Mumsnet Little Italy 9

[Brangelina]

Aka le Patatine

LOL- I'm always screeching at students, "what's that letter huh? huh? It's an A right? Huh? How do you pn it in Italian "A A A" So pn it the same in English!"

Then I go completely Yorkshireman-with-flat-cap-and-whippet to stop them with their "E" instead of "U" and they all sound like Liam Gallagher or someone out of Emmerdale.

I hate it when DD comes home and calls me by my name, as pronounced by her friend's mum. I'm like noooo, it's an A for apple aaarrrgh!

Does your DD have an Italian accent? I can't get mine to pronounce her h.

Mine is having trouble with her R....(not as bad for us as for her wee friend whose surname is Porro.....)

She makes me laugh when she is talking to dp, in Italian, but about something English, so she'll say it with an Italian accent...."Leetle poh-ni" etc.....

Hi - I'm new here - mind if I join in? Just reading about your A/E thing, made me laff, my dad, lived in UK for many years now back in Italy, has arguments with people all the time over there about this pronounciation! We go into a bar and he asks for a coffee with a little something in it and the barman inevitably says "brendi?" so he then proceeds to educate them on the correct pronunciation but best thing is a friend of his was insisting x 100 that you pronounce "a" as an "e" because everybody knows the alphabet E,B,C..despite his 40 years of speaking English but she still wouldn't have it ha ha

WElcome Fragoluccia, yes do join in, the more the merrier.

DD also has a problem with her Rs insofar as they're undistinguisable from her Ls, so porro is transformed into pollo. I do wonder if she has Japanese genes or maybe I'm giving her too much miso soup?

morning all... well, I went to bed and, as always when DP is away, it took me ages to fall asleep, I hear all sorts of imaginary noises.. finally fell asleep, though not deep sleep as the rain was doing my head in, and then at 2.45 DD decided she wanted a chat and a feed. While I'm feeding DD, I can hear DS complaining, then whingeing, then crying, then screaming, all because he can't blow his nose! then he came in our bedroom, so took him back to bed, and went back to feeding DD, who then decided she wanted to have a party..... and obviously we had plenty of tears this morning getting ready for school, and on top of walking in the pouring rain, struggling to hold the umbrella up, first thing I did was step on a huge dog's poo right in front of our gate !!

there, sorry about the long moan!

Rs are Ls here too... and definetly worse in italian (Nonna, hai messo via il mio tlattole?)

hi Fragoluccia!

Hi Fragoluccia!

Glad it's not just us with the R/L thing- also definitely worse in Italian for us too...

Sunshine- sorry about the dog poo incident, I have mean mad bad reputation as Furriner-who-shouts-at-people-with-dogs...we live opposite a little garden thing with huge no dogs sign, but I guess people are selectively short sighted...I have scared women-with-poodle off though, since I yelled at her that I was going to follow her home and do my bisogni outside her house.....

Thanks Brangelina and hi Sunflower, you must be wilting Were all of you guys brought up properly bilingual? I wasn't even though I should have been and have spent my life trying to compensate! Currently determined to speak to my DS in Italian...

lol Bucharest! I wished I could take your approach, but not sure it'd work with big guys with pitbulls...

I'm English, but living in sin with dp who is Italian, in Puglia...dd is totally bilingual (give or take the odd R/L issue!)

I did French and Spanish at uni, but can't know remember anything! I can speak Italian but my written is really really bad.

I'm Italian, been in UK wow forgot it was 11 years yesterday! Raised bilingual (mum's italian but born in france by italian parents), though I refused to speak french when I was littl . DP's an italian yorkshireman (didn't really speak italian til he met my family, but we only speak english between us), but DS spoke good italian til he started nursery, now it's getting more difficult, partly my fault too, though I'm trying to improve things

Here it's the sciure with the fur coats and yappy dog that are the worse culprits. I always pretend to put a spell on them "may you go blind from someone else's dog poo" and they always scurry away quickly. Never bother picking up the poo though. I keep meaning to go out with my cats' spare pooper scooper to pick up and throw the fresh dog poos at the offenders' mink coats.

Fragoluccia, I'm not bilingual from birth either thanks to 60s theories on linguistic acquisition. I do have the last laugh as my Italian is now better than my mum's, seeing as she's not spoken it much in the last 40 years, and I keep having to correct her subjunctive. DD is bilingual theoretically.

