crimper.co.nz

Well, about time i kept a bit of a record of some of the blunders i have made with the italian language i guess.....as my skills improve, so do the number of times my friends are left rolling in stitches on the floor....and I'm left thinking "oh crap, what did i just say? was it rude, offensive or just plain stupid??"

So:

1. Last night we were out for dinner and we were talking about Italian muscicians we had heard of in NZ. And the song that Dad walked me down the aisle to James at our wedding was sung by Elisa - a well known Italian singer/song writer. So I was explaining this in Italian, bla bla bla, and Michele raised his eyebrows and then almost fell off his chair ...well, 'pappa' is father, but 'papa' is Pope. And i had mispronounced it of course and said that the pope had walked me down the aisle....lucky me!

2. Carne is meat, but cane is dog. Since i cannot roll my 'r's, i find it difficult to pronounce them differently. So i was chatting away saying how we had eaten some meat....and everyone was like 'far out man - really?? - wow! yuck..." hehehe - when i realised my mistake i think they were really shocked when i nonchalantly said, yeah but i ate dog too....

3. Michele came down off the wall, a bit of a stinker climb, to which he said 'schiffo' which means like crappy, so i said 'crapper!' Well, in italian, crepare, which sounds very very similar, means to snuff it or die.  So he was like "huh? who? me? why?  shhh, you cant say that out loud!"....then later on that day we were talking about going upstairs to boulder and I said (in inglese), "ah it wont take me long to kill you" - meaning of course that i could make him tired really quickly...so he was like "um, crazy girl, wants me dead, um, ciao emma, see ya later!...."

4. um, cant think of any others right now, but will add them when i do...