Translation Gone Wrong

It's been a while since my last post. I've done quite a bit, I just have a hard time finding the energy to want to write about it. Maybe if I push myself to write more, my conversational skills will vastly improve in the process. Another item added to my 'To-Do' list.

Something I've been working on since the new year is learning to speak Italian. This isn't really a new development since I've been teaching myself the language for about 3 years -- 3 long, slow years. Considering I'm determined to be bi-lingual, I had to get serious. Classes are OK and I've gone that route, except it's hard to get a study group going so we can practice outside of the classroom. In order for me to really learn the language, I need to immerse myself in it -- and moving to Italy isn't a very viable option right now. Buggah!! So I did the next best thing -- found a pen-pal.

After receiving many interesting responses, I finally came across someone who is serious about just being friends. We've been writing for about 2 months and I'm amazed at how our English phrases doesn't translate seamlessly into Italian. Grammar is shifted round, some words don't exist in the other's language, and each languages' idioms need to be explained so that they make sense. It's been a bumpy road, but so far so good. Then today I learned something else.

Apparently, the English phrase "I'm excited!" 'doesn't mean what you think it means' in Italian. Apparently, if I were to say "Sono eccitata" (I'm excited) I just exclaimed "I'm horny!". Luckily my pen-pals wife understood that I'm learning the language and was in no way expressing anything more than "emozionata" about my upcoming holiday. I then remembered about another translation gone awry when Casey and I were in Italy. I'm sure all of my 1 reader has heard the story before.

We had gone out grocery shopping and came across a cute little shop that sold meat. Using my trusty Italian-English Dictionary, I told Casey to ask for "due seni di pollo". He does and the woman behind the counter smiled and began to laugh heartily. She says "sena" and cups her breasts to indicate that we literally asked for chicken "breasts" (of a woman!). doh!! She then told us we were probably wanting "due petti di pollo". Yeah! We did. Unfortunately, her husband wasn't born with a funny gene, and as the 3 of us were enjoying the mistranslation, he was wrapping the deli case with his hand chanting "petto... petto".

Sono emozionata vedere che cosa sara` la mia promisso traduzione sbagliato.