These are phrases your average tourist needs according to Frommer's Italian Phrasebook and Culture Guide. Copy and paste these into google translate, I dare you.
Some selections from the Nightlife section:
Ti desidero.
Restiamo solo amici.
Prendi la pillola?
Torno a casa domani mattina.
Credo che questo sia stato un errore.
In the Health and Safety section, these are the first four phrases under "Medication"
Mi servono delle pillole del giorno dopo.
Mi servono pillole anticoncezionali.
Mi servono pillole per la disfunzione erettile.
Ho perso gli occhiali da vista e me ne servono di nuovi.
My question is this: What is Mr. Frommer doing when he's in Italy?
Because I am in an Italian class where I pretty much teach myself from a textbook without aid of an instructor, I found it necessary to find a good online translator. There are A LOT of websites that do free translations, but they usually provide sub par translations. It is important to understand that in every language there are words that won't translate, concepts that get lost, and sentence structures are different all over the world. However, with my test you can separate the proverbial wheat from the tares.
Enter the same phrase into every site you go to. It should be a phrase with basic vocabulary, in the present tense, and no structural complexities. As you translate the phrase, copy and paste the translation and translate that to a new language. Do this several times before returning to English.
becomes: kvindenat short-term dans.
(English to Spanish to French to Russian to German to English to Chinese simple to English to Danish to English to Greek to English)
becomes: Big woman L dances tonight with the short persons
(English to Spanish to French to Dutch to English to Russian to English to Chinese simple to Chinese traditional to English to Greek to English)
becomes: Dance with people long black woman briefly tonight.
(English to Spanish to French to Russian to German to Italian to English to Dutch to English to Chinese simple to English)
becomes: Fat women dance the night only.
(English to Spanish to French to Russian to German to Danish to Chinese simple to Italian to Greek to Hebrew to Polish to English)
becomes: Dancing with the main man short night.
(English to Spanish to French to Russian to German to Italian to English to Chinese simple to Greek to Hebrew to Danish to English)
And there you have it! None of them are perfect, but in my experience, google translator is the best. Try it for yourself next time you're bored!
Sheesh. Next time you need a translator just google me on the telephone. Interestingly I understood all the perverse statements/questions from Frommer without the help of a translator. Why is that? Because our teaching pool in Florence consisted of a lot of young college kids studying art and those types of topics and their corresponding vocabulary were used a lot. I see that at least you are learning the subjunctive tense! So many missionaries lived in Italy for two years and never learned subjunctive. I was a beast at it.
ReplyDelete"I think this was a mistake."
ReplyDeleteGolden. I need to learn this in every language. Thank you, Frommer.
Reading this blog post might have been a mistake. Where are my pictures from your san diego trip? Matt translated all the phrases for me and I'm mightly disturbed. I fail to see why ANY of those phrases would be considered essential for a 1010 student to learn...
ReplyDelete