pedal=pedale
exterminator=sterminatore
hardware store=ferramenta
free=gratis

I was wandering around looking for a bike shop yesterday (for my broken pedals) and found a hole in the wall old bike shop (it had no sign and two bike tires hanging up by the door). I didn’t know the word for pedal at this point, but after determining that the ancient geezer in there didn’t speak english I pointed at a bikes pedals and he said “pedale”. Another easy word. He sold me two for 10€ and I went back home then figured out the one wrench I have would not work I had to go find a hardware store. So I left again. Went to the hardware store and they dug around for a bit and then sent me to a different bike shop. The dude in the bike shop let me take the tool home and fix my pedals. I came back in about 20 minutes and gave it back. He didn’t charge me anything (gratis).

It got me thinking again how in Deutsch a lot of the little words (with, and, is, where) are similar to english, but the bigger words have little correlation to english. This means for a native english speaker learning Deutsch it’s easy to learn to speak like a 3 year old, but speaking like a 12 year old will come sooner in Italian than in Deutsch. The bigger words in Italian are more often similar to the ones in english.