Ciao tutti --

Ho faccio un on-line corso in italiano. I miei compiti è scrivere una composizione "descrivi un lato del tuo carattere che ti ha creato dei problemi". In inglese, questo è "Describe a side of your character that has created problems for you"?

Non voglio scrivere una composizione e non ho il sogetto corretto.

Grazie,
Earline

Earline,

That is quite right - great translation! Now you can go ahead with your homework!

C.

Chiocciola, thank you so very much. I have already written the composition on spec -- and believe me, it's not a pretty story. Now I can continue and try to figure out how to say in Italian all the idioms I have used in my English version.

Oh, the difficulties!

Earline

Sorry to butt in here. But I actually understood most of what the OP wrote but I am having problems with the last line.

"Non voglio scrivere una composizione e non ho il sogetto corretto."

I do not wish to write a composition and I do not have "sogetto" correct.

Am I close? But what is the translation of "sogetto"? I could not find the word in an on line dictionary.

spinnaker, according to my Webster's New World Italian dictionary: "subject (gram) soggetto." I misspelled it. I have a great deal of trouble with double consonants! I should have checked the spelling first.

Earline

Giulia butting in...
Hi Earline,
I know that it's soooo difficoult, but try not translating when writing in Italian, you would have no problems with translating the idioms that you used in English
... visto che tu hai cominciato a scrivere in italiano, il mio consiglio è di non tradurre ma di scrivere direttamente in italiano...
magari ti puoi fare uno schema in inglese di quello che vuoi dire, ma poi cerca di scrivere in italiano, prova!

Very true Giulia.

When writing in a foreign language you are communicating ideas, not words. If you write first in English and then try to translate you will inevitably do the latter.

I second Giulia's suggestion of writing a plan in English, but doing the actual composition directly in Italian.

I've also found that some large dictionaries will give you idiomatic "translations". The trick is to look up the key word in the sentence and then see if there's the sentence you want under that word. For example if you wanted to translate "better late than never" you might try looking up "late" or "never".

Argomento is more used than sogetto. I have mainly heard sogetto referring to a person.
Non vorrei scrivere una composizione se non ho capito l'argomento coretto.
Anche ha scritto "Ho faccio" but you need to say "ho fatto" or "io faccio."
Yes, do write Italian without reference to English. It's the only way to avoid those friendly traps that await one.