Comments on: Italian Idiom and Sayings

By: martone armando

martone armando — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 06:34:00 +0000

sfaticato=is a person that does not like working,studying etc etc.A person with no ambitions
cresci santo= grow to be a good man healthy man. It is the same as we say when someone sneezes God bless you
At one time when there were no antibiotic sneezing was a signal that something serious could happen

By: martone armando

martone armando — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 06:25:13 +0000

TO JOE VUCI
io e tua madre vogliamo augurarvi una vita piena di amore,felicita’ e di buona salute

By: Deirdre Straughan

Deirdre Straughan — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 18:53:52 +0000

“Amici per sempre”.

By: Anthony Hayes

Anthony Hayes — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 11:33:03 +0000

How do you say, friends foever. In Italian

By: joe vuci

joe vuci — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 15:09:29 +0000

i speek no italian, at my son’s upcoming wedding i would like to tell them in italian “moma and I want to wish you both health, love and happinest. can you help me?

By: john balasko

john balasko — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 19:43:16 +0000

I’ll keep looking, and I don’t know if you do this sort of thing. I need the phrase ‘What goes around comes around’ in Italian, and I’m sorry to say, by Monday midnite. I always understood it as (phonetically) ‘Mungu Schcordu’. I don’t know if this is correct. At any rate, thank you for your site!…J

By: steve maltese

steve maltese — Wed, 25 May 2011 12:44:47 +0000

my grandmother — from area around Avellino- used to say this when we sneezed as babes sounded like – greesha sanda – phonetic again – thinking it means a thousand blessings maybe Tommasso can help me out again !!!

By: Pinky

Pinky — Tue, 10 May 2011 19:00:44 +0000

Hi, i’m finding this website really useful because im doing an italian GCSE at the moment, my teacher is italian but obviously because what im doing is exams it’d be really good to know if it would be the kind of thing i could say in a speaking and listening test or whether i should keep it for company of my own age, thank you. Also a favourite idiom: Tra il dire, e il fare, c’e il mare. = between the saying and the doing is the sea (easier said then done)

By: Tommaso

Tommaso — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 19:49:26 +0000

@ Steve Maltese “my FIRST GENERAtion Neapolitan mother used to call me in italian lazy/ lacking in drive etc. phonetic sounded like SCHVADIGAH -anybody know what it means or if they heard something like it. ??”

The word your mum was using was sfatica’ or possibly sfaticàt, pronounced phonetically exactly how you spelt it. It’s tricky to translate precisely, but can be used anywhere in the ball park of careless, reckless, negligent etc… “Faticà” is the neapolitan verb for “to work” (lavorare) so it’s essentially the flip of that. Hope that helps.

By: Deirdre Straughan

Deirdre Straughan — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 19:45:37 +0000

I haven't heard this one myself, but I'm guessing it's "Manco se viene Gesu' Cristo incciovatto a la cruci…" - Not even if Jesus Chris himself nailed to the cross [shows up]. This is Sicilian dialect, and your question capita a fagiolo - I've just been reading some new Camilleri books my daughter brought from Italy.