You know what’s weird? If you go to Google Translate and type in “vivere una bella vita,” it translates from Italian as “live a good life,” but “vivere una vita bella” translates from Italian as “live a beautiful life.” Like, literally one word was moved and it changes the definition.
I’ve only had two years of Italian in high school, so I barely know any Italian, but I like to pretend I know a lot (I’m not crazy, I’m just an Italian-American who is very proud of his ancestry and family roots). So today I was listening to Coldplay’s song “Viva La Vida” and I was like “hey, that’s Italian or something” (of course it’s not, but it sounds like it should be). I did a Google Translate to see what language it is and what it means (I was assuming it had something to do with life). According to Google, it is apparently Spanish for “live life.” So then I decided to translate it to Italian, ’cause you know I’m Italian. I then decided to change the Italian to say “Live a beautiful life” instead of “live life,” because, whatever. Anyway, when I was playing around with this I remembered the adjectives in Italian go after the subject they are describing, instead of in English where our adjectives go before our subjects (I think…it’s been like four or five-ish years since I’ve taken an Italian class). Whilst I was playing with my adjective, I noticed the translation changed from “beautiful” to “good.” And I have absolutely no idea why. If you know, let us know in the comments below (again, play nice children)!
My googling efforts
One day I will go to Italy and recite the very little Italian I know: “Fa mi uno sconto?” (“can you give me a discount”), “la creme solar (“sunscreen”…I don’t know why I would randomly say that to someone in Italy…can you just imagine, me walking up to a random stranger at a piazza and being like “sunscreen!”), and “ho mal di gola” (“I have a sore throat”).
So, yeah…this is just a random fact/thing I learned today on my Friday and thought I’d share…a #PhillipsSongOfTheDay might be coming up soon, so look out for that! And remember, “Vivere una vita bella!” (live a beautiful life!)
