Thursday 14 June 2012

Italian prose poetry and wisdom

During the last fifteen years or so, I have wanted to learn Italian without actually doing anything about it. I did acting, singing, but learning to have even a basic conversation, I just was too lazy to do it. My Italian friend (the only one I am still in contact with) has published on Facebook this nice little piece of prose:
 "Domani sveglia all'alba! Ho tutto il pomeriggio convincermi della poesia nascosta negli esami medici di primo matino."

I didn't understand much, so I used (gasp!) Google Translate. It means something like: "Tomorrow I wake up at dawn! I convince myself of the poetry of early morning medical tests." It is of course a dreadful translation and I still understand little of it, but I love how it flows in Italian. I told her on the Wall comments about it, about the fact that I shamefully used a machine translation. She replied: "Tomorrow morning, after all blood tests will be done, sitting in front of my cappuccino and croissant, I will drink a toast to machine fallibility :D". This is good enough to be an aphorism of pure wisdom and a great unknown line. On a trivial side note, I love Italian breakfasts (they are unapologetically sugary and decadent) and it is the only place on Earth where I enjoyed drinking coffee (I barely exaggerate). But it reminds me as well that I should trust my own skills and my capacity to learn more, and then I would not rely on technology.

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