On Location Italian – 28 Feb 2013

130228-nicoleBuongiorno a tutti and welcome to On Location Italian. It’s Nicole here writing to you all once again from Verona, Italy. One of the highlights of spending a year abroad is when your loved ones from back home pay you a visit and you are finally able to show them around the beautiful city and region it has been your privilege to be living and studying in. With the female members of my family having already made the trip, it was the turn last week of my brother and dad to spend some time here.

After showing them around the sights of Verona, since my brother has from childhood been a huge Juventus tifoso (“fan”), it was only fitting that we caught the train to the football team’s home city of Torino (“Turin”). It was my second time visiting the city now up there on my list of favourite European cities and in my view rather underrated in comparison to other major cities such as Rome, Venice and Milan.

Unfortunately we were not able to get hold of tickets for a Juventus partita (“match”). We were able however to take a visita guidata (“guided tour”) of lo stadio (“the stadium”), getting up close and personal with all areas including la tribuna (“the stands”), la tribuna d’onore (“the VIP section”), and lo spogliatoio (“the dressing room”). To make up for missing the match, my brother, dad and I sat at a local bar where the Juventus match was being shown live. Although not a massive football fan myself I did take the opportunity to pick up phrases I heard being used throughout the game. The most common of these amongst the Juve tifosi (“fans”) was Forza Juve, meaning “Come on Juve!” I also heard fallo di mano, which means “hand ball” with fallo being translated as “foul”. Other phrases I heard were calcio d’angolo (“corner kick”), calcio di punizione (“free kick”) and fuorigioco (“offside”).

With my dad and brother back in Scotland, I am now back to my usual pastimes which are normally enjoyed in an environment somewhat less male-dominated than football but surprisingly I loved learning about il calcio italiano (“Italian football”) and spending some quality time with my family. I hope you have all enjoyed On Location Italian and I will be back soon. A presto!