My husband’s bizarre choice of snack food gave me a funny topic for my Italian lesson this week, the snack being a mixed selection of dried locusts, meal worms, crickets and buffalo worms!
In our house-hold there was a mixed reaction when the insects were offered, either “FA SCHIFO, FA MOLTO SCHIFO!” ( Disgusting, very disgusting!) Or “Mmm, sono croccanti!” (Mmm they’re crunchy!). I confess that the locusts were a bit much for me, but I tried a couple of meal worms and they really weren’t bad. There was also a jar of Queen Leafcutter Ants which were reportedly quite ‘creamy’ but I wasn’t brave enough to try them before he ate them all.
“In un futuro non troppo lontano tutti mangeremo gli insetti ?!!” (In a not-too-far distant future will we all eat insects?” “Gli insetti sono il futuro del cibo?” (Are insects the future of food?” I think this is an interesting question, and it made a good topic for discussion. Un argomento / un tema are two different words which can be used for conversation topic .
Other words / phrases I learned in the lesson :
- In Italian, cows’ milk is il latte vaccino , and dairy products are i latticini.
- Il latte puo’ causare gonfiore. (Milk can cause bloating).
- A strong smell is un odore forte.
- Tranne means except / save / apart from.
AND TO END WITH :
We’re back to prepositions again! These ones tripped me up in my lesson….
“Fa” is for the past and “Fra” is for the future
I keep thinking I have got the hang of these two small yet troublesome words, and then I try to talk about when things happened in the past, or plans for the future, and the little words elude me!!
For example to say two years ago would be DUE ANNI FA. Or to say something is happening IN two weeks would be FRA DUE SETTIMANE. I repeat them to myself and hope that they will stick around this time!
Happy Italian learning everybody!