An Italian relative and I exchange e-mails. She is describing her small town. I understand all she is saying about the town except for the context of one word "spostandosi" from spostare.
Sometimes she leaves out puntuation (typos)

"il paese è piccolo e tranquillo...troppo tranquillo però spostandosi un po' ci sono tanti bei posti e monumenti da visitare."


I think there should be a period between po' and ci sono, but I wrote this as she did in case I am wrong. Is the translation......
However, it is changing itself a little????


The conjugation of avere with conosciuto in this sentence has me scratching my head. A little background...JoAnn is our mutual cousin, and she has recently died. The "gift" she refers to is our meeting because of JoAnn.

"è bello avere una grande famiglia nel mondo e penso che quello di averti conosciuto sia stato un regalo di JoAnn." Is she saying "to have known you was a gift.....?

Grazie in anticipo....pat

The translation is:
the village is small and calm... too calm but at a short distance there are many nice places and monuments to visit.
Literally spostandosi un po' means moving a bit, moving a bit from the village.

Yes, she sais Having known you was a gift.

For a village I would say "quiet" rather than "calm". A person could be either quiet or calm, though the usual meaning is quiet. A quiet person doesn't talk a lot or have a loud voice. A calm person does not get upset easily. similar but not the same thing.

Giulia, I was a little surprised about the translation of spostandosi un po' as "at a short distance." My instinct (probably wrong, in which case this is a new expression to know) would be to read it as "if you take the initiative (move yourself, get off your duff), there are many nice places,etc", which is a little different, not a lot, from your reading.

Carol,
"spostandosi un po'" literally means "moving a bit", where moving is to be taken literally: "if you walk/drive a bit from the village", "at a short drive"...(I'm sorry but I can't find a good translation and "at a short distance" was the one that was nearer to the meaning).

quote:

Originally posted by Giulia da Urbino:
The translation is:
the village is small and calm... too calm but at a short distance there are many nice places and monuments to visit.
Literally spostandosi un po' means moving a bit, moving a bit from the village.

Yes, she sais Having known you was a gift.

Giulia,

Thank you for the clarification of the phrase. Phrases can be difficult to understand because exact translations of the words do not express the true meaning. I am sure that in the future I will need help again with her e-mails.

It has been instructive and fun to exchange these e-mails. I hope my planned trip in Oct. to visit her works out. My cousin said the food she ate there was out of this world. BTW, "there" is Pietramelara, 45 K from Caserta.

pat