the Italian language doesn't make any sense.
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Can't comment on the curse words, but I can explain the other two.
- Think of "Mi piace" not as "I like" or "It likes me" or whatever, but more as something like "It appeals to me". As you see, you actually have the same thing in English and it is not that weird.
- Words like "dito" don't switch from masculine to feminine, because they're actually neither. They're remnants of the Latin neuter declension and have the exact forms that you would expect them to have in Italian. The really weird thing concerning "dito" in particular is that it comes from Latin "digitus" which is actually not neuter but masculine, meaning that somewhere along the line from Latin to Italian the word changed its gender seemingly at random. I could probably go on and explain why even this is not that weird, and how it could happen, but I'll leave it there. I suppose it might be quite confusing already if you've never studied Latin.
No, Italian language makes more sense than English.
So, the reason why some Italian words "change" their genre:
The romance languages all come from Latin, whoever, in Latin; there are many cases such as nominativus, ablativus, accusativus, etc (it depends where the subject is in the phrase). Italian (and, if I'm not mistaken, Romanian as well) took a lot of their words from the nominativus case (that can end in -a/-e, for the first declination; -um/-a; -o/-i... for the second; -is/-r... for the third and so on so forward), that means that when the word in Latin is neutral, in the nominarivus singular (such as bracchium, ditum, genum...) their plural ends with an -a (bracchia, dita, gena). Other romance languages such as Portuguese and Spanish took their words from the plural of the accusativus case (casas; libros; puellas...).
(Sorry if it is confusing, but if you study latin, I'm sure you will have an idea of what I'm saying)
Another Italian word that doesn’t make since is” scopa” which means broom 🧹 or Bird. I’m Italian myself and I have been learning the language for 4 months.
Italiano please don’t get offend lol 😂
Mi displace
But if you ever want to say broom say
“Il scopa” the broom
Please never say “mi scopa” because I’m guarantee to look at me weird.
You are wrong, the "i like" section is just a mistake xD so ...
There is nothing strange to understand:
"Mi piace = I like" - not - " Mi piace = to me, it likes";
"Ti piaccio = You like me" - not - "Ti piaccio = to you, i like"
Italian is hard, but when you understand his rules then everything is easier and makes sense, italian have rly few exceptions and logical falls (logical mistakes) .. it's one of the most precise and logical languages i believe. Try to find my comment of the video, i explain some more.
If you want i can explain it better, how it works the "I like-you like" thing ;) then ask me if you want.
Also thinking with the Feminine-Masculine logic is a simple way to see it, but it's not that correct. There are many reasons why you use certain vowels, it's not just this simple rule. Also you can say Ginocchia, Ginocchie, Ginocchio, Ginocchi and Ginocchia/Ginocchie/Ginocchi are 3 different way to use the plural .
So we can maybe say that the Feminine-Masculine rule apply only on the singolar words, becouse in the plural the "vowels" have a different rule. Much better if you apply this rule to only object with sex, in italian asexual things use the same Vowels but it has nothing to do with the two sex. So forget about everything, Femminine-Masculine works only on things that have a sex, then if you say to an Italian:" La sassa", the italian person will think of a living rock with female dresses and pink colors. We like to assign sex to asexual words just for fun, to identify them, but in reality it's not correct to do it.
You can also say "Diti" .. not only "Dito" and "Dita" , for the plural form you use Dita to describe a generic set and Diti to describe a specific set of the object itself .. and examble is "Diti Mignoli" the "fingers pinkies" (the smaller one), becouse the pinkies are a specific set of the fingers, a finger category. So there is a lot of logic ... you cannot compare the simple rules of the english, of course... and mine is quite bad, right? :P
You can use "Diti" then xD but only in the right moments, if you follow the rules.
If you say : "Ho due Dita mignoli" , it's wrong in italian, and everyone of us will notice. The right way is: "Ho due Diti mignoli" ... sometimes you can use both.
It's not only for the body parts i believe, there are so many rules that define what Vowels to use actually. Also Pesca is the fruit and Pesco is the tree that makes the fruits, so the masculine is for the trees and female for the fruits.
"Don't say bestemmie around Italians"
Venetians, Emilians and Tuscans: LOL
Piedmontese too
Anche mio nonno ligure aveva un gusto nello snocciolare le imprecazioni neanche fossero caramelle balsamiche, ed in serie come un giro di rosario.
Mi manchi nonno "..'rcaMad*nna!!".
why leave out us bergamaschi? we are for certain on the podium
Diciamo il nord in generale, però noi Veneti mi spiace signori, ne abbiamo il brevetto
@@George-ei5gg sì a questo punto direi il Nord in generale ahahah.
Anche qui in Emilia ci si diverte
I'm italian and I dont really agree with your interpretation of the "I like you" thing. "Mi piaci" doesn't literally translate to "you like me". Keep in mind "Mi piaci" corresponds to "Tu a me piaci" (mi ~ a me, that's part of why its wrong to say 'a me mi'), so really it would translate to "You are liked by me", if anything. Or if you want to keep it more literal "You, for me, are liked"
esatto
Esatto
Or something like ” Your are pleasing to me." or simply "I find you pleasant."
Yes in this form "mi' is an indirect, not direct pronoun, if I'm not mistaken? For example if "he" likes something its gli piace, vero?
@@rachelgregory888 yes
"Italian language makes no sense"
--> *Queue*
in this English word you only read - q
*kyuweyuwe*
Yes, the best thing about Italian language is its high (almost perfect) congruence between orthography and pronunciation. If you read a word, you can pronounce it almost always correctly (as long as you know the rules) - the only problems are words that are not stressed at the last (signed with accents) or penultimate syllable (which is the standard). And if you hear a word, you are 99% of the times able to write it correctly, as long as it's spoken correctly - the only problems may be cie/ce, gie/ge, ccu/cqu ...
