{"id":559,"date":"2010-11-29T14:27:56","date_gmt":"2010-11-29T14:27:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/?p=559"},"modified":"2010-11-29T14:27:56","modified_gmt":"2010-11-29T14:27:56","slug":"whatever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/whatever\/","title":{"rendered":"Whatever!"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I lived in Nottingham, England, I worked for a while as a school librarian in one of the city’s most ‘challenging’ schools. Working with teenagers is, of course, a challenge in itself, but when they are teenagers from deprived inner-city backgrounds one needs nerves of steel. Come erano maleducati quei ragazzi!<\/strong> (How rude those boys were!) The most common retort to almost any request would be as follow: Me:<\/em> "Darren, would you mind putting those books back on the shelf please?" Darren: <\/em>"Yeah, whatever, Miss".<\/font><\/p>\n

OK! So, what has all this got to do with my Italian blog? Well, reminiscing over my ‘fond’ memories of those ‘good old days’ (ha ha!) made me think of a group of words which in English end with the suffix ‘-ever’: whatever, whoever, however, wherever, whenever<\/em>. How do we express these ‘-ever’ words in Italian? To make life relatively easy four out of the five words use the suffix ‘-unque’ <\/strong>which is Latin for mai<\/strong> (ever \/ never).<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Whatever<\/td>\nQualunque<\/strong> or qualsiasi
<\/strong>  
Qualunque<\/u> tempo faccia, domani partiamo <\/strong>(Tomorrow we’ll leave whatever<\/u> the weather) 
Qualsiasi<\/u> cosa facesse, gli andava sempre storta<\/strong> (whatever<\/u> he did, it would always turn out wrong). <\/p>\n

Qualunque <\/strong>and qualsiasi <\/strong>also have the meaning of  ‘any’  as in the following examples: <\/p>\n

Farei qualsiasi cosa<\/u> per uscire di qui <\/strong>(I would do anything<\/u> to get out of here)
Mi puoi telefonare a qualunque<\/u> ora del giorno e della notte <\/strong>(You can phone me at any<\/u> time of day and night). <\/p>\n

To use ‘whatever’ in the non committal manner used by those ‘lovely’ teenagers that I used to work with, we put qualunque \/ qualsiasi<\/strong> after the noun. This expresses indifference or lack of any particular quality or opinion, e.g.: <\/p>\n

Michele sta cercando un lavoro qualsiasi<\/u>, l’importante \u00e8 poter avere uno stipendio regolare <\/strong>(Michele is looking for whatever<\/u> job [he can find]<\/em>, the important thing is to have a regular salary)
Fermiamoci in un albergo qualunque<\/u>, basta che ci sia un letto per dormire <\/strong>(Let’s stop at whatever<\/u> hotel [we happen to<\/em> find]<\/em>, as long as it has got a bed to sleep in). <\/p>\n

From this particular usage of qualunque<\/u><\/strong> comes the word Qualunquista<\/strong>, to describe a person who is completely indifferent and skeptical towards politics and institutions.
Qualunquismo<\/strong> (‘whateverism’), is the noun that describes this attitude.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Whoever<\/td>\nChiunque<\/strong>
 
Chiunque<\/u> telefoni, non ci sono<\/strong> (Whoever<\/u> phones, I’m not here)
Non so chi di voi abbia rotto il vetro, ma chiunque<\/u> sia stato dovr\u00e0 ripagarlo <\/strong>(I don’t know which one of you broke the window, but whoever<\/u> it was will have to pay for it).<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
However<\/td>\nComunque<\/strong>
 
Comunque<\/u> vadano le cose, dobbiamo rassegnarci<\/strong> (However<\/u> things turn out, we’ll have to accept it)
Non volevo andarci, comunque<\/u> mi sono divertito un sacco <\/strong>(I didn’t want to go, however<\/u> I enjoyed myself a lot)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Wherever<\/td>\nDovunque
<\/strong> 
Lo trover\u00f2, dovunque<\/u> si sia nascosto <\/strong>(I’ll find it, wherever<\/u> it’s hidden)
Dovunque<\/u> lui vada, il cane lo segue <\/strong>(wherever<\/u> he goes, the dog follows him) <\/p>\n

Dovunque<\/strong> also has the meaning of ‘everywhere’, e.g.:
Ho cercato dovunque<\/u>, ma non l’ho trovato <\/strong>(I looked everywhere<\/u>, but I didn’t find it) <\/p>\n

Ovunque<\/strong> has exactly the same meaning as dovunque<\/u><\/strong>, but is more commonly used in literature<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Whenever<\/td>\nOgni volta che<\/strong> (equivalent to ‘every time that’) <\/p>\n

Ogni volta che<\/u> vado a Sarzana, passo a trovare mia cugina <\/strong>(Whenever<\/u> I go to Sarzana,  I pay a visit to my cousin) <\/p>\n

In qualsiasi momento<\/strong> (equivalent to ‘at any time’) <\/p>\n

Puoi passare a trovarmi in qualsiasi momento<\/u> ne hai voglia <\/strong>(you can come and visit me whenever<\/u> you feel like)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

N.B. Words ending with the suffix ‘-unque’<\/strong> are usually followed by the subjunctive, underlined here in the following phrase: Chiunque abbia<\/u> una domanda su questo argomento, qualunque essa<\/u> sia, mi pu\u00f2 scrivere in qualsiasi momento!<\/strong> (whoever has a question about this topic, whatever it may be, can write to me whenever they like!)<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I lived in Nottingham, England, I worked for a while as a school librarian in one of the city’s most ‘challenging’ schools. Working with teenagers is, of course, a challenge in itself, but when they are teenagers from deprived inner-city backgrounds one needs nerves of steel. Come erano maleducati quei ragazzi! (How rude those…<\/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":[6,619],"tags":[12741,12739,12743,12742,12740],"class_list":["post-559","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-grammar","category-italian-language","tag-translate-english-italian-however","tag-translate-english-italian-whatever","tag-translate-english-italian-whenever","tag-translate-english-italian-wherever","tag-translate-english-italian-whoever"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559","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=559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}