My friends from Venice forwarded these shopping list written in that beautiful language: Italian.
It will be your job to tell me what was on the lists. Don’t complain, it’s good for you to exercise your brains.
fragole
yogourt (this may be misspelt/misspelled – I am catering to both versions of the English language)
succo d’ananas
carta igienica
Rasoi (I have to confess I don’t know this one. I think it may be a brand name.)
una sorella più educata
I’ll bet you had no trouble with the first item
Something of interest about that second word, biscotti. Bis means twice or extra, the word literally means twice cooked. You may also see it used in the Italian word for Great-grandmother: Bisnonna.
Thank you, Caroline and Phil, for sending them to me.
Hello World 
You become a language teacher using active methods, Yvonne !
Love ❤
Michel
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It’s the best way, Michel.
Have as Happy a 2021 as the situation permits. ❤
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Thanks, Yvonne. The same for you.
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Luckily for me I didn’t have to think at all but just read all the comments. My daughter makes the most delicious biscotti.
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Does your daughter bake a range of biscotti, or does she have a speciality?
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I’ve only tasted the one kind. It’s so good.
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Is it okay if I just exercise my brain not my brains? I have difficulty enough finding the one….
I love the comment about the sister. I could imagine mine saying that about me… (she’s older than me).
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So, you were the little brat sister, were you, Val? A happy, colourised New Year to you.
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Haha! Yep, that was me. Thanks – and you.
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Did the Venetians experience a toilet paper shortage too?
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I was concentrating so hard on ours, I didn’t pay any attention to Italy, Lou. We had better ask the Ventian connections. xx
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I didn’t notice one – just a flour shortage for a while during our first lockdown. Oh, and low stocks of Campari for a bit =:-O
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Goodness – when I was in Italy I went into a shop and fluently recited an almost identical list and got all the stuff.
In Florence (when lost) I approached a woman and said in English: “Excuse me. Could you tell me how to get to the Uffizi?” She answered in an extremely heavy Australian accent: “You should know better than to ask a blonde in Italy for directions.” Perhaps it was you?
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So that was you. And you were standing right there facing the Uffizi. Wait, that couldn’t be me, I retain my Canuck accent.
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Strawberries, pineapple juice, toilet paper, razors, – I used the translator of course – perhaps a more educated sister should not be taken literally
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No, I think there is a more subtle meaning underlying that item, Derrick.
It does look very soggy in your corner of the world.
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Yes – it must mean something else.
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I am Italian and I was hooked by that “una sorella più educata” – a more polite sister – , I guess there must have been a fight between the two, so she means to go shopping and buy a more polite one or the sister has to go shopping and fetch a pinch of politeness back. By the ways, fun!
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I wonder if you pay for this better sister by the item or by weight. I wonder if she’d have a “Best by” sticker on her? And could you return her for credit or exchange her for another?
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Yes, our language is quite difficult to learn and speak, also for us. Nowadays Italian language is often substituted by englishisms. I think it’s a contribute to globalization.
Anyway, I like that “una sorella più educata” 😁
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Hi! It was such a funny surprise on the shopping list, J.
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How wonderful to get a list in Italian!
I shall have to do some googling!
Guess no matter where we live we need toilet paper!
HUGS!!!
🍓 🙂 🍍
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You’ve got that right, woman! ❤ xxx
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We can spin a yarn about this. We need to recruit John, he also has an imaginative mind.
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una sorella più educata – bahaaahaaaaaa. I struggle with the Venezian dialect, but there is no problem when the list is written in “normal” Italian.
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I wonder what had gone on with the list writer and the sister? Is she an annoying little brat, or did she just get up his nose? But, maybe the list writer is female, and the sister read her diary or something. Mysteries of family life, eh?
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I’m guessing the annoying sister was given the list to go shopping with. I read it as one female to another. Looks like they live together? Strawberries, yoghurt, pineapple juice, toilet paper . . . and razors (for their legs, maybe?).
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i dd not guess about fragol and razol ( for this last ,perhaps a razor??
Italian and french are two latin languages but they are much different
I wish you a happy New Year, Yvonne ❤
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Hello, Michel.
Fragole are strawberries, and Bert has told me that razoi are razors.
These Romance languages are tricky for an English speaker, all the nouns have a gender!!! And the verbs are so complex to parse.
Have a nice day. ❤
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Could someone please explain the last item for me? An educated sister?
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The list writer is asking for a more educated sister, but educata can also mean polite or well mannered. It made me wonder what has gone on between the two of them. Frustratingly, we’ll never know!
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rasoi = razors. Our word, biscuit, means the same, but comes from the French. Biscuits used to be cooked twice, so that they would survive long sea voyages, but now they aren’t.
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Thanks, Bert. Guess what I never bought while in Italy!
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Razors? QI1 – the singular is rasoio, so the plural would be rasoii, but that would be silly, so it’s rasoi. QI2 great-great-grandmother is bis-bis-nonna (and so on).
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When I was in Italy 48 years ago I went armed with one phrase.
“Mi dispiace. Io non parlo italiano” Then I would say I was from Australia and I didn’t need to try anymore. Everyone wanted me to visit some relative when I got home. It was the same in Greece except I needed to say, Syngnómi. Then xéro elliniká. And France. If you just try everyone will (or did back then) go out of their way to help.(I think I’ll repost a couple of old stories. And it’s all your fault)
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Sure, blame me for you re-posting one of your good old stories!
It was difficult to try to speak Italian over there, because people wanted to practise their English. So, we’d swap languages!
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I didn’t have that problem because I had ZERO Italian other than my initial apology.
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I like the prosecco and biscotti —wooo woooo!!!!!
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Glad that got your attention, Julie!
How are you and your loved ones? ❤
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We are so far so good Yvonne.
I actually had opened a bottle of prosecco tonight for my personal enjoyment when I sat down to read your post! My husband is not a sparkling bubbly sort of fellow so I’ve been splurging on my reserve given our packing up the house in order to move in two weeks.
It is my sanity during this obvious insanity….who moves house during a pandemic??? We do!!!
We built this house 21 years ago…thinking this would be the final resting place—amazing what grandkids can do—a mystical draw they have!!!!
I hope all is well in Australia and I know how you must yearn to venture back to Italy.
My dear friends in Florence, I can tell, are really down trodden.
I raise my prosecco and proclaim better days ahead!!!
Happy New Year Yvonne!!!
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Oh, boy, happy moving, Julie. It’s a tiring, demanding job, isn’t it? (Darn grandkids!)
Europe surely has been taking it on the chin.
Here’s to 2021. Cin-cin.
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Living here in Georgia, we’ve been fortunate that we opened up our small businesses, restaurants etc but with various safety measures in place such as distancing, limited numbers, masks—-
Back in November my husband and I both blessedly only had a mild case— we wore our masks and really didn’t go any place other the grocery store or to Home Depot ( the home improvement store)— so who knows.
And now here we are preparing to move—totally lost our minds 😳🤣
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Are you moving within Georgia? Thank goodness your bouts of the virus were mild.
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That is the only saving grace…we are moving west to east.
I went to school at UGA–I never imagined me moving back to that area….and nearly 45 years later…here I come.
But our daughter in law’s family is from that area…sooooo….here we go.
If there were no grandkids—you’d find us in Florida living on the bay near Destin…but ode to grandchildren!
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