Just bloggin’ along – in Italian

I’ve just started a blog in Italian: Ingliano – which is basically an attempt to teach myself how to write in Italian – something which I’m not too good at. So, seeing as the best way to improve your writing, IMHO, is to write, then that is just what I’m doing. There is no theme, so my entries will be pretty much about anything and everything, although they will not be quite as long as the entries in this blog have been on occaision. Writing can be difficult enough and I’ve seen some pretty ropey examples of the way that some English people can write, but writing in another language is yet more difficult, or so I reckon. But, I quite like writing, so I’ll give it a go. It should help with the re-facing of my website too, which is going to be primarily in Italian – seeing as it is aimed at Italians trying to get to grips with my first language. The experience should also help me to gain more of an idea of the trials and tribulations that Italians go through whilst attempting to write in Inglish too – which should make my teaching of the subject more effective. Well, that’s the theory, but only time and practice will tell.

Over and out from Milan for this evening.

There’s no fire without smoke

We have a wonderful neighbour. She's around 60 or so, retired and unfortunately a widow. Our neighbour joined the residents of the first floor at about the same time as ourselves and was the guiding light behind our pre-summer evening get together in the courtyard. She's really quite dynamic, but not in an annoying or pushy way at all. This lady also happens to be one mean cook and speaks Italian with a rather noticeable Germanic accent, which is common to the people of the Trento area of Italy, where she is from. I guessed she was from the Trento/ Alto Adige region as soon as she opened her mouth – much to her surprise. However, although she hails from this region and has been living in and around Milan for around 30 years, she still speaks with a noticeable accent. It's funny how certain accents always seem to persist and I remember a number of Scottish people who I knew who had been living in England for years, but somehow never really lost their accents – although their Scottish counterparts usually noticed that their accents had softened over time.

Anyway, our Neighbour, 'A' we shall call her, bought an appartment with a 'camino' – fireplace in English. Indeed it was this feature which really attracted her to this appartment. As you may expect, 'A' wanted to use her fireplace and heat up her appartment a little, seeing as the communal, and rather decrepit, heating system does not really heat her flat too well. Well, the normal way of using a fireplace for its designated purpose is to light a fire. 'A' did this and then watched the sparks fly as a number of residents came down from the flats above hers to complain that they were being smoked out of house and home. Something was amiss. Upon further investigation, 'A' discovered that someone in the neighbouring appartment block had installed a safe, very common in Italy, and that this here safe was actually blocking A's chimney – illegally. This person does not seem to care too much about the trouble he has caused. Long and short – 'A' has a chimney which doesn't let smoke out – not much use really.

In order to rectify this situation 'A' decided to call a chimney sweep, who would discover the blockage officially and maybe inform the authorities. This chimney sweep has yet to make an appearance and the weather is getting steadily colder. As a result of becoming rather sick of waiting, 'A' has decided to give events a bit of a push in what she hopes will be the right direction, so she lit her fire again – which will cause smoke problems for a few people and cause a little bit of consternation – something which generally leads to action here in the Living Museum.

Last night I bumped into 'A' in the courtyard and she explained all this to me, but I don't yet know the outcome of her mini-campaign of attrition. When I do know, I'll write something here.

New website

I've been upgrading my old site at the moment and things are coming along quite well, although I'm not sure I'll be able to get everything live by my self-imposed December the first deadline. The new site will include an affilliate based shop, so it'd be a good idea to have it 'open', so to speak, for the Christmas rush.

As with my old and basic first attempt at getting something on the web, I'm doing everything myself and have been having the odd hiccup while learning about new stuff such as content management systems, MySql databases and my old bug bear, CSS.

It's going to be, I hope, a fully featured site for Italians learning my language and will include links to useful sites and lots of information for all Italians trying to get to grips with the lingo. Which means that I've been struggling with written Italian – which certainly not one of my strong points. I shall be roping in my other half to read things over and put it in order.

Devo imparare come si può scrivere in Italiano, che non é una cosa, per niente, semplice. Scrivo abbastanza bene in inglese, credo, ma scrivo proprio come un bambino nella mia seconda lingua. Gli accenti, coniugazione e altre cosine mi fregano un pò sempre, purtroppo. Almeno, quando scrivo gli italiani non possono ridere al mio brutto accento italoinglese! Ma come si può migliorare questi skills? Bella domanda. L'unico modo da imparare a scrivere é quello di scrivere. Semplice. Quasi.

Cosi, da questo punto in poi, proverò a scrivere nel mio piccolo blog qualcosina in italiano, nella speranza che mi aiuterà. Vedremo. Già questi pochi frasi mi hanno stancato. E chi sa come leggono!

Allora, basta per adesso. Il mio posto preferito – mio letto – mi chiama. Ho sonno anché.

Ciao for now.

Winter is sneaking up

The week before last it was really quite warm. This week the temperatures are moving to below 10 degrees C. The transitions here between hot and cold have always been rather abrupt. In the UK the temperature slides down gracefully over a few months, whereas here, in the north of the lving museum at least, the temperatures fall like a brick dropped from a tenth floor balcony. One week you are sweating, the next freezing. Very odd.

The busy schedule of a two and a half year old

Our little tornado of joy is charging around everywhere and making lots of mess – just like most other two year olds. He gets a kick out of hiding himself in the shower, so while his mum was about to have a shower we asked the little whirlwind if he'd like to too. The reply: 'Non posso' – 'I can't'.

We figured that he probably had some important business meeting to attend which thus made it difficult for him to accept the invitation but we'll enquire and try to find out when he can fit the time to have a shower in to his busy schedule.

Why the little darling did not come out with 'I don't want to' which he is very capable of using or 'I don't like it', I have no idea. There is something crazy about a two year old refusing to do something on the grounds that he 'can't'?!! No? Well it had my other half and myself in giggles, I can tell you.

Out of the mouths of babes………!

November and the fog that isn’t

About five or six years ago, maybe longer, I can’t remember exactly, I bought one of those rather daft, but very practical Russian style rabbit skin hats – very similar to the one in the picture.

OK, I may have looked a bit nutty sporting this somewhat odd looking head gear, but it kept my head good and warm.  You see, in those days, from mid-November on it got cold – really cold.  I used to wear gloves too – something that was really only necessary very rarely back in the UK.  I put the cold here cold down to the proximity of the Alps and their white topped mountains. Anyway, it was cold here in Milan. … Continue Reading