sweet nothings...

See your boyfriend has got double luck, not only there is you cooking at home but there is also your mom cooking on special events. I am starting to think he does not deserve it

Edit: italian - "pistacchio" (plur. "pistacchi"), english - "pistachio".

Among the many advantages, if you use Opera or Firefox as browser both have inline spell checker. I use it with both italian and english dictionary.

On a side note, in italian there isn't any spelling. Once you know how a word sounds you always know how to write it. You can make mistakes while typing then.

I've seen a video on youtube where a guy was teaching the Scottish accent and yes, the "r" sounds like ours, maybe even a little more enforced. Personally I really dislike the english "r"

Using Opera 10, you place the cursor in a text area (where you type your post or comment) then right click with your mouse. A menu should appear and the last item should be "check spelling". Right under it there should be "dictionaries" and the options to switch from a dictionary to another or to install a new dictionary.

The main difficulty with english is not the spelling either the grammar (which is basic compared to other languages). It is the pronunciation. Learning written english is quite easy but spoken english requires a lot of practice. I am not a linguist but my guess is the different way words are grouped in a sentence and the resulting accent. To an italian ear english sounds like "chopped" and it is difficult to learn where to place those "accents/interruptions" while speaking. Italian is more a continuous flow of syllables.

Jock Tamson's Bairn writes:

Yes, you are right about English pronunication, Lorenzo.

We Scots can't stand their intrusive "r"s and terminal "r"s where no "r" should be. For example they all say "lawrand odah" when talking about Law and Order and they add an "r" to words like Africar and Indiar - very strange indeed.

Mind you, it is even stranger in Bristol where they add an "l" instead of an "r" so they end up saying Africal and Indial but to compensate, they pronounce Bristol as Bristow!!!

And as for the English horrid impure diphthonged vowels... Don't get me started!

We Scots are like you Italians and Germans - we use pure vowels and everything is pronounced as it is written...

...apart from our swallowing "t"s as in Sco'land and bo''les which are pronounced with a lovely glottal stop, but then no-one's perfect!

Well, actually "italian" is somehow and artificial language that was put together at the end of 1800 when Italy was conquered and unified by the King of Piemonte (a region in the north west). It is mostly the tuscanian dialect with some contributions of other local languages.

Before the unification in Italy people spoke many different dialects, often very different from each other, think something like english and gaelic. Those languages came from the different migrations/invasions during centuries following the melting of the roman empire. For example here where I live it was originally a celtic area, then is was occupied by the romans and latin was superimposed over the local gaelic, then different german tribes migrated here and took their language, then the place was occupied by Spaniards, French, Austrians. Each took some contributions to the local language. Other places of Italy were influenced by Greeks, then Romans, then Arabs, then French/Normans, etc., a completely different mix and then a different language.

Tuscanian was picked as national language because of the literature and the fact it was the closest to latin that was the only unifying element in all the local languages, since the roman age was the only time when Italy was unified before.

On a side note it is also interesting that since the roman empire lasted about 1000 years, also latin changed during time. The latin we study in school today is that one coming from the church and the latest times of the empire, "late-scolastic" latin. But centuries before it was different, for example Caesar (english say "cheesa" italian say "chesar" with the "scottish r") was originally said "Ka-esar" closer to the german "kaiser".

Jock Tamson's Bairn writes:

The way Latin is pronounced in England is very weird, particularly legal and ecclesiastical terms but in Scottish schools we were taught to pronounce it in the modern manner which is said to resemble more accurately the Latin of Julius Caesar's day.

As you say, Caesar is pronounced Kaesar and v's are pronounced as w's. J's are pronounced as y's.

Ita vero!

List of delicious dishes...

Im starving here....

what a nice evneing you had

pistachio and almond kulfi for pudding, WOW! sounds like a delicious way to top off some excellent cuisine. glad you had fun and ate well.