{"id":15152,"date":"2017-11-13T18:04:58","date_gmt":"2017-11-13T17:04:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/?p=15152"},"modified":"2017-11-13T18:04:58","modified_gmt":"2017-11-13T17:04:58","slug":"im-very-affectionate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/im-very-affectionate\/","title":{"rendered":"I’m Very Affectionate!"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘False friends’ is the very appropriate title given to words that sound similar in two different languages but, in reality, actually have different meanings. Here’s one that can easily catch you out.<\/span><\/p>\n

Affezionato <\/strong>… sounds just like the English word affectionate, right? And it would seem logical that you should be able to use it to construct a sentence such as: “all six of our cats are very affectionate”. However, “Tutti e sei i nostri gatti sono molto affezionati”<\/strong> doesn’t mean what you might think it does.<\/p>\n

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Serena e Smokie. Foto di Geoff.<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Firstly, let’s find out what we mean when we use the word affezionato\/a\/i\/e<\/strong>. Take a look at the following examples:<\/p>\n

Sono molto affezionato a questi vecchi jeans<\/strong> = I’m very fond of these old jeans
\nLaura e Paolo sono affezionati alla loro vecchia Cinquecento<\/strong> = Laura and Paolo are fond of their old (FIAT) 500.
\nMaria era parecchio affezionata a questo ristorante<\/strong> = Maria was quite fond of this restaurant
\nLucia e Giovanna erano molto affezionate alla zia Clara<\/strong> = Lucia and Giovanna were very fond of aunt Clara
\nMi sono affezionato a lui<\/strong> = I’ve become fond of him
\nLa ragazzina si era affezionata tantissimo al cagnolino<\/strong> = The little girl became really fond of the puppy<\/p>\n

From the above example we see that the word affezionato\/a\/i\/e<\/strong> changes ending according to the number and gender of the persons who are ‘fond of’ someone\/thing:<\/p>\n

Geoff \u00e8 affezionato<\/span> a …<\/strong> = Geoff is fond of …
\nSerena \u00e8 affezionata<\/span> a …<\/strong> = Serena is fond of …
\nGeoff e Serena sono affezionati<\/span> a<\/strong> …<\/strong> = Geoff and Serena are fond of …
\nSerena e sua mamma sono affezionate<\/span> a<\/strong> …<\/strong> = Serena and her mother are fond of …<\/p>\n

We can also see that the preposition ‘a’<\/strong> (to) is used where in English we would use ‘of’, i.e. affezionato a<\/span><\/strong> = fond of<\/span>. It will help if you imagine your fondness going towards (‘a’<\/strong>) the person or object that you’re fond of.
\nIt follows, therefore, that if we want to say something like ” Vincenza? … yes I’m quite fond of her”, we would use use “Vincenza? … s\u00ec le<\/span> sono abbastanza affezionato”<\/strong>, le<\/span> <\/strong>being the short version of a lei<\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

So, let’s go back to our original sentence: “Tutti e sei i nostri gatti sono molto affezionati”<\/strong>. We can now see that it makes no sense because it’s incomplete: “All six of our cats are very fond …..”. Very fond of what? To complete the sentence we’d have to say some like “tutti e sei i nostri gatti sono molto affezionati a noi”<\/strong> = “All six of our cats are very fond of us”.<\/p>\n

But what we actually wanted to say was: “All six of our cats are very affectionate”. So how do we go about that? This is where we have to ignore our ‘false friend’ affezionato<\/strong>, and throw ‘logic’ out of the window. The word we need is affettuoso\/a\/i\/e<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

We can now construct the correct sentence: “Tutti e sei i nostri gatti sono molto affettuosi”<\/strong> = “All six of our cats are very affectionate”. Let’s finish with a few more examples:<\/p>\n

E’ un ragazzo molto affettuoso<\/strong> = he’s a very affectionate boy
\nCarla \u00e8 una donna abbastanza affettuosa<\/strong> = Carla is quite an affectionate lady
\nLucia e Maria sono due ragazzine affettuose<\/strong> = Lucia and Maria are two affectionate little girls.<\/p>\n

Any question? Feel free to leave a comment. A presto!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

‘False friends’ is the very appropriate title given to words that sound similar in two different languages but, in reality, actually have different meanings. Here’s one that can easily catch you out. Affezionato … sounds just like the English word affectionate, right? And it would seem logical that you should be able to use it…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":15159,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[474318,474317,474319],"class_list":["post-15152","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grammar","tag-affectionate-in-italian","tag-affezionato-vs-affettuoso","tag-fond-in-italian"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t