But when it comes to grammar, Italian definitely beats English language in inconsistency and super-weird rules with exceptions.
@@lexmole I agree with all of what u said... I’ll say that for an Italian person that’s not a problem cuz they write everyday.. Also I’m a little disappointed with the guy of the video
Non gli do torto poraccio ahahaha, fra inglese e italiano fanno a cazzotti per chi ha le cazzate piu strane
@@Ironpecker poraccio a chi scusa?
Fun fact: you have to say "i bracci", and not "le braccia"if you are referring to a mechanical part, or the part of a chandelier
Non per forza, credo sia molto dipendente dal dialetto
You should also use "ossi" for animal bones and "ossa" for human bones
and "le labbra" as well as "i labbri" (I think "i labbri" refers to wounds )
@@sacrario02 No no se dici bracci per intendere le braccia umane passi da ignorante.
@@sergiopaolinelli8522 intendevo che molte persone usano braccia per le parti meccaniche
Fun fact: italian is the language that has the highest number of bad words
True
Try russian and you'll be surprised, I promise you
Oh si, siamo primi in qualcosa
@@francescolimberti7306 ahahah meglio di niente
@@francescolimberti7306 sium
Nat: "don't say this words around italians"
Literally every Italian in veneto every 2 seconds: "porcod**"
This is funny - We have to remember Italy is a big country with diverse regions. Similarly, what people say at the dinner table in New York would be totally unacceptable to *ever* say in some places in the rural South here in America.
But also in Emilia-Romagna and in Toscana! I think these 3 regions have so much common ground on bestemmie
I grew up and still live in veneto, can absolutely confirm
@@gaboratoria ahah nice
Suona comunque male se le dici in pubblico in un contesto non informale, dipende con chi sei, di sicuro molto peggio di altre parolacce
"Italian language makes no sense"
English: reads word's letter in diferent ways, case by case
Meanwhile italian: (nearly) always reads every single letter as it's said when spelling the alphabet
Nathaniel: “Italians don’t take it so badly”
But I want to hear him using le bestemmie so badly
Ah, just look on youtube for videos of Tuscanians or Venetians talking to each other (hoping it hasn't been taken down by RUclips yet or censored)
@@italyball2166 I’m actually Italian, but our bestemmie hit differently when there’s an American saying them
@@michelam6805 già lol. Mi piace troppo quando gli americani le mettono addirittura nella cover dei video hahaha
@@italyball2166 Sai che non mi è mai capitato di vederlo? Hai la mia curiosità
Italian here. Some more fun facts about bestemmie:
- In the northeast of Italy (especially in Veneto, which is the region where Venice is) bestemmie are often used as filler words or as exclamations, especially by old men (not women because patriarchy). This is particularly interesting if you think about the fact that usually the old people that say bestemmie are also the ones that go to church on Sundays.
- Pig God is actually not a perfect translation for "porco D*o". In fact the word pig can be translated both into "maiale" and "porco", but you commonly use "maiale" to refer to the animals, whereas "porco" is usually used to insult someone (If your boyfriend cheats on you, you can say that he's a porco). However it's worth noting that you can refer to the animal saying "porco" and use "maiale" as an insult, it's just less common.
- To say a bestemmia (the verb is "bestemmiare"), was once considered a crime in Italy. Now it has been decriminalized but you still can get a fine if you do it. However, a lot of people say bestemmie, so it is unlikely you'll get fined if you do (just make sure not to say a bestemmia in front of a cop).
- It is considered a bestemmia every kind of negative (and also neutral) adjective or noun that you associate with God. So you can create your own personal bestemmia just by putting the word God next to literally everything that is not a positive adjective: God chair is a bestemmia, as well as God clock, God iPhone, etc. That said, these kinds of creative bestemmie are usually used to make jokes or to make people laugh (non-believers of course, believers will probably get offended if you do this).
- The english expression "G*d damn it" in italian would be "Per Dio": this is not a bestemmia, although it contains the word God in it, nor it is a parolaccia (bad word). Another english vulgar expression, "What the h*ll?!", which could be roughly translated to "ma che diavolo?!", is again neither a bestemmia, nor a parolaccia: in fact, it is considered a kids-friendly version of "ma che c*zzo?!" which means, you guessed it, "what the f*ck?!".
P.S.= Note that, while believers can get pretty offended if they hear you bestemmiare, non-believers usually say bestemmie to make fun of believers or to make fun of the Church, which historically has been pretty influential in Italy. So the next time you go to Italy and make some friends, pay attention to what you say and when in doubt, definitely ask whether someone is religious or not.
Edit: Credits to @Marina Mangiat for some corrections regarding fun facts #3 and #5.
Bellissima analisi!! 🤣
Io comunque non sono religiosa ma non mi piace sentir bestemmiare (o dire troppe parolacce), lo trovo molto maleducato e rude 😕
To make acceptable you can use also "zio"("uncle") instead of "dio".
In veneto per ovviare al problema diciamo zio can, zio billy, zio porco :)
dio mattone io non dimentico
@@Artica238 Zio Billy mi fa spaccare ogni volta che lo sento 🤣
"Le bestemmie" Oh no, per la lista non basterebbe un video da 24h, letteralmente puoi associare qualsiasi parola ed ecco fatto.
😅
Porca Martina
Sono tutti dii di diverse categorie
tedesco: puoi unire le parole e crearne di nuove! italiano: puoi creare bestemmie in modo illimitato e personalizzarle in base alle situazioni!
Perfavore potresti ne scrivere qualche, perche non sono italiano e non si imparano alla scuola dove vado😂
think of piacere less like "like" and much more like "is pleasing to"
mi piace la pizza = the pizza is pleasing to me.
