"Cos'è, un pesce d'aprile?"
Translation:What is it, an April Fool's joke?
113 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
1735
> "A boring person" is "un pesce lesso"
Sort of like “a cold fish” in English? And a fish out of water is a perfectly acceptable idiom in English, too.
Nice expression, and the history behind it (read below). For beginners though, DL should stay clear of these expressions - either expand the idioms section or offer the solution as a hint... I have encountered a couple of expressions without hints which you can't possibly know what they mean and word for word translation won't do.
1551
I agree that idiomatic expressions are important when learning a language. But, the DL system encourages learning the pieces and building up and breaking down the language. That process doesn't work with idiomatic expressions. We can't really apply what we know because it doesn't make sense--which is what makes it an idiomatic expression.
167
I sort of agree. Not because I don't think springing idioms at us isn't a good idea - it is, it's an essential part of the language we've set out to learn. But it's confusing because Duolingo also has a very strong penchant for being annoyingly literal. I answered in the sense of April fool's joke, but felt it was a crapshoot, there being a 50/50 chance it was about a fish in April
555
I disagree. I'm enjoying the idioms I come across, even though I have no idea what they mean, or how to translate them. Sure, I had to listen to this about 6 or 7 times, before typing what I heard, which I thought would be wrong, because it made no sense. But at the bottom, in 'meaning' it told me what it meant. Then I came here to discussions to learn more.
I'm not here to get every answer right, I'm here to learn. And when something is really unusual, I remember it even better. I don't want to be handed a whole bunch of idioms at once - I'll never remember them. But when one is thrown in every so often, it's fun, and I'll remember it.
1255
You're not expected to get it the first time. The hope is that you get it every time after that. It's important to remember that you're probably not here to collect hearts, but to learn Italian. In their system, sometimes you lose a heart through no fault of your own, but you do end up learning.
1635
Ok, that's annoying. When you hover over the term, it says April's fool, but marked me wrong saying it should be April fool's.
1221
I finished this lesson months ago and have reviewed it many times and this is the first time I encounter this phrase. It's also not the first time some word or phrase only comes up when I'm reviewing a finished lesson. Is it supposed to work like that? Shouldn't we learn all of the vocabulary of a lesson before it gets golden and we start reviewing it?
429
What is it .... It stands for the noun already mentioned in the aentence a few words after. Odd formulation. Joke? Where is that .in the sentence??
510
i find idioms /expressions very helpful in understanding the culture of which language we are trying to learn. Once we start seeing things their way then the language becomes easier to learn and make sense of .. so thanks everyone for sharing :)))
682
This is tricky, I'd only heard of April Fools day having anything to do with fish because I was in France once on that day and was taught about poisson d'avril by the local children.
Back when the Gregorian calendar replaced the Julian calendar, the start of the new year was also changed from the end of March to the start of January. People who were reluctant or otherwise slow to accept this change were mocked with fish. Why fish? Possibly because of how the old (fool's) new year coincided with Lent.
http://libguides.ctstatelibrary.org/hg/colonialresearch/calendar
https://frenchmoments.eu/april-fools-day-traditions-in-france-le-1er-avril/
164
Does this saying refer to the joke or April fool's prank or the person who has been pranked, the April Fool,
172
Why is April Fool's not accepted? Even the help from Duolingo displays joke in brackets, thus optional? Or am I missing something? To be honest: I am not a native English speaker.
It's also called the "April fish" in French.
https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/april-fools-day
1221
It's an idiom, an expression that can't be translated literally word by word, but only as a whole expression.