How cool, so you speak perfect French too? I have a friend whose Mum is French, Dad Italian and she lives in Alto Adige so is trilingual from birth. Am very of her.

Oh yes, woman-with-poodle has fur coat....(she looks like wozzeface Marina Doria? All stirato'd and lifted)

your mum sounds a bit like my PILs then, I keep on telling them to speak italian to DS, but they always end up speakin their yorkishire-southern-italy english! They stopped talking italian to DP after his reception teacher told them he wasn't speaking english (he could speak it but refused as he was being bullied)

and they get so many things wrong from the italian news !!

So do your inlaws speak dialetto or proper Italian? I ask because I once met this Australian girl who told me she was bilingual Italian/English as her parents were calabresi. She went to Cosenza and got on OK, then she came up to visit me in Milan and couldn't understand anyone. It turned out she spoke perfect calabrese stretto but no Italian whatsoever, as did her parents. Also, my ex boyf who is as milanese as they come had to learn siciliano when he went to NY or he had no chance of getting a job in an Italian restaurant apparently. Am not sure about the veracity of the last one though as he was weird and a Moonie.

I was also not speaking English at nursery, apparently, and my mum was told my English would be limitied by learning other languages.

When dd started nursery they were most panicked by the fact she wouldn't understand them.
"She's bilingual"
"yes, but you speak English to her and she answers you in English"
"durr, but her father speaks Italian to her and she answers him in Italian"
"but how has she managed to learn English when she's only 3"
"durr, how did you manage to learn Italian?"
"well, my mother spoke to me in Italian, but I am Italian and I live in Italy, you're English"

Clonk bang ouch. (me banging my head on the floor)

Well, on the strength of my Mum being forrin and me having a slight suntan, I remember being quizzed (in broad Naaarfuck) by a schoolfriend's nan as to whether I spoke English. I replied in my non-Norfolk middle class tones that I did indeed. She looked at her DGD and said "you'll have to tell me what she said, I can't follow these forrin accents".

they speak a mix really. but i guess they spoke dialetto potentino to DP so that's his "italian", you can imagine how he was the first time he came to veneto! he tought we all spoke spanish!... I had to learn to understand PILs, especially some of their friends who had very stretto dialect

lol at Brange's friend's nan and Bucharest's nursery!!

when DS started private nursery they were really good, but I guess it was the norm as they had a few children whose main language wasn't english. Although DS understood both equally, the few words he said were mainly italian so they asked for a list of the main words.

Crikey guys it has taken me 10 mins to read like 15 pages ...I had to pause to laugh - next time you are all on line like that text me and I will join in - I went to bed at 9 with minirosa on the bed as she was not tired.
Bucharest do you want the vaccinations sheet as that was about 20 pages ago ? Also are you a qualified teacher - I have been apporached to teach / help with English at the materna from Sept and am debating whether to do tefl simply as when its repetitions / one to one I can cope ok but a class scares the pants off me ?
DD1 sent home from nido with minor feb and she was all floppy. Have taken her temp and its only 37 now but she is tired .
Welcome strawberry .. We have heard nothing from Happychappy or Tantik for a while I hope they are ok ..

poor DD1, hope she's better soon

we had a good laugh last night.

not qualified teacher, well nearly as I only needed to add the last year of magistrali to my languages diploma to teach to elementari. I was going to the the tefl equivalent to start teaching italian to adults here, more for the confidence of teaching (I've taken both Cambridge Advance and Proficiency exams so had the experience as a student). But for a materna I don't think I'd bother personally, unless it's a requirement from their part, maybe just do a mock class for DD's friends/parents just to boost your confidence (I'd find teaching to people I know more daunting than teaching to strangers...)

Oh Rosa - poor you, and poor DD - you have been in the wars recently. Hope she feels ok soon.

Am still struggling with burning desire for Rocco Siffredi crisps, but with DD being ill, I have been unable to go and get any... I want kettle chips.

Failing that, Monster Munch. Pickled onion, of course.

Anyway - this morning I filled in some of DD's baby book, and started to write in my notebook... Ok, so I only got as far as my pregnancy, but it's a start, right?

I really hope that DD grows up bilingual, but I think it will be hard for her, with only her dad speaking Italian to her; we so rarely see the PILs, and he and I speak English. Maybe we should make more of an effort to speak Italian altogether in the house?...