History Main / GratuitousItalian

->'''Mr. Parker:''' "'Fra-gi-le'... it must be Italian!"
->'''Mrs. Parker:''' "I think that says 'fragile', honey."
-->-- ''{{A Christmas Story}}''.

----

** PlayedForLaughs in [[http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/11/23/ this]] ''PennyArcade'' comic. And it still manages to sound [[EverythingSoundsSexierInFrench sexy and badass]]. Read it aloud in you best / worst Italian accent for the full effect.

Naturally, even though the people speaking Italian are supposedly Italian themselves, they will never, ''never'' pronounce certain words correctly. For instance, the word "capisce" is always pronounced "ka-peesh" instead of "ka-peesh-eh" (the ''eh'' is pronounced as in ''second''). Also, it's third-person singular, unlike its popular use in English. Don't expect the grammar to be correct, either. Verb-object agreement is a source of trouble, and, unlike English, Italian adjectives are gendered, which is often ignored. For example, "bravo" should be "brava" if referring to a woman.

* [[FamilyGuy Peter Griffin]] parodied this once by entering an Italian joint and thinking that because of his new mustache, he could actually speak Italian. He wound up repeating random Italian-sounding gibberish, utterly confusing the guy manning the store.

[[AC:[[{{Western Animation}} Fumetti]]]]

* All the levels in [[SuperMarioSunshine]] are in Italian. Bianco = white, Pianta = plant, and so forth. It's actually pretty correct Italian save for "Il Piantissimo". The...very plant? Eh.

* In the late years of the ChaosTimeline, there are artificial insects (flying nanotech robots) called ''Zanzara''. Also, the Renaissance is known under the Italian term ''Rinascita'' in this history, rather than the French term from our history.

* The ''{{Discworld}}'' novel ''Discworld/{{Maskerade}}'' is a parody of ''ThePhantomOfTheOpera'' and features opera prominently, so naturally it has GratuitousItalian. A scene in the opera has a young woman singing about how hard it is for her to leave her lover: ''"Questa maledetta porta si blocccccca, Si blocca comunque diavolo to faccccccio...!"'' Then, the aria is translated into English:

* Izumi from ''DigimonFrontier'' uses Italian exclamations from time to time. [[CatchPhrase Commozione~]]
** Which is justified by the fact that she moved to Italy at a young age, and had only recently come back to Japan.

* ''KatekyoHitmanReborn'' throws in a lot of Italian, including [[CallingYourAttacks attack names]] (being {{Shonen}}, after all). To be fair though, most of those characters actually ''are'' Italian, and the series centers around TheMafia. And since the author apparently consults an actual Italian, most of it seems pretty sound.
** But there are still things like "Elettrico Cornata" that don't make any f***ing sense.
*** It's actually not too weird, the correct spelling is "Cornata Elettrica" and means "electric ramming/goring".

** Also quite a bit of German (from Triela and her handler Hillshire/Hartman)
* The [[QuirkyMinibossSquad Numbers]] [[HollywoodCyborg Cyborgs]] of ''MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha'', [[YouAreNumberSix whose names are the numbers]] one to twelve in Italian.
** Except for Sein - the actual Italian word for six is "sei", without the n.
* Another ''OnePiece'' example: [[{{Chessmaster}} Sir Crocodile]] uses gratuitous Italian in most of his attack names.
** Badly, at least in the italian publication, where it's mixed with English: "Ground Secco" ("secco" means "dry") and "Ground Morte" ("morte" means "death")
** His attacks are actually a mix of English words with (about equally) Spanish, Italian and French ones.

* Sometimes invoked in ''WhoseLineIsItAnyway''. The ep with special guest RobinWilliams had one game with Robin and Ryan as pizza chefs - the first thing they did was swear at each other in vaguely Italian gibberish.

** Notably, although the voices dramatically differ between the English and Italian voice tracks, the pronunciations are rather similar -- .
* And then of course there are [[SuperMarioBros Super Mario]] and his brother [[EnsembleDarkhorse Luigi]].
** Hilariously so in ''[[MarioAndLuigi Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga]]'' where, when talking to non-speaking [=NPCs=], they speak Italian-sounding gibberish.

