Villa!how do you say "stop getting yer knickers in a twist!" in Italian?

Hello to you. The French crossed the English Channel in 1066 and conquered England. So for hundreds of years French which
comes from Latin mixed with English. Infatti English vocabulary is y60% Latin. They say if the French wouldn't have won
English today would be more like the Dutch language.

This is why English speakers can recognize so many Italian words a proposito.

I agree, that is the reason why I find speaking Italian quite easy, don't say I can write it, and I dont bother with verbs etc, but I can understand 75% and guess the rest

Then of course we have a great Viking influence here, and when I am in Spain, I have a number of Norwegian aquaintences there, when I listen to them speaking amongst themselves I hear familiar words too, so us Brits are really quite the mongrels of Europe

On top of that the French Normans who conquered England were also decendents of the Vikings. Norman means man
from the north. So Vikings went down to France and adopted the French language and culture. English people
don't even know what they hate. And the French Normans also were in Sicily and southern Italy for many years.
So English people are related to the Italians & French and don't even know it. Plus you've got the other Germanic tribes
that went into Italy. Those people were related to the Germanic tribes that were in England too.

It gets better. The Romans who form the backbone of the Italian people were in England for 400 years!!!

Villa, am fully aware of all you are saying,I live close to York built by the Romans, in fact when I last visited Rome 2 yrs ago it felt like home because of the wall around the city and the gates into the city. Another proverb for you to ingest...."don't try to teach your grandma to suck eggs"
Also who mentioned anything about'hate'why did that crop up in the conversation?

By the way I live in a small town by the name of Normanton....Town of the Norse Man.....

Well not you but I've been told over and over and over again that the English hate the French. It's common knowledge.

It all started back in 1066, when William the Conqueror – the one that was so big he couldn’t ride his horse, so then
he went on an all-liquid (read: liquor) diet – trounced the Anglo-Saxons at the Battle of Hastings. Armed with some
relatively spurious claims to the English throne and a force of more than 15,000 infantry, cavalry, and archers, William,
Duke of Normandy, won the throne and engendered a long line of nobility and rulers, and, of course, a
bitter rivalry between the proto-English isle and the Continental French.

To whom it may concern: If you don't believe me just type in "Why do the English hate the French so much?" and do a search.
Hundreds of sites come up. It goes on and on and on. Io non ho la culpa!

Apart from all this in France there is a region called Brittany where only recently after W.W.II did the people start to speak French.
The people in this region are descended from settlers from England who fled that island in the wake of the Anglo-Saxon conquest of England
between the fifth and seventh centuries. The Breton language is a Celtic language (akin to Cornish and Welsh), was the dominant language
of western Brittany (roughly, west of a boundary from St Brieuc to Vannes) until the mid-20th century. It has been granted regional
language status and revival efforts are underway.

In eastern Brittany, the traditional language is Gallo, an Oïl language, which has also received regional recognition and is in the process of being revived.

The French administration now allows for some Breton or Gallo to be used by the region and its communes, in road signs and names of towns and cities, along
with the official French version. The two languages are also taught at school, and many folklore associations and clubs are trying to revive them.

Gosh , Villa, you love the sound of your own voice don't you....I only made one comment about the fact that the French also use the expression 'le weekend' and you have given me at least three history lessons. You really should get out more!!!

Two we have come across recently - il "top" (kitchen worktop) and "boiler" (a bit confusing, as in Italy it means a hot water cylinder, not the gas/diesel central heating boiler, which is a "caldaia"). We had a difficulty in understanding our plumber (even though my wife is Italian) until he drew a picture!