Exactly
Dude, just like "нравиться" in Russian
I think there's a term for these expressions but I forgot it lol
@@SoberCake yes and you have many other cases in Russian, like мне хочится
Oh, wow, I didn't know Sam was into Italian! It makes me so proud of my language and makes me like the channel even more :')
@@SoberCake they are reflexive verbs, when things do themselves
He didn’t even scratch the surface of “the blasphemies”. The basic ones are too basic, usually what makes a good bestemmia is a chain of at least 3-4 words 😉❤️
Not to mention that they are "custom friendly". I heard some really creative ones over the years
@@giuliofortini8496 (not as offense) "dio scalzo nella valle dei chiodi arrugginiti" is one of my favorites
"dio vagone di riso tre volte porco per ogni chicco"... I mean, this Is a real product of Italian creativity
@@MatteoErcoles "madonna scalza nella valle degli spigoli" is the local version
There are some words in italian that come from gender neutral latin words but , since we don't have gender neutral words in italian, they were incorporated by male gendered words. Since the gender neutral plural in latin ends with an -a, we have some male gendered plural words in italian that keep the ancient latin ending with the "a". That's why we say "dita" and not "diti".
many English words kept that Latin neutral formula as well, such as 'media' or 'criteria', so it can be relatable, just without the gender factor
Bah...
sono italiano e non sapevo questa cosa, molto interessante
I appreciate the historical context of this explanation. Thank you!
Soo cool!!
Now let’s play a drinking game: we drink everytime Nathaniel says *_whatsoever_*
He said it 7 times hehe
I was looking for this comment
I'm drunk now
I'm drunk
I need more whiskyy
Italiani che sono qua per il titolo. 🙋♀️ la parte delle bestemmie mi ha uccisa 😂😂😂😂
I’m so proud that our bestemmie are finally getting the international recognition they deserve
am i learning italian? nope. am i still going to watch this video and pretend like i know what you’re talking about? absolutely.
Hi! I just wanted to say that I enjoy your videos as well. I’ve been subscribed to you for a few months, and I recently got a job at iTalki. :)
@@jamenw.2284 omg thank you so much!! also yay!!! thats so freaking exciting! congrats :)
For real. I absolutely don't speak Italian but I am so captivated by his video lol.
ti chiami melissa, secondo me faresti bene
Ma porca madonna..
I'm Italian, and I'd like to offer a reason why body parts are that weird. As u said, Italian is a Roman language, and most medical terms are directly derived from Latin (or occasionally from ancient Greek). In Latin there are thing called "declination" that are directly correlated with how a word ends. To make a long story short, most of the medical terms are from a "declination" that ends in various different way at the singular and with "-a" at the plural (because their gender in neutral like "it" in English). With time and evolution of the language we changed how we write the singular but not the plural, so they remained with "-a". And as such they became feminine at the plural.
Btw, love the vids
P.S : Edit thanks to a correction from @Leandro Ulpio
Ahhh that makes total sense. Thanks for the explanation!
@@mikehirst It can't make sense because there's NO latin word "that ends with "-es" at the singular and with "-a" at the plural."
I hope who wrote that comment is the dog in that profile photo.
@@leandroulpio7473 never heard about neutral nouns? Like bellum (war) and bella (wars). And words that ends with - es exist at the singular like res and dies (fifth declension)
@@leandroulpio7473 I have studied Latin for five years now and I can guarantee you that there are. "-es" is used in the third declension for the nominative and accusative cases in plural while "-a" is used for the same cases in plural for neutral nouns. If you don't believe me you can look it up here: dcc.dickinson.edu/grammar/latin/case-endings-five-declensions .
@@vitic7476 The one with hearing issues, if it has something to do with it, is you. NO NAME of the V declension ends with -a in the plural form and NO NAME of the II declension ends with -es in the singular form. There's NO LATIN WORD that ends with -es in the singular and with -a in the plural form, so if you didn't study latin you should not talk about it.
Interpreting any language through the lens of a different language will make no sense. If you try to explain English using Italian you will get to the same result :) It's a fun video though, just not very factual if I may :)
Me, being catalan/spanish, with English C1 and French A2-B1 = Italian is so easy.
English people: 🤯🤯
Yo soy brasileño hablo português mais el español es facil de entender, pero no es mi secunda Lingua y si ingles.
You know 4 Latin languages before Italian, of course for you is easy
How long have you been learning Italian? Overall Italian grammar is a bit more complex than Spanish. But yea, you'll have it pretty easy to learn it.
Ok mister modestia, non serve ostentare la tua bravura nelle lingue
Blasphemy does makes sense in a country that culturally is very catholic, it's because you believe in something that you can use bad words against it and actually give them a meaning.
So true, well put.
Most people who use blasphemy don't believe in god though.
@Feya Rose in Italian we have the same word and translated is “Ostia” and.. it not that bad, I think it’s used more in the north (not sure if in the south the use it) but it’s mostly like an exclamation, for exemple “Ostia I forgot my mask”. Obviously it’s not elegant but it’s not that bad. Saying bestemmie it’s literally insulting God or the Virgin Mary in the worst ways and I mean.. you can use any insults these are considered really bad, but in some parts of Italy (Veneto mostly) it’s considered less bad. An exemple of bestemmia is Madonna p*ttana.. which is really worst than Dio c*ne, and you are basically says that the Virgin Mary is a hoe🙂
@@voldefox maybe they consider themselves like non believers but that is their cultural imprinting. If you think that something doesn't exist, why do you bother to insult it?
@@ThelPic because the primary goal of blasphemy is to vent out, to let go of one's frustration. Whether god really exists or not doesn't really matter in this case. Replace god with Zeus, Odin or whatever and the result doesn't change.
I like how Italian language for an English speaker seems to make little sense, but the fact that English pronunciation is related to English spelling by rules as consistent as a roll of dice is perfectly acceptable.