Italy has many different accents, which can vary wildly between regions. The ones that is most often heard in media are typical of Southern Italy, especially Naples or Sicily (the latter is commonly associated with the Mafia). There are also many regional dialects, which are different languages from Italian itself.

When in [[OliveGarden Hollywood Italy]], speak as the Italians do. Italian is also a favorite language of opera singers and classical musicians, and the official language of TheMafia.
Also, take note that even though the people speaking Italian are supposedly Italian themselves, they will never, ''never'' pronounce certain words correctly. For instance, the word "Capisce" is always pronounced "ka-peesh" instead of "ka-peesh-eh" (the ''eh'' being pronounced as in ''second'', though this does depend on regional dialects, especially when you're talking about Sicillian, which, like most of the many other Italian local dialects, is almost a different language from Italian itself).

NeedsABetterDescription

* Izumi from ''DigimonFrontier'' uses Italian exclamations from time to time. [[CatchPhrase Commozione~]

* Izumi from ''DigimonFrontier'' uses Italian exclamations from time to time.

[[AC:[[WebOriginal Creazioni Originali dalla Rete]]]]

** Considering [[FramingStory the nature of Assassin's Creed gameplay]] though, it's actually due to incomplete translation software, and [[PlayerCharacter Desmond Miles]] ends up thanking the resident techie for the subtitles ''he''[='=]s seeing. By ''Brotherhood'' the software's been improved so the effect is lessened, though only for Italian -- German and French are left untranslated. (The subtitles available to the ''player'' however provide a translation.)

* ''[=~Assassin's Creed~=] II'' is full of it.

** Also, they give [[WallBanger a bullshit in-game excuse]], saying the the translator is still having some trouble with language. I'm paraphrasing, obviously, but you can't tell me that [[FridgeLogic technology that can translate an entire language into grammatically perfect English sentences finds it difficult to translate simple words/phrases]] like "traitor" (''traditore''), "I'm sorry" (''mi dispiace''), "nephew" (''nipote''), "good fortune" (''buona fortuna''), etc. The only problem is that I can't ''care'' that it's a bullshit excuse, because [[EverythingSoundsSexierInFrench the language]] [[RuleOfCool is gorgeous]].
*** And maybe it's just me, but for some reason, I didn't find the GratuitousItalian to be jarring at all. Granted, I needed the subtitles to understand it half the time, but still. The game wouldn't have been the same without it.
*** This troper is Italian, and guarantees that the GratuitousItalian is ''horribly'' jarring for a native who plays the game in English. I overdosed on Narm whenever Ezio tried to express anger.
**** [[GratuitousItalian Dai, non era poi così male.]] Yeah, all of you non-Italian speaking tropers won't get what I just wrote. *cue evil laugh*
*** What non-natives are missing is that both the English parts and the Italian ones are spoken in Italo-American accent, which is very different from actual Italian, and that's without delving into regional accents and time period. The spelling is also broken very often, and in general it's hard not to wonder why they haven't hired Italian voice actors and writers to begin with.
** The tie-in novel, ''Assassin's Creed Renaisssance'' also uses Italian in the same way, although considering the meta-plot about the Animus is left out of the book, there's no justification for it other than RuleOfCool. Translations for every Italian word used at the end of the book though.

Also, take note that even though the people speaking Italian are supposedly Italian themselves, they will never, ''never'' pronounce certain words correctly. For instance, the word "Capisce" is always pronounced "ka-peesh" instead of "ka-peesh-eh" (the ''eh'' being pronounced as in ''second'', though this does depend on regional dialects, especially when you're talking about Sicillian, which is almost a different language from Italian).

[[AC:[[WebOriginal Originale di Web]]]]

Also, take note that even though the people speaking Italian are supposedly Italian themselves, they will never, ''never'' pronounce certain words correctly. For instance, the word "Capisce" is always pronounced "ka-peesh" instead of "ka-peesh-e" (the ''e'' being pronounced as in ''second'', though this does depend on regional dialects, especially when you're talking about Sicillian, which is almost a different language from Italian).

* ''UminekoNoNakuKoroNi'' uses gratuitous Italian in its anime opening.