{"id":161,"date":"2009-07-24T08:52:02","date_gmt":"2009-07-24T12:52:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/?p=161"},"modified":"2009-07-24T08:52:02","modified_gmt":"2009-07-24T12:52:02","slug":"esprimiti-part-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/esprimiti-part-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Esprimiti! part 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

So far, in the first two articles of this series, I\u2019ve been concentrating on the positive aspect of expressive vocabulary. What a wonderful world it would be if we only ever needed to talk about good and beautiful things! But of course life isn\u2019t always so kind and sometimes we need to express distaste or disappointment.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now don\u2019t get excited, this is a respectable web site and I\u2019m afraid I can\u2019t teach you any parolacce<\/strong> (swear words), but don\u2019t worry, you won\u2019t have any trouble learning those once you spend a bit of time in \u2018Il Bel Paese\u2019<\/strong> (\u2018The Beautiful Country\u2019 or Italy) because we use them abundantly!<\/span><\/p>\n

Hopefully you have come to grips with using the verb piacere<\/strong> to express the concept of \u2018to like\u2019, if not you should have a look at my article A different point of view<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

There are a couple of things to look out for however when using piacere in the negative:<\/span><\/p>\n

To simply say \u2018I don\u2019t like it\/this\/that\u2019 etc. you should use non mi piace<\/strong>, and use\u00a0non mi piacciono<\/strong>, to mean \u2018I don\u2019t like them\/these\/those\u2019 etc.. For example: non mi piace questa gonna<\/strong> (I don\u2019t like this skirt), and non mi piacciono queste scarpe<\/strong> (I don\u2019t like these shoes).<\/span><\/p>\n

However, be careful with the verb dis<\/span>piacere<\/strong>. If you say non mi dispiace questa gonna<\/strong> you are saying I don\u2019t dislike this skirt, or literally \u2018this skirt doesn\u2019t displease me\u2019. But if you simply say mi dispiace<\/strong> without the non<\/strong>, you mean \u2018I\u2019m sorry\u2019, e.g. mi dispiace per la gonna <\/strong>(I\u2019m sorry about the skirt). If on the other hand you say se non ti\/le\/vi dispiace<\/strong> what you mean is \u2018if you don\u2019t mind\u2019, e.g. se non ti dispiace me ne vado fra dieci minuti<\/strong> (if you don\u2019t mind I\u2019m leaving in ten minutes), or if you are speaking to two or more people use se non vi<\/span> dispiace<\/strong>. You can put dispiacere<\/strong> into the conditional by changing dispiace<\/strong> to dispiacerebbe<\/strong>, e.g. non mi dispiacerebbe comprare quella gonna!<\/strong> (I wouldn\u2019t mind buying that skirt!), or ti dispiacerrebe se me ne vado fra dieci minuti?<\/strong> (would you mind if I leave in ten minutes?).<\/span><\/p>\n

So much for displeasure! Many of the words and phrases that we looked at in parts one and two can easily be put into the negative by the simple addition of non<\/strong>. For example non essere entusiasta<\/strong> means not to be keen on, enthusiastic about, or happy with: non sono entusiasta della tua idea<\/strong> (I\u2019m not enthusiastic about \/ keen on your idea). Likewise with non essere appasionato\/a\/i\/e<\/strong>, <\/strong>e.g. non sono appassionata del calcio<\/strong> (I\u2019m not keen on football).<\/span><\/p>\n

Now for a few useful descriptive words and phrases. The first three are pretty obvious and have the same meaning as their English equivalent:<\/span><\/p>\n

orrendo<\/strong> = horrendous<\/span><\/p>\n

terribile<\/strong> = terrible<\/span><\/p>\n

ripugnante<\/strong> = repugnant<\/span><\/p>\n

brutto<\/strong> = bad \/ ugly, for the correct usage I recommend that you read my article <\/span>The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

noioso <\/strong>= boring, e.g \u2018\u00e8 stata una riunione molto noiosa\u2019<\/strong> (it was a very boring meeting).<\/span><\/p>\n

sgradevole<\/strong> = disagreeable, e.g. \u00e8 stata una giornata sgradevole!<\/strong> (it’s been a disagreeable day!)<\/span><\/p>\n

fastidioso\/a\/i\/e<\/strong> = annoying, irritating, troublesome, e.g. come sono fastidiose queste mosche!<\/strong> (how annoying these flies are!), or basta con le domande fastidiose!<\/strong> (that\u2019s enough of the irritating questions!).<\/span><\/p>\n

We also use dare fastidio<\/strong>, which literally means that something annoys or irritates you, for example: mi da molto fastidio quel chiasso!<\/strong> (that racket \/ noise really annoys me!), or ci da fastidio il puzzo del traffico nella citt\u00e0<\/strong> (the stink of the traffic in the city\u00a0bothers us).<\/span><\/p>\n

N.B. fastidioso<\/strong> is a so called \u2018false friend\u2019 because it sounds like it should mean fastidious, but it doesn\u2019t. In fact we use the word pignolo\/a<\/strong> to mean fastidious, or fussy, e.g. lui \u00e8 una persona molto pignola<\/strong> (he is a really fastidious \/ fussy person).<\/span><\/p>\n

Another expression very similar to dare fastidio<\/strong>\u00a0 is scocciare<\/strong>\u00a0which means\u00a0\u2018to annoy\u2019, \u2018to bother\u2019, or\u00a0\u2018to bore\u2019, e.g. ti scoccia la televisione?<\/strong> (does the TV bother you?).<\/span><\/p>\n

deludere<\/strong> is another false friend because it sounds like it means \u2018to delude\u2019 but instead means \u2018to disappoint\u2019. When you are disappointed with something you can use the past participle deluso<\/strong>, e.g. l\u2019ultimo libro di Pinco Pallino <\/strong>mi ha deluso<\/strong> (Pinco Pallino\u2019s last book disappointed me). Deludente<\/strong> means disappointing, e.g. l\u2019ultimo libro di Pinco Pallino \u00e8 stato deludente<\/strong> (Pinco Pallino\u2019s last book was disappointing). <\/span><\/p>\n

Last but not least we have that wonderfully expressive word schifoso\/a\/i\/e<\/strong>, which means disgusting, e.g. che tempo schifoso!<\/strong> (what disgusting weather!). We also have una schifezza<\/strong> and uno schifo<\/strong> which both mean \u2018a disgusting thing\u2019, e.g. pulisci la tua camera, \u00e8 una schifezza!<\/strong> (tidy up your room, it\u2019s disgusting!). Then we have the expression che schifo!<\/strong> which means how disgusting!, e.g. hai visto quello scorpione, che schifo!<\/strong> (have you seen that scorpion, how disgusting!).<\/span><\/p>\n

If you want to say that something disgusts you, use the expression fare schifo<\/strong>, e.g. i ragni non mi danno fastidio ma gli scorpioni mi fanno schifo!<\/strong> (spiders don\u2019t bother me but scorpions disgust me!)<\/span><\/p>\n

And now have fun with your new expressive vocabulary. Esprimiti!<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So far, in the first two articles of this series, I\u2019ve been concentrating on the positive aspect of expressive vocabulary. What a wonderful world it would be if we only ever needed to talk about good and beautiful things! But of course life isn\u2019t always so kind and sometimes we need to express distaste or…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[619],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-161","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-italian-language"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161","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\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}