Monday, July 22, 2024

Italian phrases

I came across an interesting Italian expression in a book ('A glancing light' by Aaron Elkins) the other day: Non c'è di che. Before getting to what it means, let's talk about the pronounciation. A 'c' on its own (ie without a following 'h') is pronounced as one would pronounce 'ch' in English - here it sounds like 'chay' (as in 'chase'). 'Ch' on the other hand sounds like a 'k' (or a hard 'c'), so the idiom sounds like 'non chay dee kay'. What does it mean? Google Translate says 'Don't mention it'. But changing the preposition leads to some interesting results, and translating the resulting English back into Italian is even more interesting.

Preposition Italian English Back translation
di Non c'è di che Don't mention it Non parlarne
di Non c'è di che, caro You're welcome, dear Prego caro
a Non c'è a che There is nothing to it Non c'è niente di male
de Non c'è de che You have nothing to say Non hai niente da dire
in Non c'è in che There is no way Non c'è alcun modo

All of the above probably means that one shouldn't trust Google Translate too much, and that these expressions are more idiomatic than literal. The funny thing is that I can near enough understand the back translation without help (although 'male' means 'evil' or 'bad').



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