Poeta
Grande 😀
Have some sense of humor. He probably knows that English is simple and messy with the pronunciation.
POV: sei italiano e hai cliccato sul video perché c'è scritto "Italian"
btw great video
Ahahah si
Ci sono arrivato da una egirl che ci ha fatto la reaction lol
So, the reason why some Italian words "change" their genre:
The romance languages all come from Latin, whoever, in Latin; there are many cases such as nominativus, ablativus, accusativus, etc (it depends where the subject is in the phrase). Italian (and, if I'm not mistaken, Romanian as well) took a lot of their words from the nominativus case (that can end in -a/-e, for the first declination; -um/-a; -o/-i... for the second; -is/-r... for the third and so on so forward), that means that when the word in Latin is neutral, in the nominarivus singular (such as bracchium, ditum, genum...) their plural ends with an -a (bracchia, dita, gena). Other romance languages such as Portuguese and Spanish took their words from the plural of the accusativus case (casas; libros; puellas...).
(Sorry if it is confusing, but if you study latin, I'm sure you will have an idea of what I'm saying)
I am learning this now as I study Italian. I love hearing about the origins of the rules. Thanks!
As a foreigner that learned English from scratch, I’d say English makes even less sense than Italian 😂 Especially the pronunciation peculiarities!
English wins at the end because there is no verb conjugation, no gender, no case,
It’s only weird lmao
@@gabrieltomaz6034 honestly 😂
Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo.
This is a real sentence.
@@gabrieltomaz6034 dude, that doesn't make english special... imagine how hard it would be for an english speaker to learn languages from the romance language family (french, spanish, italian, romanian, portuguese); slavic language family (ukrainian, russian, belarussian); semitic language family (arabic, hebrew); germanic language family (german, dutch, danish); also frickin scottish gaelic and irish (neighbours of the land where english is born).
You see that english is a stupid exception, why? because it is a madeup-hybrid-garbage language.
It comes from German, and then French changed it, and then they borrowed loanwords from languages like Greek, and then they want their language to follow Latin grammar. IT's so absurd!
like 55% of all words in english are of Latin or French origin! 26% from German, and 10% from Greek.
It's crazy, what a garbage languge...
@@makara2711 “Germanic*”, not German. I like your comment, but it's wrong to say that English comes from German. The right thing to say is that both English and German come from the same (dead) language: Proto-Germanic. Everything else is quite accurate.
As an American who has learned Italian, I think it makes a lot of sense. If you learn the etymology/origin of words you can often find an explanation that helps remember those weird exceptions to rules.
True
Of course it makes sense, but making sense doesn't make a good clickbait...
@@leandroulpio7473 True. I just get frustrated when people post things like that because I don’t want anyone to be discouraged when learning languages. I think it would be better if he said “I didn’t understand this at first, but here’s how you can learn to remember it.”
Bravo
“Piacere” works a little differently than you described here. It literally means “to please.” So if I say, “mi piacciono i pantaloni,” it really means “to me, the pants are pleasing” or “the pants are pleasing to me” (Eng: “I like the pants”).
The main thing to keep in mind with “piacere,” “mancare,” etc., is that the thing you like, miss, etc. in English is not the direct object of the verb, but the subject of the verb in Italian.
I learned Italian after French and found it to be much more logical. After studying many more, I stand by that feeling, it's actually a very straight-forward (yet still very poetic), phonetic language. Plurals in German and Arabic, for instance, are full of exceptions. "Mi piace" can be thought of as "it's pleasing to me," like "il me plaît" in French or "me gusta" in Spanish. It just goes back to the beginning of your video when you state English is full of quirks--perhaps English is what actually doesn't make any sense? You're thinking about the language in an Anglo-centric mindset, which is a bit culturally imperialistic. So I don't agree at all with this video...
I'm Italian and I'm going to mess things up even more. What you said about fingers is correct, but did you know that when you refer to the same finger, the plural is "diti" and not "dita"? For instance "i diti indici", "i diti mignoli"
Poor, giving him this other information will give him a headache.
I am a beginner in italian and I have to say, your prepositions are killing me
Sono italiana e mi hai confuso XD
In the romance languages the plural is always gong to be neutral unless you are refering to a specific group, and it's the same for spanish
Yep, and likewise I bracci destri, i ginocchi sinistri.
No idea why that's the case.
Have you considered the fact that when an italian (or any non-english speaker) translates english phrases word by word like you do in the video they also think that english doesn't make any sense?
Sì Porcamadonna
Yeah, piece of cake or break a leg don't make sense to me. hahaha
Bravo Pippo!!! "Do you like..." "Fai tu piace..."
@@AM-gc4yd appunto ahahah
As someone who learned italian by driect translation, can confirm, things will not add up.
Redirected here from an italian youtuber (Roberto Mercadini) who made a content about Italian language starting the topic from this video of yours. And he was right you're really nice, pal! Greetings from Italy!
"non sono bestemmie, sono solo diverse tipologie di dii"
(Alessandro Manzoni)
"Mi hanno lanciato un cornetto in faccia"
(Alessandro Manzoni)
"Piacere" isn't that special. It's just that the English language doesn't have an equivalent verb e.g. a passive version of "like". As a native German speaker, I would translate "piacere" with "gefallen" where as "like" would be translated with "mögen".
same concept in spanish - es lo mismo en español con el verbo gustar, french has aimer
It’s easier to think of “piacere” as “to please.” Like when you meet someone and say “piacere” it’s like saying “pleasure to meet you.”
So when you say “qualcosa mi piace,” the familiar translation is “I like something.” But the literal translation is “something pleases me”
@@ourbiglittleworld6063 Exactly! That's why in French something akin to "I like you." would be "Tu me plais." ("Agradas-me." in Portuguese.)
