Odd words in Italian - Welcome to my palace!

Today I made a mistake when learning Italian. I read in Duolingo:
Io vivo in quel palazzo.

I thought it meant: I live in that palace.

No, it's just building!

Was that wishful thinking on my part, the speaker being ironic, or his having delusions of grandeur?

Italian - English
palazzo - building

English - Italian
building - palazzo

However, when I go into translate, I get the following result:

English - Italian
building - costruzione (like construction)

It seems that according to the Duolingo key, according to the context, palazzo can mean a building, a palace, or a black for flats.

So how would you say, "That's not just a building, it's a palace!"

Story
You have to be so careful in foreign languages. I was with a group of journalists in France being shows around the palaces of the Loire region. The owner showed us the front of the building. Then he said proudly, "Now you have seen my lovely front side, I must show you my beautiful backside."

I had hysterics. Every time he asked me why I was laughing I tried to explain and started laughing agin. Eventually I tapped my waist at the side with the back of the palm of my hand and said, 'This is the back. The difference between back and backside in British English was still was not clear. I said, "Ici - here, le dos - the back; lower, plus bas, is 'the backside'."

Tip
Translate in both directions. So many words sound alike but are not the same. In Italian macchina is not a machine but a car. But another word for car is automobile. Scarpe is shoes;Starts with s but also has a p. Think of the p in slippers. (Not scarves!) P as in slippers - scarpe.

Author
Agnela Lansbury
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Thanksgiving and Design

In America it's Thanksgiving, third Thursday in November. (Canada holds Thanksgiving on another date.) Thanksgiving for Americans, is thanks for arriving safely across the Ocean, surviving a year in a new country. The year after they arrived, they celebrated the anniversary of their safe arrival, and survival.

In London, thanks to everybody who had contributed to designs and museums through the ages. Everybody you look at or use was designed by somebody. The bus. the bus stop. The train. The art deco stations. The museums.

Each generation has new ideas. New ideas on chairs, a cushion on the floor, a block of wood, a solid tub, a back, with legs. Upholstered. Plastic and wipe-clean.

A table of wood or plastic, on legs, with room for your legs underneath. A mirror on top for a dressing table. A desk with a pull out place for your coffee. A ledge or pull-out for your laptop. Straight, or curved top.

The 2016 glass-topped tables create a feeling of space in small rooms. But, as a landlady, I won't buy them, because a tenant might break them.

In the UK The Design Museum has re-opened in a grand new venue in London.

What I found interesting is that it does not attempt to choose good design, but rather to show a history of how design has changed, whether good or bad, a true museum.

I happen to think that art deco of the Thirties was graceful, elegant, wonderful. The Fifties, yuk, utilitarian, looks awful. I hate those spindly diagonal legs on furniture. Wood changes to wood chip. Plastic table tops and trays. Chairs no longer have upright backs but slope backwards so you get an L shape neck, hunchbacks and dowager's hump. Cheap backless bench seating encouraging slumping.

Thirties cups were an improvement. V shape. Easier to clean inside. Easier to look inside and check they are clean.

The Thirties? Beautiful buildings. White with green tiled roofs. However, flat roof houses and block of flats, introduced in the Nineteen Thirties are a design disaster in a rainy country. Anybody who studies history or has lived in a flat roof dwelling knows they are prone to leaking roofs. I've had leaks in blocks of flats where I lived in Singapore and London. Also a relative (Uncle Jack, a deceased relative my marriage) said he was nearly bankrupted by the cost of repairing his house which he eventually sold after years of problems.

I just came back from Umbria. The oldest churches were susceptible to earthquake damage. So were the oldest houses. Medieval buildings in the UK have been destroyed by fire this year. New buildings in America and worldwide are designed to be earthquake proof. Our thanks to all the designers and architects who have made buildings safer.

http://designmuseum.org

Angela Lansbury, author, travel writer, speaker.

German Words Which Are Easy To Remember

German Parts of the Body

breast / chest - die Brust (Brust sounds like breast, shared letters b r s t, her breast, his chest, chicken breast)
heart - Herz (drop the t) (I had a neighbour called Mrs Hertz, but how do I remember to drop the t? - Memory aid - have you no heart? No I've no t /tea)
shoulder(s) - der Schulter(n) - (very similar, s h u l t/d e r but add the c - s c h)
(How do I remember to add the n and end? Like the ChilterN hills, which look like a body lying on the ground with one of the shoulders raised. If you are in England you will know the Chiltern hills. If in the USA make up a memory aid with children.)
stomach - das Magen (shared letters are M a c/g)

I have been learning these words on Duolingo. When I go back through the review at the end of the lesson, I find I have remembered the words but forgotten the capital letters.

Remember to add the capital letter at the start of the important words. Learning German is important. Remembering capital letters in German is important. Imagine the German teacher shouting at you: Capital Letter CAPITAL LETTER starting Nouns NAMES and NOUNS.

Whose body?
Meine - mine (initial letter n; and it sounds the same, except add er or a at the end in German GER man Meine like a minor or a miner - mine is a minor, my child is a minor, my husband is a minter, mine is a miner, mein is a meine
Seine his or hers hiS or herS or otherS or theirS

Now let me pick some more difficult words.
back - Rucken - my rucksack on my back (words from a song I heard as a child: something like 'I am a happy wanderer' or 'I like to go a wandering - my knapsack on my back'.
Rucken - back (notice the CK is shared by both words, baCK, RuCKen)

After you have closed the book or the page, how can you remember to keep repeating the words to yourself through the day?

I have picked near rhyming words which sound similar to each other and which I did not know before. Easy to remember to repeat, plus the memory aid tells you the end of the word.
breast and heart - B r u s t   u n d  H e r z
back, stomach - R u c k e n   u n d  M a g e n

(memory aid - a drunken man lying on his back in Germany - back d r u n c k e n )


If you are watching a German film with English subtitles, or turn on the German subtitles when watching a German film, you will be able to spot these words.

If you have a German pal or colleague, you can point to the middle of your back and teach them, which will help you to remember their language. If you are teaching a class, each person points to their own back, then another person's back. If there are only two of you, make sure you repeat it three times, not just twice (once by each person with the pupil repeating what the teacher says).

Angela Lansbury, travel writer, English teacher, language teacher, tutor, workshops, public speaking, public speaking training.