"Leggere è proprio ciò che apre la mente."

Translation: Reading is precisely what opens the mind.

[RichardWal528974]

Duo English again. No native speaker says this. Very poor translation . There are so many bad translations I wonder who is designing the questions. Could be "it is reading that really opens the mind"?

[380.UiulKH0T3HUM]

I think "it is reading..." is less likely to be said. I don't find the English translation to be poor at all.

[Koolkaren]

Is 'proprio ciò' the expression in this sentence which means 'exactly'?

[peter2108]

I think that ciò che is the relative pronoun meaning that which/what and the proprio is just for emphasis. So there are lots of translations of proprio cio che. Mind you I put really first time which was not accepted. Google gives just what. M&R say that ciò is for more elevated registers - the plebs use quello. What do you think?

[Koolkaren]

That makes sense. I guess in English the more elevated way would be "Reading is precisely that which opens the mind." Thanks for your help. :)

[GScottOliver]

Short answer to the question asked: no. In this sentence, proprio by itself means "exactly" or "precisely", while as peter2108 mentioned, ciò che is translated as "what". Madrelingua and prolific forum contributor CivisRomanus posted a nice explanation about ciò che vs. quello che just a few days ago. In bocca al lupo!
Timor mortis conturbat me.

[FrancesDav3]

Thank you for that link to CivisRomanus's very useful explanation

[380.UiulKH0T3HUM]

When translating from English, I put "Leggere è precisamente ciò che apre la sua mente." Is this acceptable?

[LoisMcEwan]

Terrible sentence