Oranges vs Orancio
As I write this, I am sitting at my dining room table in Italy. I just had what I will call a breakthrough “ah ha” moment when it comes to learning the Italian language. Yesterday, I was rock climbing at a local spot with some really wonderful local Italian friends. One of them asked me if I had brought my climbing guidebook. My response was in Italian: Si, il libro e’ nel mio zaino arancio (Yes, the book is in my orange backpack). I was so proud of myself as this felt like one of the first times I could quickly ramble off a response in Italian with little to no thought. After making the statement, several of the folks at this particular climbing spot started chatting. I could tell they were debating something. It was difficult to get a word in, but I finally interrupted and asked them if what I had misspoken and said something wrong.
My friend said very softly that they were discussing the way I used the word for ORANGE. He said while my sentence was not wrong, it could be better stated. He went on to tell me the fruit of the orange is arancia. Fruits he said are generally feminine and trees are often masculine so the orange tree would be stated albero di arancio. Then he said when referring to a color such as the orange backpack I should say, zaino arancione instead of zaino arancio. I stood there in shock as I knew what he was saying was true. He shared a couple other examples: an olive is un’oliva and an olive tree is un albero di ulivo or simply olivo. So if I want to ask for olive oil in a restaurant, I should request olio d’oliva per favore. I think it is easy to say olio d’olivo by mistake. Another example with is that a cherry is una ciliegia and a cherry tree is un ciliegio.
I was very excited to share this little lesson with my friends in Dante Alighieri as I found it to be a very helpful reminder of the importance of paying attention to the proper uses of feminine and masculine words. It takes a little thought and a lot of practice to get it right.
Orange you glad I shared this little experience?