antipasti
« la troppa bonezza | Main | in un'ora »
Friday
Dec252009

chi si corica coi bambini

Chi si corica coi bambini si alza pisciato.

If you sleep with kids you get up pissed on.

This proverb warns against spending too much time with people younger or less mature than you. Less literally it can mean not to spend time with people on a lower rung than you in other ways (economically, intellectually, etc).

Grammatically it's a good reminder of the reflexive verbs, verbs where one and the same person both does and receives the action of the verb. We see this in "si alza" (gets up), which is the lui form of the reflexive verb "alzarsi". Reflexive verbs always go with a reflexive pronoun - mi, ti, si, ci, vi, si. Io mi alzo (I get up), tu ti alzi (you get up), lui si alza (he gets up), etc. C4N!

Reader Comments

There are no comments for this journal entry. To create a new comment, use the form below.

PostPost a New Comment

Enter your information below to add a new comment.

My response is on my own website »
Author Email (optional):
Author URL (optional):
Post:
 
All HTML will be escaped. Hyperlinks will be created for URLs automatically.