I have been having a little email correspondence with an agriturismo in southern Italy where I plan to stay for a few days in October.
I think we've gotten everything pretty much straight, and my impression is that all I need do is send an email confirmation, but I'm not quite sure if "un mail di confirma" might mean a physical letter. I did ask them in my last email, along with some price questions, "se desidera che le spedisco una lettera per mezzo di posta," and in response they gave me the options of half or complete pensione or b&b, and repeated that all they needed was "un mail di confirma" (no deposit required).
Does that sound as though email is sufficient?
I'm delighted that they can guess at my Italian well enough to answer, but I don't want to mess it up on that account!
It is common in Italy to cut out the E from E-mail, in common language "mail di conferma" stands for "E-mail di conferma". If they wanted a letter they would have asked you to a "lettera di conferma".
Can "conferma" be spelled either with an e or an i? My dictionary has an e as in your response, but I notice that in each email my hosts-to-be have used "confirma."
As to your signature quote, I quite sympathize with our minds for not sticking around when we Slow Travelers have given them such satisfactory models for taking off now & then.
Originally posted by ikol22: ("confirma" simply doesn't exist in the Italian vocabulary).
You are right.
The only exception being CONFIRMATORIA As in " caparra confirmatoria" or " mail confirmatoria" Being the down payment the first.
Confirmatorio comes directly from latin. Is used as an aggettivo, but when used as a noun becomes conferma, so it is not bad spelled, nor dialect is involved, it is correct Italian.
I'm pretty sure we're all set now, but as I was printing out their confirmation I began to wonder again about the wording: "grazie e confirmato l aspeteremo per il tre grazie"
This was in response to my "Vorrei confermare la camera giu descritto, con pensione completa per le 3 notte 1-3 ottobre."
At first I thought "il tre" was a way of referring to my three-day stay - but then I thought it sounded a little as though they were expecting me on the 3rd of October. Since my dates were specified exactly, that's not likely, is it?
.... I'm wondering too.... are the owners of this place italians? Or are you all struggling with italian and you're all from the US? The sentence "Grazie e confirmato I aspeteremo per il tre grazie" makes no sense in Italian... and it was definitely not written by an Italian.
Hm... a curious response. But if you did, like Dorothy seems to have done, separate it out into 3 distinct blurts, it sort of does make some sense.
1 - Grazie, `e confirmato. 2 - Aspeteremo per il tre (notte). 3- Grazie.
Either, like Giulia says, they're not Italian, or they're not educated (only speak dialect?), or they're responding in a shorthandish, non-standard way. I bet Giulia's right. But they might not be English speakers either. German?
I don't think, in any case, that they're referring to Oct 3. My reading of "le tre", like yours, Dorothy, is about the number of nights you are confirmed for.
They didn't write "le tre" but "il tre", which I understand as "the third"...
There's obviously a bit of a language problem here, wherever it comes from.
I'd send them another email: "Grazie per la confirma [sic; no use pointing out their mistake]. Arriviamo 1 ottobre, partiamo 4 ottobre. Cordiali saluti."
The agriturismo {edited at poster's request} seems to pride itself on its family history, and certainly it seemed to be family-run when I stopped to look at it a few years ago. On the website they say:
"La famiglia {edited} ha custodito gelosamente e riportato al loro antico splendore, attraverso un'accurata opera di restauro, l'antica casa padronale, la chiesetta di {edited}, un frantoio in legno tuttora funzionante, una macina ed altre testimonianze della vita che già dal 1600 ferveva in questa silenziosa e splendida oasi naturale, che si affaccia sul {edited}. Quest'angolo di 100 ettari nel Parco Nazionale {edited} è divenuto Azienda Agrituristica per volontà e grazie al lavoro di {edited} e per la felicità di coloro che vogliono trascorrere una tranquilla vacanza a contatto con la natura, fare escursioni in barca partendo dalla spiaggia privata, fare passeggiate a cavallo e gustare gli antichi e genuini sapori di quanto si produce nell'Azienda Agricola secondo i più tradizionali sistemi di coltivazione."
There is no indication that they have changed hands, and although I did send my first message in English as well as Italian in case they couldn't figure out what I was trying to say, there was no response to that, so I suppose the dialect explanation might be the most likely.
Or, might it be that they do not do the online work themselves, but only tell someone (possibly not a native Italian) what they want to convey. That would explain why there was no individual name signing the emails, which is unusual in my experience.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: David,
Thanks, all. I will send another email as suggested, a little closer to my departure time, as a sort of reconfirmation, and hope it will get through to the place it needs to be. I will also confirm by telephone once I'm in Italy, just to make sure there are no confusions. Of course, between my Italian and their (?) dialect, I might really confound things that way...
Originally posted by Alessandra Federici: I would write exactly as Paolo wrote, there is no chance of misunderstanding that way.
Well said and please, email them immediately.
They're for sure Italian and, of course, Italian speaking but not very cultured. That sentence could be written in thousand way better than they wrote and "aspeteremo" at place of "aspetteremo" really show that. We don't have to forget that in some rural area people, over 60 or so, often went to primary school only.
They're for sure Italian and, of course, Italian speaking but not very cultured...
I actually do not think that they are Italian, that is a very broken Italian, if they are they are just terrible typewriters. I don't know a singular uneducated italian over 55 that actually owns a computer, let alone send e-mails, that is why I think they are foreigners.
Unless the phrase
quote:
"grazie e confirmato l aspeteremo per il tre grazie"
has been retyped from the e-mail by Dorothy with few typos and not cut and pasted, then again that could be just wrong retyping and nothing else. But again, if they wrote you that they "aspetteremo per il 3" it meands that they will wait for you on the night of the 3.
Well, I have written to them in Paolo's words, and we'll see what happens. Thanks for confirming my doubts about the clarity.
I still wonder if someone else may be doing the computerizing for them. (I did cut-and-paste, not copy).
David, could you or one of the other moderators remove the name of the agriturismo from my earlier post? If they (or someone at their behest) should Google their name and come upon this discussion, they might be embarrassed.
Done, Dorothy! I actually went into the Italian paragraph and eliminated references to the specific region, etc. Now the innocent (or not so innocent!) will be protected.
For those of you who have been waiting with bated (not baited) breath for the lowdown on the email di confirma controversy - it turns out that Carlo, the owner of the agriturismo, was married some months ago and has been somewhat distracted since then. His very nice helper Ali seems to have been handling responsibilities at all levels, particularly now that it is off-season and there are few visitors. Ali speaks some English, but does not understand it extensively (you know that feeling when someone replies enthusiastically to your modest efforts?), and I had some difficulty understanding his Italian. It was not until my last day there that he mentioned he was from Algeria and we realized we could have been speaking French the whole time.
Carlo has done an extraordinary job in restoring the family estate, and the place is every bit as beautiful as I remembered it, so I guess he deserves a vacation.
And thanks for everyone's help and suggestions 