Customer Reviews

Merda!: The Real Italian You Were Never Taught in School

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I'll stop short of writing that Merda is a piece of merda, but it is a wasted opportunity.

Italian slang -- especially the kind of colorful slang this book focuses on -- has its roots in history and tradition, and it gives insight into the psychology of a people. It can be very vulgar, but it is also symbolic, metaphoric, and at times even poetic (albeit in a crude way). But instead of focusing on that, Merda is content to be little more than a list of ways to accuse someone of practicing the world's oldest profession, and new methods to refer to defecation in every day conversation. Instead of using insight, it relies on shock value.

Sadly, it also confuses some regional phrases with true Italian, and there are more than a handful of translation errors.

It is true that much of the information contained on the book's pages is difficult to come across without hanging out with i ragazzi after dusk on a street corner in Naples, but it could have been so much more.

Combine those fatal shortcomings with poor quality given its price (it's produced using newsprint between two flimsy covers), and you end up with a product with little to recommend it.

Well, I already had "Mierda: The Real Spanish, etc.", so I decided to buy this one. Italian is my mother tongue, so I bought this book to give it to a friend of mine studying Italian. I had to change my mind. The book is plenty of primary-school-level mistakes that, if you are learning Italian, actually makes the book pretty confusing, and that however aren't acceptable in any instruction book, even though about "bad" words. The vocabulary also is very much "regional" (mainly based on the dialect spoken in Tuscany) and so some of the words won't be understood outside that area. It is a pity, because the book about Spanish is pretty good. The book requires to be thoroughly revised by someone with more familiarity with standard Italian to make it worth even its relatively cheap price.

I am italian and I was having a look at the book and I think it is really badly conceived and with so many elementary grammar mistakes. I could find at least 10 errors. For example it is an ELEMENTARY italian grammar rule that the feminine article before a feminine noun gets the apostrophe (un'assatanata) and NOT un assatanata. You say UN'AMICA and not una amica. You san UNO sporcaccione and not un sporcaccione. You say SPUDORATA not spudErata.... Just to mention a few errors... And the translations that he sometimes uses are obsolete: when I see a hunk guy I don't say "uno forte e ben armato" . Give me a break!!!!
Mr Delicio did really a poor job, evidently he doesn't really know the slang language really spoken by italian people.

This book does have grammatical errors. In fact, I think a lot of the words were created by the author. However, this book is absolutely hilarious. If you are at all interested in learning the Italian language do not buy this book. If you are at all interested in learning how to say some of the stuff (too nasty to print here) in this book in a different language than buy this book. Have fun with it.

Mr Delicio in his comments state that "Every Italian knows that Dante converted Tuscan into the Italian language." Well, I am sure he won't be able to read the Divina Commedia in an edition without extensive notes. In any case, the errors are misleading and there is a lot of them, I just wonder why, now that is known, somebody knowlegeble in standard Italian cannot review the book and correct its *many* mistakes. I did not understand the remark about the "idioms" of Lecce and Naples, I assume the author knows Italian is the official language in those cities also, or he doesn't?

A woman that is passionately in love with Italy and all things Italian writes this review. This is one of those books that is not necessary but is very entertaining. My darling husband bought this many years ago. However, I have been much more amused with the book than he ever was.

The book is subdivided as follows (I have intentionally omitted the titles of the subsections since they are very colorful, which is putting it mildly):
1. Basics and Naughty Nuances
2. The Four Essentials
3. Let's be Creative
4. Love and Libido
5. Versatile Suffixes
6. Anger in Public Places
7. Let's Keep it Clean
8. For Ladies Only
9. Sexual Odds and Ends
10. The End (a test)

The book covers many different arenas where profanity is useful. Ever wondered how to say "hooker" or that "someone is well endowed" in Italian? These are the sorts of things that are covered in this book. There is even an Italian equivalent of "road hard and put away wet", go figure. I think the most creative insult I saw in this book was "you are a hooker without clients." That one really just made me giggle. Not that I can imagine a situation where I would use that phrase. Another excellent one is "the flesh of an older hooker is more tender than this steak". Only in Italy can they come up with phrases like these. The book also uses many of these words in sentences, for the overachievers in the group.

Not everything in this book is rude; some of it is actually useful. They give the Italian for the following phrases that are fit for public consumption:

I want you! ********************** Ti amo!
I need you! ********************** Ti voglio!
I am crazy about you! ************** Sono pazzo per te!
You are the only one! ************** Sei l'unico!
Without you everything will end! ****** Senza di te tutto finira!

If you are looking for a book that has Italian phrases and is entertaining this is the book for you. It won't teach you how to communicate with many people in Italy, but it certainly is enlightening. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Now all I need is a good looking red blooded Italian male to practice my new skills with. On second thought never mind, my husband probably wouldn't approve.

I am an Italian-American who discovered this book on the bookshelf of one of my older cousins. It is very amusing; you will finally learn what to say to obnoxious taxi drivers! "Merda" will also teach you some exceedingly crude phrases to use in the throes of passion (although I'm not sure that you should tell your ladylove that she has "the body of a goddess"; she may become alarmed).

"Merda" contains some very common universal and regional profanities. Anywhere you go in Italy, they will probably understand what you are saying to them. (No, I am not telling you to go around calling total strangers vulgar names, but at least you'll know what to say if you get a bad waiter.) My family vouches for this; with a Southern Italian grandpa, a Northern Nonna, and a Central mom all living in the same house, one gets exposed to some very colorful language.


"Merda" is not a terrible book, but it has its fair share of errors. There are numerous article and noun disagreements (there are 6 ways to say "the" in Italian, and this book managed to confuse these articles at least 8 times). The book is not very sturdy at all and I am surprised at the high price. In short, "Merda!" is good for a laugh and to learn some rudimental curses. My advice: borrow it from your older cousin.

More X - rated then I thought.
Great for laughs from those who really know italian.
Wonder about those who don;t :-)

You may or may not want to use some of these words when speaking Italian, but they can be definitely useful to understand.

As for the comment of the previous reader that Italian has been standardized (all that this means is that the same Italian is taught in schools throughout Italy) and that now there should be no more idioms from Napoli - the dialects are still alive and well and used by people in their own regions and so are "idiomatic expressions" in those dialects. If you speak standardized Italian in Calabria, they'll sure understand you, but you may not understand them if they choose to speak Calabrese among themselves.

This is a fun book. Gave it as a gift and recipient really enjoyed it!