Tuesday 12 April 2011

You look terrific!

Both in English and in Italian 'drama' and 'dramma' have to do with theater and particular theatrical genres. However, the adjectives derived from these two words differ completely in meaning in the two languages. In Italian 'drammatico' can be correctly translated with terrible/tragic/very serious like in the sentence La situazione in Giappone dopo lo tsunami è drammatica (the situation after the tsunami in Japan is very serious) or Le condizioni del paziente purtroppo sono drammatiche (the patient's conditions are unfortunately very serious/hopeless). Another common false friend is the adjective 'simpatico', which does not mean sympathetic, but nice/friendly. So you can say something like Giorgio è un ragazzo davvero simpatico (George is a really nice boy) or Paola è la più simpatica della classe (Paola is the nicest girl in the class).
The last adjective I would like to mention today is 'terrificante', which does not mean 'terrific' (when the word is used in the colloquial meaning of fantastic, great) but always means 'terrifying'. So, for example, you can say I protagonisti di Jurassic Park vivono un'esperienza terrificante (the main characters in Jurassic Park have a terrifying experience).
Therefore, unless you really mean it, better avoid telling people Hai un aspetto terrificante!

No comments:

Post a Comment