@@ourbiglittleworld6063 that’s how I understand it too. “It pleases me” or for example in spanish me encanta “it enchants me [even though you mean that you love the thing]”. That’s why it’s always based on what follows “mi piacciono questi libri” because “those books (they) please me”
Exactly. A better literal translation would have been "this pleases me" (the verb "to be" is actually etymologically related to "piacere").
Third point explanation:
Think about the English word "datum" that becomes "data" in its plural form. This is because you are using the Latin word: netuer nouns in Latin end with -um at singular and with -a at plural.
Now, this -um became an -o in Italian, and the nouns became masculin. Some of these nouns though kept the plural form with an -a, which somehow Italians percieve as feminine.
As you said, it's particulary common with body parts (dito - dita
the perception of -a/e as feminine and -o/i as masculine has most likely to do with the names (of people), or at least the things are linked.
giuliA is a woman's name while giuliO is a male one, alessiA and alessiO, enricA and enricO, maurA and maurO and so on. obviously there are names that do not have the opposite gender version (adele, giada, elena,..) or names that are for both genders (andrea is for both male and female; ironically it is more used for men) , but those are kinda exceptions
@@queeng508 Andrea comes from a greek word meaning "masculine" and only illiterate people give this name to female babies. In Italy, registry officers can refuse to register the name Andrea for females.
It's not just people's names, it's nouns in general. It's because -a (first Latin declension) was feminine and -us/-um (second Latin declension, they then became -o) were masculine and neuter, but neuter disappeared. People's names aren't that important linguistically, they just follow the general rules and they don't rule them themselves.
@@giuliocusenza5204 I declention names were either male or female and II declention -us names were mostly male but also female.
@@leandroulpio7473 I know, we still have those in Italian like "poeta" or "pirata", but it's few of them
Ciao Nathaniel, Mercadini has just made a reaction video to this one 😊
So "doesn' t make sense" = it' s a different language with a different grammar. Wow, what a mind blow
Me, an italian watching this: hmm...Interesting 🤔
Italian language is a beautiful language. I am an Indian, I love how the Italians pronounce the word in a cute way.
I love Italy❤️❤️. I make vlogs about Italy in English ❤️❤️
"Dita" isn't feminine singular, but neutral plural, becouse some neutral word stay in Italian from Latin
Chi qui dopo Mercadini?
A quanto pare il poeta non è molto conosciuto
Dopo? Prima! Questo è propedeutico.
piacere in italian means pleasure, so the verb literally means “to please”, so there’s not really a verb “to like”. so by saying “mi piaci” (i like you) you’re essentially just saying “you please me” because there’s no literal translation of the word for ‘like’
That's bs, Piacere can be both translated in To Please and To like....
he speaks spanish and it's the same with the verb gustar in spanish so i didn't understand what was confusing to him? The two latin based languages to actually have "to like" are portuguese and french not italian and spanish
And this is not unique to Italian. German has a similar construction with the verb “gefallen”.
We have the verb "gradire", which is the literal translation of like.
For example "Io gradisco la musica" = "I like music", or "Gradiresti del vino?" = "Would you like some wine?".
Of course, especially in the affermative form, the usage of the verb "piacere" is more common
@@marcoteodori8592 direi che gradire in inglese sarebbe più "appreciate", ma sì hai ragione
If someone is interested: the plural form ending in ''-a" of some Italian words comes from the plural form of neutral declination in Latin which also ends in "-a"
An example for a Latin, neutral word would be templum, so sg. templum and plural templa (a little bit of bragging here 😌😅)
The Italian language developed from Latin, so there are many similarities between the languages
thanks, that's helpful!
I was looking for this comment, thank you!
As an Italian I appreciate how you were so worried with saying the bestemmie out loud 😂😂.
"piacere" in Italian works in the same way "a plăcea" does in Romanian: the person that likes something isn't the subject of the sentence, but the object/person that is being liked.
What about SPANISH? “El agua” (no “la agua”) turned into plural “las aguas”
I love spanish
hi, spanish person here! perhaps you knew this already, but that happens with all feminine words that start with an a in spanish, like "el alma, el aula", the word itself doesn't change its grammatical gender, but the article becomes masculine to avoid pronouncing two "a" sounds together, which would happen if you maintained the femenine article: "la alma". That's why it doesn't happen in plural, because there is an s preventing that already: "las almas".
El alma/el agua are the solution for a phonetic problem. Normally it would be "la alma", but the result could be cacophonic. The italian solution to the same problem is different: to cut an -a to the article. So: "l'alma" (poetic word for anima), "l'acqua".
yeah but i feel like las aguas is a different thing, in german theyre different words anyway.
@@oliver.121 omg thank you so much for the explanation. That was amazing
@@giorgiodifrancesco4590 grazie mille!! Qué increíble que sepas hablar español 👏🏼
"English words are hard to spell"
* shows 3 words that come directly from French *
Asthma is Greek bro
@@s.papadatos6711 my bad, you're correct
British scholars have transformed a lot of french words in order to make them sound latin, like salive became saliva. I thought asthme was one of them
@@jmlepunk Asthma still was brought to by Latin, originally from greek
@@ilcondottierocartografo6770 of course but that's an exception as most latin words disappeared from English at some point, before reintroduced later on
@@jmlepunk true
As an Italian that learned english, English is even worse, trust me! 😊
Great video :D please make a series out of this 🙏
"piacere" makes sense when you see it's connected to the French "plaire" or the English "to please". Instead of saying "I like you a lot" picture yourself as a posh old dude from Jane Austen saying "You please me greatly" !
Piacere is not connected to plaire. They have the same root.
@@leonardodavid2842 Well, they all derrive from the Latin word "placere", so they're all cognates. Doesn't that make them connected?
