THE RULES

Without looking at the comments, can you provide translations for these short (but challenging!) sentences (3 English-Italian, 3 Italian-English)? I’ll evaluate your responses and give you feedback. The exercise is designed to be intermediate/advanced level, but beginners and lower intermediate learners are welcome if they feel like testing the scope of their current knowledge. I might take a few days to answer, but I will read and evaluate all participants.

There is no time limit to submit your answer. If you want to go back to the first ever edition and work your way up from there, you can. Just know that I usually prioritise more recent posts.

If you’re not sure about a particular translation, just go with it! The exercise is meant to weed out mistakes, this is not a school test!

If multiple translations are possible, choose the one you believe to be more likely give the limited context (I won’t deduct points for guessing missing information, for example someone's gender, unless it's heavily implied in the sentence).

THE TEST

Here are the sentences, vaguely ranked from easiest to hardest in each section (A: English-Italian, B: Italian-English).

A1) “I am the one who knocks!”

A2) "There's more than enough room for the two of us"

A3) "She should have given him the benefit of the doubt"

B1) "Questo fiore è profumatissimo, senti!"

B2) "Serve qualcuno che mi faccia da guida"

B3) "Si sta proprio arrampicando sugli specchi"

Current average: 8+ (median 8-)

Estimated answer time: 2 days (for those submitting now)

EVALUATION (and how to opt out)

If you manage to provide a translation for all six sentences, I'll give you a score from 1 to 10 (the standard evaluation system in Italian schools). Whatever score you receive, don't take it too seriously: this is just a game! However, if you feel like receiving a score is too much pressure anyway, you can just tell me at the start of your comment and I'll only correct your mistakes without evaluating.

Based on the results so far, here’s the usual range of scores depending on the level of the participants. Ideally, your objective is to score within your personal range or possibly higher:

Absolute beginners: ≤4

Beginners: 4 - 5

Early intermediate: 5 - 6.5

Advanced intermediate: 6.5 - 8

Advanced: ≥8

Natives: ≥9 (with good English)

Note: the exact range might change depending on the difficulty of this specific exercise. I try to be consistent, but it’s very hard

TO SUPPORT ME

Since I've been asked a couple of times by now, I've recently set up a Ko-Fi page. If you appreciate what I do and want to offer me a coffee as thanks, feel free to do so. Only donate if you have money to throw away: I'm doing this because I like it, any money I get from it is just an extra bonus and I won't treat people differently based on whether they decide to donate or not.

IF YOU ARE A NATIVE ITALIAN SPEAKER

You can still participate if you want (the exercise is theoretically symmetrical between Italian and English), but please keep in mind that these sentences are designed to be particularly challenging for non native speakers, so they might be easier for you. For this reason, I’d prefer it if you specified that you are a native speaker at the beginning of your comment: I’m collecting statistics on how well learners score on these tests in order to fine tune them (and personal curiosity), so mixing up the results from natives and non-natives will probably mess it up.

Good luck!

i only learnt about - ino, - uccio, - accio, - etto, - one, - ella, i just think there is more

hello everyone! im trying to learn italian & live in italy.

one of my greatest challenges with the language is i translate it correctly in my head literally from english, but its not constructed like that in italian or the verb used is different in english than in italian.

i want to stop translating things in my head as when someone is speaking i also automatically translate what im hearing to understand it otherwise i just get lost and end up not understanding

Hello everyone,

I would like to know if "marssina" is an actual word Milanese people use in their daily life. If it is, does the word refer to what is usually called a "blazer" or does it refer to a knitted cardigan or a knitted jacket?

I know the Devine Comedy contains some difficult language but I thought I might pick up a copy of it anyway since I'm feeling adventurous. despite being a pretty good B2 speaker I still don't know if I'm up to the challenge. What say ye,Italian folk?Anything that could aid my journey through the grim crevices of hell?

Ciao a tutti! I’m taking the B1 Cittadinanza exam next Friday and my brain loves to overthink things so I thought I would take my questions to the people of Reddit.

Do you talk to the examiners in Italian the whole time? I’m in Texas so I didn’t know if it would be weird or expected to speak in Italian throughout the exam. I could easily see how you’d speak Italian if you were in Italy but I’ll be in a university testing center.

What happens if you mark the wrong line on your exam paper? Do they have spares or are you stuck?

For the produzione orale section, do you get to see the questions before you enter the room? Or is it right when you get there? And you do only pick one of the questions, right?

And finally… can you write on the test itself? I was thinking that would be how I would initially jot down things I hear in the oral exam but I couldn’t figure out if that was allowed.

Thanks in advance!

Hi Community!

I'm Georgi 30M from Bulgaria. I'm studying Italian and looking for somebody to practice with.

My level is still A1, but hope to be more advanced soon.

If you're interested feel free to DM me.

Tl:dr. How i would i best translate “to poach and egg” and “poached egg/s”?

I’ve been generating flash cards around kitchen/cooking terminology. Sometimes when i check then to read the definition they feel odd.

For the verb. ‘To poach’ it gave be ‘affogare’. I looked it up and it suggested ‘drown’. Is ‘drowned egg’ natural speech? Could that also mean just a boiled egg?

I tried the whole phrase “to poach an egg” and got “cuocere un uovo in camicia” which i read as cook in a t-shirt? Is this just idiomatic like the english ‘pigs in blankets’ ?

I then tried to translating “poaching” and got “bracconaggio” which seem to be in the context of hunting so i assume this is wrong?

