Tag Archive for 'English'

Bright dawn

Published
by
Carlo
on March 9, 2008
in English
. 2 Comments

Reading the referers of this website, I found that someone reached it querying a search engine for

Text to Albachiara

As I previously wrote, I think that “Albachiara” (Bright dawn in English) is one of the best Italian songs of all times.

The lyric was written by Vasco Rossi, one of our most important singers and songwriters: it describes a fictional girl (Vasco got his inspiration from a real girl he used to see on the bus going to school). I am neither a translator nor a poet so… (warning!) I translated the lyric trying to save the meaning but of course the rhythm has gone.

Bright dawn

You softly breathe avoiding noise, you fall asleep in the evening and awaken with the sun.
You are brigth like dawn, you are fresh like air.
You turn red when someone looks at you and you are fantastic when you are lost in thought about your problems.
You lazily get dressed, you never put on something to attract attention or to get winked at.
With your clean face, you walk on the street eating an apple while carrying your school books. You like to study, you don’t have to be ashamed about that.
When you look with your big eyes, perhaps they are too honest ’cause, through them, your thoughts and dreams can be seen.
Sometimes you have strange thoughts… you lightly touch yourself with your hand, you alone in the room and the whole world outside.

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Six words are enough

Published
by
Carlo
on February 20, 2008
in English
. 0 Comments

A friend has indirectly drawn my attention to an old issue of Wired, where it says that

Hemingway once wrote a story in just six words (”For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”) and is said to have called it his best work.

The proposed game is to write a biography using only six words.

Already written by Hemingway: I quit.

:)

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Yes we can. Really? :)

Published
by
Carlo
on February 6, 2008
in English
. 0 Comments

Dear Walter,
our Country is so messy that to start using English slogans is something we really don’t need, not at all.
I know that, before “Yes we can”, you’ve already used “I care” but please, try to refrain yourself from this bad habit.
:)

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A polyglot lyric

Published
by
Carlo
on January 9, 2008
in English
. 3 Comments

Reading the referers of this website, I found that someone reached it querying a search engine for

Italian songs that are in English too

Strictly speaking, they were looking for something that, in the context of computing, is known as a polyglot.
I’m sorry but this is over my head: I can only think about something slightly different… for example, the song “Fragile” (written by Sting) that is an English song whose title has the same spelling and meaning in both Italian and English.

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Azure

Published
by
Carlo
on November 9, 2007
in English
. 5 Comments

Reading the referers of this website, I found that someone reached it querying a search engine for

Adriano Celentano Azzurro and English meaning

As I previously wrote, I think that “Azzurro” (Azure in English) is one of the best Italian songs of all times.

The lyric was written by Paolo Conte, one of our most important singers and songwriters and it was sung by Adriano Celentano. I am neither a translator nor a poet so… (warning!) I translated the lyric trying to save the meaning, of course the rhythm has gone.

Azure
I wait for the summer all year long then, suddenly, it’s here. She has gone to the beaches and I’m lonely here in the city. I hear, coming from over the rooftops, a plane that is flying away.

Azure, the afternoon is too azure and long for me. I realize that I have no more resources without you… so I might take the train to come to you, the train of desires which, in my thoughts, runs backwards.

It seems like when I was at the Sunday school, with much sun, many years ago. Those Sundays I spent walking alone in the courtyard… now I’m even more bored, neither is there a priest to chat with.

I look for a bit of Africa in the garden, between the oleander and the baobab, as I used to do when I was a child but there are people here and I can’t do it anymore. They are watering your roses… the lion is not here, who knows where it is.

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Is it so hard to remember? :)

Published
by
Carlo
on November 6, 2007
in English
. 4 Comments

Even though I already know that, according to Wikipedia, Carlos and Carla rank as the 3rd most popular names in many Spanish-speaking countries, I still don’t understand why many people outside Italy call me Carlos. I’m Italian and Carlo is my name: please, use it to refer to me. :) Carlo (and Karl, Carl, Charles and so on) means “free man” but you are not free to call me Carlos, not at all! :)

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Sometimes I have to be pitiless :)

Published
by
Carlo
on August 27, 2007
in English
. 3 Comments

I’ve just found this masterpiece in my spam box.

My name is Elena. To me of 20 years.
I would like to get acquainted with you if you not against.
I Look forward to hear you soon with impatience. Adult Dating (link omitted)

Wouldn’t it be cynical to reply with something like this?

Dear Elena,
your name and your English make me think that, like me, you are not a mother tongue. Even though a girl with your name has had a role in my life, I think your sentences are not enough to persuade me to visit your spam website.
Before deleting your message, I want to let you know I have no doubts that you can do much better.
Sincerely,
Carlo.

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An Artist of the Floating World

Published
by
Carlo
on August 13, 2007
in English
. 0 Comments

In the last few months, I have been looking for a novel written by a contemporary English writer whose prose would be both easy and refined: then some days ago a British friend suggested reading “An Artist of the Floating World” written by Kazuo Ishiguro. He was born in Japan in 1954 and he left it around the age of six to move to the United Kingdom so he can undoubtedly be referred to as a British novelist.

It seems that “The Sunday Times” has described this book as “A work of spare elegance” so, even before starting it, I was sure that it would have been quite close to what I was searching for. Reading it, I’ve increasingly understood that it is a masterpiece, though my opinion is irrilevant.

I do not want to summarize here the story that it tells: I just want to say that what remains at the end of it is the importance of trying to elevate from the mediocrity in which a life can fall and to limit the arrogance that prevents us from recognising our faults. I would like to write more about two parts of it but I don’t want to block my readers from the delight of their own reading so I’ll just close this post quoting a sentence that Ishiguro has written to describe the landscape of Nagasaki, still wasted during the first few years after the end of the Second World War:

(…) you may see the line of old telegraph poles - still without wires to connect them - disappearing into the gloom down the route you have just come, and you may be able to make out the dark clusters of birds perched uncomfortably on the tops of the poles, as though awaiting the wires along which they once lined the sky.

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Vocabulary for Dummies

Published
by
Carlo
on July 15, 2007
in English
. 0 Comments

This informal grammar book was not written for Non-native English Speakers: the usual readers are Americans who want to enhance both their spoken and written English and their vocabulary with everyday words and specialist terminology.

I had never noticed that a large number of English words have Latin roots: this is probably due to the reason that I don’t have to learn them but for an English Speaker their meanings are not so obvious. For me, using words with Latin roots defines a different problem: to recognise when their use is not common. For example, writing to a British friend (who is kind enough to correct my sentences) I described a story as “didactic”: he told me that “enlightening” is closer to the everyday vocabulary of the average citizen so it is an adjective to prefer… unless “you want to be a columnist of The Times”. :)

All in all, although I have started reading this book picking pages at random, it still seems to be able to suggest hints for an effective communication.

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“Cani e porci” in English :)

Published
by
Carlo
on April 20, 2007
in English
. 0 Comments

Talking to some friends, today I wondered what English expression is close to the Italian “cani e porci” (yes, we were talking about a recent post). Later, I recalled two good candidates:

  • “everybody and his dog” or “everybody and his kid sister” and so on (if you want to make fun of someone);
  • “every mother’s son” (if you just want to say “absolutely everybody”)… that was, by the way, the title of a Traffic’s song.

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