Please, I’m French and I would really enjoy seeing the absurdity of French. Good lunch for choosing 3 elements though when the numbers of absurdities are so high x)
One for sure is numbers after 69. It makes no sense, especially 80. That 4x20 drives me crazy all the times ahahah
🤔
one absurdity is that for almost every rule there are more words that are an exception to those rules than those who follow them
@@sonoproprioio7 Blame it on the influence of Celtic (Gaulish) onto the vulgar latin that would become French. Gaulish people used a base 20 to count and not a base 10 like the Romans.
L'orthographe française est une absurdité
As Italian I think this video is hilarious, I understand there are a lot of inconsistencies, but to us they are completely normal. Italian language can be actually very difficult to learn.
the plurals with "a" at the end comes from Latin language, that's why it is so difficult.
Exactly
Actually French Canadians have bestemmie too! Words like “câliss”, “tabarnak” and “criss” are blasphemous bad words that come from religious terms. However, Italian bestemmie are much ruder than French Canadian “sacres”
We have many of what you call sacres but we use for exclamation for exemple “Ostia” which is “hostie”, cristo which is “criss”, maledizione which is “maudit”, Madonna which is “viarge”. They still quite bad exclamation, but less bad than the others 😂😂 we say them also in front of children without any problems... we use them to not use the worst ones
They actually aren't. They are religious words that you use as an imprecation in a way that defies logic.
@@MatildeMolinari lo so perché sono italiano, però sono la cosa che più si avvicina alle bestemmie a quanto so
The blasphemies were actually the first things I learned in Italian because my family used them to swear instead of swearing in our native language.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
looking at the 3rd point, in Italy, we use the form "dita" meaning more than one fingers.
But we can also use "diti" when we are speaking of 2 fingers of the same type (ex 2 middle fingers is due diti medi )
The gender of body parts in Italian changes because most of these words where "neutre" (no gender) in Latin, so they would end in -UM (>O) when singular and in -A (>A) when plural. In Italian we lost the "neutro", but we maintained some of its desinences. This is why, for example Ditum(finger) became "Dito" and Dita(fingers) became "Dita". Actually this happens even in other cases and not only with body parts... Still it's all because we no longer have the "neutro" gender.
i literally have nightmares about the prepositions "a" and "in" and how they interchange for no reason
Damn, this Is sadly true. I'm italian and i'm confused too
Piacere = Pleasure. Mi piace ="it pleases me" = I like it :)
No, stop the bs. Nobody is pleasuring nobody. That's so weird to say
You would translate "it pleases me" also as "mi dà piacere" or "mi provoca piacere" which has more of a sexual connotation
Hey there! I'm italian, I absolutely never realized what was going on with our body parts gender swapping between singular and plural.
Also think about hand/hands, which doesn't swap gender, but is very strange: la mano (o), le mani (i) it has the formal structure of a masculine noun, but it's feminine in substance.
We learn that without questioning it as we're 2 years old, and no one ever thinks of teaching it.
Really enjoyed your video!
You breakdown each perspective so clearly ✔
Loved this! I’m from Slovenia and I live near the Italian border so I understand Italian quite well (+our dialect had loooots of Italian loanwords) and this video (especially the first part) was hilarious! In high school I went on a 1 week exchange to Milano and *of course* they taught us all the bad words, those three that you mentioned as translations as well, and while walking down a busy street we just said those words, quite loudly in fact, and the hosts were like “no, keep quiet, people will not like this!!” and we actually got quite a few shocked and angry looks 👀
Would love to see more videos like this one!
Slovenia is truly Middle Earth, it's so beautiful. I live just over the border in Trieste and before the pandemic I used to love going to Ljubljana and seeing the rest of Slovenia
Cool story btw i can imagine you embarrassed
This is sooo true. I just spent the last year learning italian and it is soo backwards and not translation friendly. I appreciate this video. I thought it was just me who felt this way. 😂
Bestemmie-Blasfemy
In some regions are used like commas (Tuscany and Veneto)
I'm leaning Italian now and you keep me motivated when you do these Italian videos, that's is really cool
Nathaniel: Body parts whose gender change with singular/plural?!?
Me: *laughs in Romanian*
I went on RUclips for a break after becoming so frustrated reading Harry Potter in Italian and I opened it up to this video uploaded 17minutes ago 😂 perfect timing!!
Brava! Are you studying Italian?
my suggestion would be to buy the audiobook and read the words while you listen to the audio. it might not help with the confusion about the grammar and stuff right away but it will probably help you with the general sense of the various phrases and of course with learning the correct pronunciation. another thing i would suggest you (sorry for the intrusion by the way, i just thought it could be helpful to know) is to connect words/rules with stuff that you easily remember, like connecting biblioteca/libreria with the english library (it is weird because libreria is the place where you buy books while biblioteca is the place where you find books you can borrow, yet in english library is the biblioteca, while libreria is bookstore, so it is a reverse kind of situation and i used to remember it this way, for example) or similar sounding words or maybe you are passionate about something (a sport, a subject, etc) so you can learn the words regarding that topic first and start listening stuff about it in the language you are studying (in this way you will learn/enjoy things you already like while strengthening knowledge of a specific area AND learning the language in general, because obviously hearing someone speak another language makes you understand more the way, for example, you form the phrases, or how you use certain verbs or nouns and so on. anyway, i hope this is of some help lol and stay safe✨
ps. when in doubt on grammar, it could be because of the root of the words so maybe check that if you don't find explanations or if you are simply interested
I’m on my year abroad in Italy at the moment and I was equally as confused when I found out the finger thing haha
I think what you talked about in this video touches on how language influences culture. The structure of a language says a lot about how the people who speak that language relate to each other which I think is super fascinating. I am currently teaching myself Swedish which is definitely proving to be interesting and challenging.
let's talk about "four twenty nineteen" for 99.
Just want to say I've been loving your twitch streams! (Even though they are just tests) :)
Actually the closest translation to "mi piace" is "it pleases me" so basically the same grammar construction.
