# Forum Other Languages Romance languages Italian  Proverbi italiani!

## Тостер

My Italian teacher gives us one of these every week, and I feel that it is a good suppliment for learning the language. Therefore, I shall share these nuggets of goodness with you all once a week. Feel free to discuss them. Here's the first one he ever gave us: 
"Prima il dovere, e poi il piacere."
Meaning: "Work before pleasure." 
Tune in next week when I'll bring you il 2

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## Ammiraglio

lol
that's a proverb i don't really like   ::

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## samurai

"Prima il piacere, poi il dovere".
(Pleasure before work) 
This sounds better...  ::

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## Тостер

Heh, tell me about it!  ::

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## samurai

However, I think the correct proverb translation should be:  *Прежде долг, позже удовольствие.* 
In fact, “dovere” is not “work”, but “incumbency, devoir”, “what you have obligately to do”.

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## Тостер

Oh, I know. I was just going for a more figurative English translation.  ::

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## Tairka

If you're interested in a more or less equivalent Russian proverb, it is "Сделал дело - гуляй смело" (here "смело" means "without doubts") 
(Кто-то, кажется хотел учить русский язык с помощью итальянского?  :: )

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## Тостер

Ok, something that's been bothering me. Does Russian use that "-" all the time, and what does it mean? Is it taking the place of the verb "to be"? 
(I know this isn't the place for this, but it's driving me nuts!)

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## Tairka

::   ::   ::  A nice question!  ::  
Let me think, for how many years we've been studying syntax at school? Was it a year or two? Even if it was only a year, just imagine that it was  the most difficult thing to learn in Russian for us natives!  ::   
Anyway, the dash in case of this proverb is used to make a link between cause ("сделал дело") and its result or conclusion ("гуляй смело"). The whole sentence means that "IF you've finished what you _have_ to do. THAN you may do what you _want_ to do". The dash here means the logic of the connection between the two parts of the sentence...  
But the punctuation marks may have more than one meaning. In the case that you mean (I suppose frases like "Я - русский, a ты - италянец") the dash indeed subsitutes a missing word, here the verb "to be", but it can stand for almost any word!  
Don't worry it's REALLY VERY DIFFICULT!

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## Тостер

Ok everyone, time for your 2nd proverb! 
"Meglio tardi che mai!" _-Better late than never!_ 
Ciao!! 
P.S.
Thanks for the explanation! I still don't get it, but like you said, it's a difficult matter. Hopfully it will make more sense when I begin studying Russian durring my Masters programe.

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## samurai

> "Meglio tardi che mai!" _-Better late than never!_

 As a famous song says... 
"...*лучше поздно, чем никогда!*
Быть может, нам с тобой достались
	Лучшие года, да-да, да-да!"  
I'm completely in agreement with this proverb.

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