"Grazie" for a few days
I'm in Genoa!! My husband is attending a conference here for three days, and luckily, it was possible for me to come along.
We didn't have the time to prepare so much for this trip: learning some Italian, for example. Worse, we did a mistake of not having a list of basic phrases in hand! We didn't even know how to pronounce "grazie" correctly when we stepped out of the airport in Genoa. So as soon as I could when we arrived at the hotel, I got myself informed with the basics and read some dos and don'ts for tourists. It's a must to know some Italian when visiting the country!
The phrases I found most helpful are:
"buon giorno!" to greet someone;
"mi dispiace, non parlo italiano" when someone talks to you in Italian, and you have no idea what it was all about, and you hope he/she answers: "parla inglese?";
"mi scusi" for excuse me or pardon me;
"dove" for where;
and of course the important words "si" and "no" when you simply have to say yes and no, respectively.
But a funny thing is, I'm surprised to hear myself sometimes answering with the Finnish affirmative reply "joo"!
In Piazza de Ferrari |
Quite an experience! Hmm, seems like you're already accustomed to Finnish. Great picture by the way (hehe).
ReplyDeleteThanks Anne. When we were in Cinque Terre, there were some tourists conversing in Finnish, we got so excited and almost said "moi"!
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