This was fantastic. I’m learning Italian but haven’t gotten to body parts yet, but I would have been extremely confused if I hadn’t watched this first. Thanks Nathaniel!
When Nathaniel talks about languages he becomes this amazing, sexy beast and I just can't look away
Totally agree, i've watched this a few times now haha
SIM
what the f...
Personally, I'm Greek so the "mi piace" "ti piace" thing makes sense to me 😅. Perhaps you should also learn Greek, to make sense to you as well 😊
Ahhh I want to start learning greek :)))
Do you have any special tip??
@@gabrieltomaz6034 me too! please share tips!
@Tomaz @chiara s Hey guys, As a native who is not a language expert I can't really tell HOW to learn the language, but I think it is easier that it seems :) I'm sending you a video of a guy named Fred, who has learned the language exceptionally well. ruclips.net/video/CGsIKNSY_Cg/видео.html
But the general advice I can give you is, as with every other language someone tries to learn is to get "exposed" to the language as much as possible, with music, films, and Greek speaking RUclipsrs. Good luck and have fun!
Μου αρέσει
Me gusta
Ça me plaît
Mir geffällt
...
The list of languages who's following the same logic is long, i wouldn't considerate that construction as an absurdity at all
I've been (trying to) learning Greek for a few months. It's *very* challenging, not going to lie. Especially the orthography with like five ways of wring an "i"-sound ... 😒 The Greek grammar is not so easy to get for me, even though I speak fluently German (which has a case-system as well as you might know), English and Italian, and an acceptable base-level of French and Dutch. But Greek is a beautiful language, so I hope it will be worth the work someday. :D
Hi Nathan, this video made me laugh, I am Italian but I live in England, I spent the last week building a Pergola in my garden here in UK, when I bought it online it looked simple to assemble, but when I got it I understood that it was just crazy, I had to cut, make holes, assemble with no instructions... I've literally bestemmiato all the time for several days, it helped me to reduce the stress and I was sure nobody could understand me. I would recommend everyone to learn to bestemmiare in Italian and enjoy our proverbial 'Italian way of life'!
I'm Italian and I want to clarify the "body part" section. What he said is essentially right "un braccio" (one arm) becomes "due braccia" (two arms). What is essential here is that plural body parts in masculine plural exist and are also commonly used, for example as in parts of a robot or mechanism: "due bracci meccanici" (two mechanical arms). There's a flaw (maybe even more than one) as in the word "foot/feet" (un piede, due piedi) (in this case it's singular masculine even if it has an "e" at the end) where the word remains masculine all the time.
me: waiting for particular and long Italian words
Nataniel: ...bestemmie
me: laughing, almost crying
Exactly
I wasn't ready for that... I laughed a good five minutes... It just takes you off guard
english native speakers have such a dificult time learning some of the quirks in romance languages, that sometimes I'm glad my native language is portuguese, lol. I feel like I've had a way easier time learning english. Now I'm learning french, and its beautiful, but there are many things that already know instantly because of my portuguese. Without it I would be screwed
Yeah I'm Italian and I got DELF B1 in French in 4 months without having ever studied french!
@@jessicasbalchiero7048 yeah, portuguese, italian, french and spanish have a lot of similarities. Maybe less in pronounciation but definitely in writing
The thing about the masculine singular/feminine plural is actually because the words in Latin were from the 4th declination (I might be wrong, but I were never good at Latin), where this kind of changes were usual.
As usual, amazing video! As a native Italian speaker with a language learning channel, I just felt like I needed to make a video response ahahaha :D
I think every language has exceptions to the rules? Like in English you have cows - cows, but then sheep - sheep, man - men, child - children, mouse - mice, tooth and teeth, and so on. I've learned Italian 15 years ago so it all seems normal now haha, but also I am a native Lithuanian speaker so 'mi piaci' makes a lot of sense to me, it's like 'me gustas' in Spanish, and in Lithuanian, we also say it in the same way 'man patinki' (or 'tu man patinki' - 'tu mi piaci'). Languages are so cool!
Ah, of course exceptions exist in every single language!! It’s just funny to point them out hahaha
About the english plurals, as for most cases, it’s an historic form that never changed over time... it happens hahaha
Another example, in portuguese, my native language, are the days of the week
They are called “Domingo, segunda-feira, terça-feira, quarta-feira, quinta-feira, sexta-feira, Sábado”
Which is literally “Sunday, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, Saturday ”
And “-feira” is for “market”
Historic features!!
@@gabrieltomaz6034 I spent 5months in Portugal last year - those days of the week were very confusing haha
@@tommapett I honestly think it's easier to memorize hahahaha
Btw, there is something in portuguese really beautiful: The way you can conjugate in a specific time (idk exactly the technical terms)
It is, for example: Eu estudá-lo-ia
Which means I would study it, but literally "I study-it-would (ia is the ending form equivalent to would)"
Anyway, it's very cute for a native speaker, because NO ONE uses it, it just exists lmao
We would rather say "Eu estaria-o"
i love how Nathaniel spent the entire video censoring (and even avoiding) all the bad words just to let that one “fuck” slide right through his censorship towards the end lmao
2:39 you've to understand that "porco" and "maiale" (english "pork" or "pig") are also used as adjective in normal language, meaning someone who who gorges himself with food or who only thinks about sex.
3:20 "mi" means "to me". It's the evolution of latin form of dative. The translation of "mi piaci" would be "you're likable, for me". The meaning is the same of "I like you" but it's like "you" are the subject; you're made in a way and I am attracted to this.
