7

I have decided to be very brave and put my Italian out there in a blog. I will admit that the first entry I am writing is mostly done from a translator site but I want to try it on my own eventually.

In my first entry, I am writing about how I came to be so interested in Italy and the language. I want to say about the person who first made me focus on Italian

He made the language sing.

The translator gave me

Lui fa cantare dalla lingua.

which translates back as

He does sing in a language.

which does not say what I want to say. Can someone help me, please?

Based on the advice given, I have edited my composition and published on my new blog -http://iosonoinitalia.wordpress.com/ Polite critic of my Italian is always wlecome there :)

Jim's Mum
  • 761
  • 1
  • 5
  • 14
  • I am afraid it is not easy to express that concept in Italian unless you change the structure of the sentence: something like "sapeva far vibrare l'italiano in tutta la sua musicalità"? "Sapeva esaltare la musicalità dell'italiano"? –  Aug 11 '14 at 05:35
  • 1
    Però a pensarci bene potresti anche usare un più letterale "sapeva far cantare la lingua", e chi te lo proibisce? –  Aug 11 '14 at 05:48
  • 2
    Could you tell us which translator program/service was it, so as to avoid it studiously? Apart from not getting across the meaning of what you meant, it managed to both generate a sentence not in Italian and miss the fact (which should be obvious even to a computer) that “made” is a past tense. (Not to mention that the translation back into English says something else again.) – DaG Aug 11 '14 at 07:45
  • 1
    As to your sentence, faceva cantare la lingua or con lui la lingua cantava are perfectly good ways of saying it, but you have to take into account the possible ambiguity due to the fact that lingua, just like “tongue”, means both “language” and the organ in the mouth. – DaG Aug 11 '14 at 07:48
  • 1
    I attempted giving an answer; however, I'm curious as to how to translate this sentence while preserving its meaning as much as possible. Have my upvote. – Giulio Muscarello Aug 11 '14 at 08:00
  • If you choose to maintain the verb "cantare" just remember that this can also mean to confess a crime and expose accomplices: so use extra-care with it. –  Aug 11 '14 at 21:43
  • 1
    In English, to sing is also occasionally used to mean to confess a crime but not often here in Australia. It is more an Americanism. – Jim's Mum Aug 12 '14 at 00:25
  • 2
    Mi piace il tuo entusiasmo, ti suggerisco qualche correzione: «Il mio amore per tutte le cose italiane ebbe inizio alla Galleria d'Arte del NSW e ad una conferenza sull'Arte del Rinascimento tenuta dal direttore Edmund Capon. Lui parla italiano in maniera meravigliosa. Mi fece apprezzare la musicalità dell’italiano. Sin dalla sua conferenza decisi che l’Italia sarebbe stata la mia prossima destinazione e vi sono ritornata poi ogni anno fin da allora. Non ne avrò mai abbastanza di questo paese, delle persone, dell’arte, del cibo … Grazie mille per il loro aiuto agli utenti di …» –  Aug 12 '14 at 06:18
  • @randomatlabuser: "fin da allora" è una ripetizione, perché la frase inizia con "Sin dalla sua conferenza". È sufficiente "Decisi che l'Italia sarebbe stata la mia prossima destinazione, e da allora vi sono ritornata ogni anno". – Giulio Muscarello Aug 12 '14 at 11:18

2 Answers2

6

There is no literal equivalent to "making a language sing", we don't have any such idiom. A literal translation would be far cantare una lingua: an educated native speaker would understand what you mean, although it isn't a common idiom - in fact, I never heard it.
A more natural translation would be something along the lines of "esaltare la musicalità della lingua": in my opinion, that's how a native speaker would translate it. In your case, you could write

Mi ha fatto apprezzare la musicalità dell'italiano.
They made me appreciate the music-like aspect of spoken Italian.

As a final note, your translator failed quite a bit. The literal translation of "he made the language sing" is "[lui] ha fatto cantare la lingua"; the translation it gave said "lui fa cantare dalla lingua", which doesn't make any sense, as it literally means: "he makes singing from the tongue", but could be also interpreted as "he makes people sing from the language".

beppe9000
  • 185
  • 1
  • 1
  • 8
Giulio Muscarello
  • 1,397
  • 8
  • 22
3

I think an appropriate translation is :

  • Mi fece apprezzare la sonorità della lingua italiana.

Sonorità:

fig. Ricchezza di suono, riferito a espressioni linguistiche: la s. dei versi del Monti.