Hi Filippo,

 

In English, we always capitalize languages and nationalities as well as the personal pronoun. Your message should say:

 

"Hi, I'm Italian and I would like to improve my English. Can someone help me?"

 

- Erin

Il Cappellaio Matto

Yesterday I read in a novel by Philip K. Dick that English hatters, during the 19th century, used to utilize mercury to process felt hats, and this could cause an intoxication that led to brain damage, so, very often, they went mad.
Thus came the expression "as mad as a hatter".
I Googled (not sure) it, and it appears to be true.
That made me think about "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". There's "the Hatter" in this book, who is clearly totally nuts. His name, in Italian, is translated as "Il Cappellaio Matto", "the Mad Hatter", and that's maybe because we, usually, don't say "matto come un cappellaio".
Instead of that, very often, we say "matto come un cavallo", literally "as mad as a horse". Horses seem less crazy than humans to me, but, anyway, that's a very common idiom.
Another way to say that is "fuori" (out). So we say "quello è fuori", literally: "that one is out".
There's a variation on the theme which I find very funny, it's "fuori come un balcone" ("as out as a balcony", because balconies are known to never be inside).
So, "quel tizio è proprio fuori come un balcone" may be a good non-literal translation for "that bloke is really mad as a hatter".
We also say "matto da legare" ( "mad to be tied"), and here, if I am not wrong, English and Italian finally agree, for this is an English expression too. (The English expression is "fit to be tied", which means angry/agitated, not insane.)
However, they say Philip Dick was mad to be tied, but that's ok for me, because he was pure genius, and, without being a genius, I'm a bit "fuori", too.
In the novel I'm reading (re-reading, actually), "The Divine Invasion", published in 1981, there's an almost omniscent AI controlling the world, whose name is "big noodle".
I can't avoid noticing a strict assonance with the name of a famous serch engine... (HAHAHAH!)
I wonder what Dick would think of that. :)

Here's a list of Italian Idioms:
http://www.pimsleurapproach.com/resources/italian/articles/italian-idioms/

 

Awesome entry Daniele! I read this earlier and now my friend and I are saying "Mad like a horse" as an 'in-joke' around our other co-workers. Thanks for the amusement!

 

Erin

A very impressive entry! My corrections are below.

 

A vertical forest

Last Thursday I went to Milan for an interview. Sadly, it's been only a partial insuccess, but anyway I had the chance to visit that amazing city. I know, usually people come to Italy to visit historical sites, but I'm more into modern, innovative things.

Insuccess is not a word. We would say something was "only a partial success". Innovating is a verb, the adjective is innovative.

Milan has its relevant historical sites to visit - let's think at of the Cathedral ("Il Duomo di Milano"), or at the Sforza Castle ("Il Castello Sforzesco") - but what I really admire there are the new buildings, particularly skyscrapers ("i grattacieli", or "le torri", as we call them).

 

"Let's think of" is a little akward. An English speaker would understand what you mean, but we wouldn't normally use that phrase. Maybe "Milan has its relevant historical sites to visit - I'm thinking of . . . " You also need a stronger punctuation mark than a comma here because the two parts of the sentence could be their own sentences. I would use a dash.

Most of them are very recent or still under construction, and they rise so quickly that, using an Italian idiom, we can say "crescono come funghi" ("they grow like mushrooms").

Wonderful!

Italians usually are not likely to accept innovative architectural shapes in general, but, in my opinion, all our marvellous historical sites have been built at a certain point in the past. And usually they went against the grain, at first.

Great use of an idiom here.

 

Now we should preserve them more carefully, of course, but why just live in the past? Why should we stop building great sites?

 

In my opinion, in Milan they seem to understand this point, and that new quarter, Porta Nuova ("new gate"), is a new architectural marvel. Those skyscrapers are fantastic, so high, so nicely colored, their shapes being amusing and harmonious.

"Amusing" normally means funny. I don't think we would call buildings amusing. Interesting maybe.

 

I don't feel oppressed by those giants, their sight brings a sense of joy to me.
Even their names are nice: "Il Dritto" (the straight one, but "dritto" also means a cunning person), "lo Storto" (the twisted one), "Il Curvo" (the curved one) are some examples.
But there's a building complex in particular which I wanted to see.
It's name is "Bosco Verticale" (vertical forest). It is made of two towers rising from a green area. Their peculiarity is that they are entirely covered by trees. Their surface is green and alive. Trees convey fresh air and acoustic isolation to them, together with all the moral benefits that plants give to humans.

Moral benefits? I'm not sure what you mean by this.

 

I had my lunch (a "calzone") sitting in the grass while gazing at them, and I felt like a child at Disneyland.
I read that they are building a "vertical forest" in Sidney, too. That's great. In my hope this is how cities will look like in the future: green parks and monumental buildings blended together.

 

"How cities will look" or "what cities will look like" not "how cities will look like".

Amazing job!

http://giardininelmondo.it/il-bosco-verticale.html

I'm sick

I woke up sick today, I have a cold :S

 

Hi Ibrahin,

I'm sorry you're sick. Your English sentence is perfect though! Great job!

 

Erin

A sunny Sunday

Hi guys! I will describe to you my sunny Sunday. :)
This morning I woke up at 10.30am and (I) had breakfast with my mom on the terrace. Then I chatted with my linguistic (language) partners on this site and (I) helped my mom (to) prepare the Sunday's Philipino lunch. My Italian friend called me and we spoke for a few minutes on the phone. I had lunch with my parents and my cousin and we ate ice cream after lunch. Now I'm chatting with some linguistic (language) partners on italki and after that I'll take a shower because the temperature of this Sunday is very high. After my shower and before dinner I'll drive to bring my cousin to work.

Thanks for the corrections.

 

Great job! A few problems with prepositions (on/in/to) and capitalization (we always capitalize nationalities like Philipino and Italian and days of the week). The word linguistic is too formal for everyday coversation. We would say "language partners". Keep up the good work!

Introduction

Hi there! My name is Lucas, I'm seventeen and I live in Cuiabá, the Central-West region of Brazil, therefore my native language is Portuguese. I've learnt English for almost a year now and am using it daily, listening, watching and reading English stuff as much as I can. Also, I've tried some German and Swedish, but am failing in both.

 

Great job! Your English is very good. We don't use the word "therefore" in normal conversation - mostly only in scholarly writing.

I have to learn English.

Every day I need to listen and speak English.