5:00 in some dialects (for example in Veneto, and maybe in very old italian language) it changes and actually the plurals are made "following the rule" (ginocchio becomes ginocchi and dito becomes diti) but it's considered a mistake in Italian and pretty vernacular. There's an exception, when you're talking about one fingers of two or more people you can use "diti", it would mean "many single fingers of various people"
Roberto Mercadini did an interesting video about this three points (in Italian :P )
ruclips.net/video/76pZxwH75e4/видео.html
Italian grammar is one of the most difficult to learn.. so I'm very proud of who ever tries to learn it!💪🏼💙
Great video Nathaniel! I'm afraid you got the "I like you" part wrong though: "mi piaci" Is more like "you are likeable to me" ;)
Would love a video about French. You would think already knowing Spanish would make learning French a breeze, which it does make it easier, but it doesn't save you from the absurd vowels and pronunciations. Like why do I have to say a short sentence to say "what" haha.
"Mais qu'est-ce que c'est que ça ?" 😅
@@tinon3735
Mais quoi! Qu’est-ce que veux-tu dire avec « qu’est-ce que qu’est-ce ça » ??
@@gabrieltomaz6034 j'ai donné un exemple, tout simplement. J'ai pas les guillemets français sur mon téléphone du coup j'ai utilisé ceux anglais. Peut-être c'est pour ça que tu as mal compris mon commentaire.
@@tinon3735 I made a joke too lmao
@@gabrieltomaz6034 🤣 bon, je l'ai pris au premier degré 😅. Au temps pour moi.
so here's the thing, the sentence structure seems kinda off and nonsensical as an English speaker but I speak Hindi too as an Indian and the direct translation to 'main tumhe pyaar karti hoon' (sorry if I butchered this) is 'I you love does/is' however it obviously means ily so I would say to anyone who is weirded out by such quirks in a foreign language- take your time and accept these differences cause that's what gives language its wholesome diversity :)
Some body parts have a different form of plural in Italian because they originally come from an ancient gender: "neutral". In Latin, masculine nouns have -VS (which later became -o) for the singular form and -I for plural; female nouns have -A for singular and -AE (which became -e) for plural. Finally, neutral nouns had -VM (which became -o, like masculine nouns) for the singular form and -A for plural form. That's why "dita" or "ginocchia" sound female nouns. In Italian, neutral gender does not exist anymore, but some words like these, which became masculine, preserved the plural form of neutral. Hope I cleared your mind just a little bit :)
3:20 it's wrong. The correct litteral translation would be "You like to me" and "I like to you". It's not the exact opposite of what happens in english. In the phrase: "a boy likes a girl", in italian the subject of the word "piacere" (to like) is the girl, and then we say who likes her (the boy) but using a pronoun that means "to the boy", not only "the boy". It's complicated to express ahahah
It's the same in Spanish, I think the easiest way to explain would be to change the verb, like, instead of "I like you" it would be "You are pleasing to me"
@@terilyte3152 exactly!! Very well explained!
@@terilyte3152 same thing in French, "tu me plais" 😋
Yess I feel like it’s the same with « plaire » in French, although the word “like” doesn’t express it very well... to me both both plaire and piacere represent more of an idea of “pleasure” (“il piacere” being translated as pleasure) - I’m not sure if this makes sense, but even though “pleasure” isn’t used in the context of liking someone in English, I believe it might be closer to the Italian or French meaning
I would explain it this way: "mi piaci"="tu piaci a me" -->You are liked by me...if it makes sense😂
The peculiarity of my language is that we pronounce all the letters we write, apart from the letter h, which is used to give hard sounds to "g" and "c". If you find an "a" in Italian, it can only be read like "ah". My name for example can only be read as:
AH - LEE - CH - EH
This is "alice" for us.
They speak truth. My name has both a "c" and a "ch" in it, which are read as a "ch" and "c" respectively in english. I have NEVER had a non-italian pronounce my name correctly when they see it written down. It's honestly become a game for me.
Note: I am Italian American, not actually an Italian
Hi! I'm from Romania and my language is from the latin group so it s pretty close to italian. The "te piaci" in my language would translate as "te plac" and that "te" it s a reflexive pronoun (idk if it's the same in italian). It doesn't have an equivalent in english because your verbs don't different forms for the second person, so you would translate all "reflexive" pronouns as normal ones . Te piaci = I like you. That te is a short form from the you pronoun.
sometimes, the editing is immaculate
Italian, or as my teacher used to say (about italian grammar): "One rule, a thousand exceptions".
Well, nonsense compared to the other european languages
"Piacere" in Italian is more accurately compared to the verb "gustar" in Spanish. Both essentially translate to English as "to be pleasing". Therefore, the pronoun you use with piacere (mi piace, ti piacio, etc.) is an indirect object pronoun. Mi piace = it is pleasing to me & ti piacio = I am pleasing to you.
No, that is so weird. In italian "pleasing something or someone" has almost exclusively a sexual connotation. It just is "to be liked by" "you are liked by me"/"I'm liked by you"
Braccia (Arms) is used when referring to anatomical parts. Bracci (Arms) is used for mechanical parts such as those of robots,
or in reference to the arms of a lever.
I’ve been living in Milan for about two years now and I can pretty much say the most common mistakes I make when speaking Italian (besides not correctly pronouncing double consonants) are messing up plurals like braccio - braccia, and using verbs like mancarsi and metterci. I always mess up saying “ti manco” and “mi ho messo 3 ore”, but at the end people get the idea (I think), they laugh, I laugh and life goes on.
actually the body part “irregularity” is easily explainable with a little history of the language: italian comes from latin and latin had three genders feminine, masculine and neutral, neutral words in latin in the plural form end with an -a, so all the words that come from an original neutral word that was later changed into one of the two other grammatical genders will have a residue of the original neutral declination
JAJAJAJA Pasa lo mismo en español, si dices "Me gustas", en inglés es "I like you". Al traducir al inglés es extraño jajaja covid hugs from España
"Dont say bestemmie around Italians"
Me when I drop a little water: DOG GOD