"È quasi mezzogiorno."
Translation:It is almost noon.
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Does quasi have a temporal sense? I knew it can be "almost" but i thought that meant in the sense of "practically" or "about." I said "around noon" which has the same sense as about, but not the slightly before sense of "almost"
No, the temporal meaning of quasi is truly close to "almost", i.e. it can't be used to refer to "shortly after noon". The "about" meaning is usually covered by "circa" or "intorno", i.e. "è circa mezzogiorno" (it's around noon) and "vediamoci intorno a mezzogiorno" (let's meet around noon).
As adverbs the difference between almost and about is that almost is very close to, but not quite while about is not distant; approximate.
it's almost 5 o'clock can mean that it is before 5 o'clock. Maybe 4:50.
About 5 o'clock means just around 5:00. It could be be before OR after.
"Almost" means that it is getting close.
Remember Quasimodo? "He baptized his adopted child and named him Quasimodo, either in order to commemorate the day on which he found him or because he wished to express by this name the degree to which the poor little creature was incomplete and imperfectly molded."
Then there are quasi fruit -- but thats for another time.
You have to say "è quasi mezzanotte" and it will understand... not the first time, duo