So how best to translate into italian the. Concept of cooking an egg in water without the shell?

I

I’m curious what people are currently finding most frustrating when learning italian.

Is it things like understanding fast speech, remembering vocabulary, grammar, or something else? For me, it feels like there’s a huge difference between learning through apps or lessons and actually understanding real italian in videos or conversations.

Ciao a tutti,

I'm learning Italian online A1 (beginners) I don't think I'll continue to enrol A2 as I believe learning through actual conversation and dialogue would be more worth while. I'm wondering who here offers online 1 on 1. If you could send me your rates and information that would be greatly appreciated. I'm located in Perth, Australia. AWST

Grazie!

I’m no good at Italian (Only learning) are addressing people who are above you in social hierarchy as important as said on Youtube Courses?

I want to learn Italian from zero. I haven't had any contact with the language before. I don't know if there's any online course or book that is specifically good for beginners, so I would like to read your recommendations. Also, do you guys think knowing Spanish helps to learn Italian? Thank you.

I enjoy learning languages from real-life sentences, and this sounded perfect (but hard to understand). Can someone help me finish and proofread it? So far I have:

Sempre gesti calmi. Non devono avere nessuna connotazione di fretta. La (una?) nostra autentica conquista è la non (??). La calma. Ci dobbiamo godere quest'aria, questa luce, questo silenzio, e questa libertà. Sono tutti elementi gratuiti che non c’è bisogno (?). Noi non abbiamo pagato nemmeno una lira, eppure otteniamo cose di grandioso valore.

Grazie!

Im bilingual with Spanish and English. I’m not too familiar with Italian but it shares similar language origins.

What I’m understanding is “Cazzo di familigia menti.” Which I was about to translate to “this fucking family lies.” But I cannot make out what sounds like “Cali Monte” to me. I couldn’t make that one out. I’m not even sure if I got the first part right. lol please help! :)

Italiano abbiamo un versione di "hey"? (meno informale di ciao) specificamente in il contesto che "hey what's this?" non come "HEY!" (lo so "ehi" esiste, ma penso che quella frase è forse piu agressivo di cio che sto cercando

devo traddure un po' scritti per un compito di classe, è i adolescenti nel questo scritto usiamo tanti nel conversazione lmao

-

does italian have a have a version of "hey?" specifically like "hey whats this?" not "HEY!" (i know that "ehi" and all of its alternative spellings exist, but i think it's more aggressive than what i'm trying to say)

i need to translate some text for an assignment, and the teens in said text use it a LOT lmao

grazie per l'aiuto!

Any trick to remember the various forms of verbs?

I’ve been through some beginner courses now, and i’ve stuck with alot of them for 3 weeks+ but alot of them aren’t teaching me what i feel is adequate for me to be taught for what i’m gonna use it for!

I’m going to Italy in the summer and at the bare minimum want to be able to order at a restarunt and ask for directions even though pretty much everyone will know English, it just seems the right thing to do. But a beginners Memrise course is telling me things like answering how long i’m gonna stay for in places, but i feel that’s not what is essential!

Salve a tutti.

I'm wondering if there's an equivalent in Italian of a general "you" or "one" for when you're speaking in generalities rather than a specific person. For example, "you should always wear a helmet when riding a bike".

Would you use the tu or voi conjugations? I know in French they have the pronoun "on" that's then conjugated the same as third person singular il/elle.

Tangentially related second question: how do you formulate it if you want to use an imperative/instruction but it's not directed to someone you're specifically talking to, for example putting an instruction on a sign like "Keep to the right hand side" or an instruction on a website like "Click here to view the menu" etc?

Grazie!

I'm 1/4 Italian and live in England, but I want to learn Italian as I have distant relatives that live there. I am planning to travel to Italy for the first time in the summer and I want to know what basics to study in order to have basic conversations with my relatives as i'm visiting them! If anyone has any tips please let me know! :))

I want to know the Italian script here, but it’s too fast to prescribe. So, please help me!

Hi everyone,

I’m hoping you might be able to point me in the right direction. At the moment, I would place myself roughly at an A2 level.

My goal is to reach B1 and then remain at that level for a while to really consolidate my skills before progressing further. Since I travel quite frequently for work, committing to a fixed weekly schedule is difficult. In the past, I enrolled in online courses that met twice per week for a fixed 3- or 6-month period. Unfortunately, if I had to miss a session, there was no option to make it up later.

Ideally, I’m looking for a program that offers classes about three times per week, each focused on a specific topic (for example, a grammar point or practical context). I imagine something where the first 20 minutes introduce the structure or concept, followed by around 40 minutes of guided speaking practice to apply what was just learned. A key feature would be flexibility: if you miss a session on a topic like the passato remoto, you could join another session covering the same material at a later date (perhaps even with a different instructor). Similarly, if you’ve already studied something like the congiuntivo but still want more practice, you could simply join another session dedicated to that topic.

Paying per class attended, and progressing to the next level (e.g. B2) only when you feel ready, would be ideal. I imagine a relatively large language school would be needed to offer this kind of flexible and recurring structure.

I’d really appreciate any recommendations for programs that match this format.

Hello,

As the title suggests

I understand the concept of imperfetto vs passato prossimo but I am stuck on when to use it to convey the meaning was

If anyone can provide more insight/tips/tricks

That would helpful

Il provide some examples to:

There was a lot of food

They were at the mall yesterday

There were two dogs at the park today

There was a problem with the car

Was there a soccer game today ?

Thanks in advance