I love Italian idiomatic expressions – those sayings you just can’t translate directly but which make the Italian language the colorful and charming language it is.
Today’s saying is (kind of) about fish, in honor of my recent trip to Venice:
Non so che pesci pigliare.
Now, why would you say something as hopeless sounding and vague as “I don’t know what to do” (which is what this is supposed to convey) when you could say “I don’t know which fish to catch” instead? Yes, that’s what this literally means, and it strikes me that a hungry person would just catch whatever fish was available. Clearly whoever coined this phrase didn’t have a rumble in his stomach.
I’ll keep sharing Italian idiomatic expressions with you periodically; and if you’ve got a favorite saying, let me know!
If you like this one, check out some of the other Italian idiomatic expressions I’ve posted about, too.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
How about what “stasera mi butto” means? There’s a cool vintage music video by a dude named Rocky Roberts by this title on YouTube and there was a movie by the same title, too. Literally it means “Tonight I throw myself,” but I’m guessing from the context of the video that it might have something to do with going out dancing at a night club, but I speak Italian hardly at all let alone understand the idiomatic expressions.
Hi, Ed:
There are several variations on the verb “buttare,” to throw, which you can see listed here:
http://www.wordreference.com/iten/buttare
What I don’t see there is “mi butto” – the “mi” being reflexive, as in you’re doing whatever the verb is to yourself. Since there isn’t something listed there using the reflexive pronoun, I’m not sure what that phrase means either, other than the literal translation. I’ll have to ask around!
Ciao,
Jessica
My wife is Sicilian and she says a similar phase: Non sa dove fare l’uovo. I think it has about hte same meaning. Ciao Jim