec!” disse Geoff, “Portiamoli a casa”. Geoff prese in braccio la gatta, mentre io attirai il gattino da sotto i cassonetti usando una foglia: la feci girare e strusciare finch\u00e9 lui non usc\u00ec per cercare di acchiapparla. Non avevano paura, e si fecero tranquillamente portare a casa nostra.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Returning home one day, we found the kitten rummaging around in the rubbish bins in the middle of the broken glass. We came closer and he began to meow. His mother came running over … she was limping, and held one leg up in the air. “That’s that!” said Geoff, “Let’s take them home”. Geoff picked up the cat, whilst I drew the kitten out from under the bins using a leaf: I spun it and rubbed it on the ground until he came out to try and catch it. They weren’t afraid, and they calmly allowed themselves to be carried to our house.<\/p>\n

Capimmo subito che erano gatti di appartamento abbandonati, perch\u00e9 erano bene educati: appena mettemmo una copertina sul divano ci sedettero subito sopra, conoscevano l’uso della lettiera e riconoscevano il rumore della scatola di croccantini. Ci innamorammo subito di Mim\u00ec la gatta e Coc\u00f2 il gattino (che poi divenne un gattone), tanto che dettero il via alla fondazione della nostra colonia felina.<\/strong><\/p>\n

We quickly understood that they were apartment cats that had been abandoned because the were very well behaved: as soon as we put a little blanket on the divan they sat down on it, they knew how to use a litter tray and recognised the sound of a packet of cat biscuits. We immediately fell in love with Mim\u00ec the cat and Coc\u00f2 the kitten (who then became a very big cat), so much so, in fact, that they paved the way to the foundation of our feline colony.<\/p>\n

Gigia, Smokie e Bella<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Gigia si riposa sul davanzale del seccatoio. Gigia rests on the windowsill of the chestnut barn.
<\/span><\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

La prima ad apparire fu Gigia. Una mattina della primavera seguente all’arrivo di Mim\u00ec e Coc\u00f2, davanti alla porta di casa Geoff trov\u00f2 una gattina piccolissima, avr\u00e0 avuto circa 4 settimane, che si trascinava sulle zampine ancora incerte. La prese in mano, l’accarezz\u00f2, e poi la riport\u00f2 da dove era venuta, a casa di Amelia, cinquanta metri da casa nostra.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The first to appear was Gigia. One morning in the spring following the arrival of Mim\u00ec and Coc\u00f2, Geoff found a tiny kitten of\u00a0about 4 weeks old dragging itself along on its still uncertain legs in front of our door. He picked her up, stroked her, and took her back to where she’d come from, Amelia’s house, fifty meters from us.<\/p>\n

Qualche settimana dopo la fuggitiva riapparve, questa volta nel nostro giardino, in compagnia dei due fratellini. Ce li aveva portati la madre, che li lasciava l\u00ec a giocare e ogni tanto li veniva ad allattare.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A few weeks later, the escapee reappeared, this time in our garden in the company of her two siblings. They’d been brought there by their mother, who left them there to play, and every so often came to feed them.<\/p>\n

Un pomeriggio d’estate dopo un grande acquazzone sentimmo un miagolio disperato venire dal giardino. Geoff and\u00f2 fuori e trov\u00f2 la sorellina della fuggitiva completamente zuppa, poich\u00e9 non era riuscita a tornare a casa sua a ripararsi. La port\u00f2 dentro casa, la asciugammo e le demmo dei croccantini da mangiare. Bella (cos\u00ec la chiamammo perch\u00e9 … era troppo bella) era felicissima, faceva le fusa da morire, si rotolava incessantemente.<\/strong><\/p>\n

One summer’s afternoon after a big shower, we heard a desperate meowing coming from the garden. Geoff went out and found the escapee’s little sister completely soaked because she hadn’t managed to get home to shelter herself. He brought her inside, we dried her and gave her some cat biscuits to eat. Bella (we gave her that name because … she was very beautiful) was really happy, she purred like mad (lit: purred herself to death<\/em>), and endlessly rolled herself around.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Smokie e Bella<\/span><\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Da quel giorno i tre gattini si accamparono fuori della porta della nostra cucina dove aspettavano il cibo e giocavano con Coc\u00f2 che li adott\u00f2 subito. Pur dandogli un po’ da mangiare cercavamo di non farli entrare in casa, ma un giorno notammo che stavano male: Gigia e il fratellino Smokie avevano delle infezioni nel collo, Bella aveva una brutta tosse e tutti e tre soffrivano di diarrea. Cos\u00ec li portammo dal veterinario e da allora sono diventati parte della nostra famiglia allargata.<\/strong><\/p>\n

From that day on, the three kittens camped outside our kitchen door where they waited for food and played with Coc\u00f2, who immediately adopted them. Whilst feeding them we tried not to let them come into the house, but one day we noticed that they were ill: Gigia and her little brother Smokie had infections on their necks, Bella had a horrible cough, and all three suff\\1ered from diarreah. So we took them to the vets, and since then they have become part of our extended family.<\/p>\n

Here are the links once again to a couple of useful articles on the historical past: <\/span>Il Passato Remoto\u2013part 1<\/span><\/strong><\/a> and<\/span> Il Passato remoto\u2013part 2<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

How did you get on with our article I Trovatelli? As you will have discovered, it makes extensive use of il passato remoto (the historical past), a tense which is far more common in written, than spoken Italian. Here’s my English translation: I Trovatelli: la storia di come abbiamo trovato ognuno dei nostri gatti. The…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":13394,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[224334],"tags":[128837,474215,58911,128838],"class_list":["post-13387","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vocabulary-2","tag-gatti-italiani","tag-il-passato-remoto","tag-italian-cat-story","tag-italian-cats"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13387"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13393,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13387\/revisions\/13393"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}