Jan 20, 2011 00:41
13 yrs ago
Italian term

brutto ma buono

Not for points Homework / test Italian to English Art/Literary Poetry & Literature tale
...c'era una volta un bambino brutto ma buono. era davvero brutto, poverino ma tanto buono...
Votes to reclassify question as PRO/non-PRO:

Non-PRO (1): Daniela Zambrini

When entering new questions, KudoZ askers are given an opportunity* to classify the difficulty of their questions as 'easy' or 'pro'. If you feel a question marked 'easy' should actually be marked 'pro', and if you have earned more than 20 KudoZ points, you can click the "Vote PRO" button to recommend that change.

How to tell the difference between "easy" and "pro" questions:

An easy question is one that any bilingual person would be able to answer correctly. (Or in the case of monolingual questions, an easy question is one that any native speaker of the language would be able to answer correctly.)

A pro question is anything else... in other words, any question that requires knowledge or skills that are specialized (even slightly).

Another way to think of the difficulty levels is this: an easy question is one that deals with everyday conversation. A pro question is anything else.

When deciding between easy and pro, err on the side of pro. Most questions will be pro.

* Note: non-member askers are not given the option of entering 'pro' questions; the only way for their questions to be classified as 'pro' is for a ProZ.com member or members to re-classify it.

Proposed translations

+2
7 hrs
Selected

not very good looking, but kind hearted nonetheless

In cases such as this, English tends towards the use of positive adjectives with negative adverbs. When, for example, Sherlock Holmes wants to say that one of his clients is a bit of an idiot, he tells Watson that the person in question is "not particularly bright".
Note from asker:
thank you very much
Peer comment(s):

agree carlabice47
1 hr
agree BdiL : What you're talking about is called a "litotes", affirming something by denying its contrary. Maurizio
7 hrs
Something went wrong...
Comment: "Selected automatically based on peer agreement."
30 mins

really ugly(not good looking) but a nice guy

really not cute but really nice
Something went wrong...
9 hrs

A plain child, but a good lad

Although "ugly" is the dictionary equivalent of "brutto", English speakers very, very rarely use it. The kind-hearted Anglo-Saxons prefer to equivocate and say that a child is "plain" - even "very plain" or "remarkably plain" (which, but for the euphemistic use, would be a contradiction in terms). For something or someone to qualify as "ugly" in common speech, it must be positively dangerous or revolting.
Something went wrong...
Term search
  • All of ProZ.com
  • Term search
  • Jobs
  • Forums
  • Multiple search