Why Read?

Fact: Reading can make you a better conversationalist.

Fact: Neighbors will never complain that your book is too loud.

Fact: Knowledge by osmosis has not yet been perfected. You'd better read.

Fact: Books have stopped bullets - reading might save your life.

Fact: Dinosaurs didn't read. Look what happened to them.

From an email from ABE Books.

Fun with computer translations

To make some small improvement in our Italian skills, we go to a monthly conversation group.  Each month, the organizer emails a reminder, and this last time she asked us to let her know if we'll be coming.

I can read Italian books and newspapers with so-so comprehension, but I have trouble coming up with the simplest everyday phrases, especially if they are not in the present tense.  So, I called on the friendly, knowledgable folks at Google Translate.

"We will be there" -> "Ci saremo"

That's OK, but do I want to make a statement of certainty?

"We plan to be there" -> "Pensiamo di esserci"

But that seems to me to mean "we're thinking of being there", implying we haven't made up our minds yet.

"We hope to be there" -> "Speriamo di esserci"

Naw! Hope is not as certain as plan.  I guess I'll go with "Ci saremo" and hope that our plans work out:)

Interestingly, Google translated "Pensiamo di esserci" to "We plan to be".  My goodness, we plan to be lots of places for many years to come!

Oh yeah!  Since May 1 is Labor Day all over Europe, I asked Google to translate "labor day" into Italian.  It gave, I kid you not, "Labor day", and pronounced it "lahbor die".  However, if I put in "festa dei lavoratori" it gives "labor day".

Ciao!