Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Italian lesson #2

Happy Groundhog Day! I felt sort of silly once I started trying to explain the holiday to my German and Italian coworkers. Not only is the whole concept ridiculous, but I couldn't even explain what a groundhog is (woodchuck didn't mean anything to them either). Marmot seems to do the trick, though, just so you know. Also, they've seen the movie, which I didn't figure out until I'd already done several groundhog impressions.

Now on to today's lesson: later. It can mean a lot of things depending on the context, but they all mean something about later or after. When you're leaving someone, you can do it to mean "See you later." If you're gossiping and someone walks in on it, you could do it to mean "I'll tell you later." If your boyfriend is nagging you to cook him dinner while The Bachelor is on, you could do it to mean "I'll do it after." Or you could just tell him that this isn't the '50s and to cook his own dadgum dinner, but I think we all know the gesture you could use for that.

Basically what "later" looks like is the American sign for crazy (the European one is different; you just tap your temple with one finger) moved down in front of your chest. So make a forward circle with your finger.

 Repeat once. Too much more than that and you look crazy (European or American gesture is acceptable here).

End it at the front of the circle.

Simple. Now, I know what you're all thinking. "Bethany, these lessons are awesome, but a little too clean for me. What I really need is to be able to give that schmuck at the pizzeria a piece of my mind." Well, those gestures are coming...sometime. But I'm not telling you when so that you have to keep coming back to find out. 

1 comment:

  1. I love that groundhogs are indigenous to the US, but Bill Murray is universal.

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