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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Italian word of the day: ‘Prego’

It's only polite to know this crucial Italian term.

Published: 24 July 2019 15:43 CEST
Italian word of the day: 'Prego'
Photo: DepositPhotos

A reader of The Local Italy recently wrote to ask about the use of a word you'll hear at least a dozen times a day in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland: prego.

It's a great reminder that it's always important to get the basics right – and this word is one you need to master from the get-go. It's every bit as fundamental as per favore ('please') and grazie ('thank you'), and arguably more versatile.

Click here to hear prego pronounced:

 
The most common translation is 'you're welcome': prego is what you say when someone else thanks you.

– Grazie mille!
– Prego.
– Thanks very much!
– You're welcome.

Similarly, it can means 'that's quite alright' – whether someone's thanking you for something that's no big deal or asking your forgiveness.

– Mi scuso per il ritardo.
– Prego.
– Sorry I'm late.
– It's fine.

But prego can also take on the sense of 'please' – when you're encouraging someone to make themselves at home, for instance, or inviting them to follow you. Think of this version as 'you're welcome to [do something]'.

Ne prenda ancora, prego!
Please, have some more!

Prego, si accomodi.
Please, take a seat.

You can also use prego this same way to assent when someone asks you for permission – like 'yes, please do'. 

– Posso prenderlo?
– Prego!
– Can I take it?
– Please do!

It all makes sense when you consider where prego comes from: the verb pregare, which means 'to pray' or 'to beseech'. Remember how in English you sometimes hear “pray tell”? It's effectively “please tell” – just the same as Italian, but we use it a lot less nowadays.

Prego is the first person singular ('I pray'), but you might encounter it in other conjugations in formal Italian, when someone's making a really polite request. 

La pregherei di non fumare.
I would beseech you to please refrain from smoking.

When you use a pronoun, it turns prego into more of a supplication: 'I beg you'.

Ti prego, non farlo!
Don’t do it, I beg you!

But to go back to plain old prego, there's one final use that comes in very handy.

You can also use it to ask someone politely to repeat themselves when you haven't understood: like saying 'pardon?'

Come ha detto, prego?
What did she say, pardon?

Do you have an Italian word you'd like us to feature? If so, please email our editor George Mills with your suggestion.

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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Le Havre rules: How to talk about French towns beginning with Le, La or Les

If you're into car racing, French politics or visits to seaside resorts you are likely at some point to need to talk about French towns with a 'Le' in the title. But how you talk about these places involves a slightly unexpected French grammar rule. Here's how it works.

Published: 30 November 2021 13:04 CET
Updated: 4 December 2021 17:47 CET
An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre.
An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre. It can be difficult to know what prepositions to use for places like this - so we have explained it for you. (Photo by AFP)

If you’re listening to French chat about any of those topics, at some point you’re likely to hear the names of Mans, Havre and Touquet bandied about.

And this is because French towns that have a ‘Le’ ‘La’ or ‘Les’ in the title lose them when you begin constructing sentences. 

As a general rule, French town, commune and city names do not carry a gender. 

So if you wanted to describe Paris as beautiful, you could write: Paris est belle or Paris est beau. It doesn’t matter what adjectival agreement you use. 

For most towns and cities, you would use à to evoke movement to the place or explain that you are already there, and de to explain that you come from/are coming from that location:

Je vais à Marseille – I am going to Marseille

Je suis à Marseille – I am in Marseille 

Je viens de Marseille – I come from Marseille 

But a select few settlements in France do carry a ‘Le’, a ‘La’ or a ‘Les’ as part of their name. 

In this case the preposition disappears when you begin formulating most sentences, and you structure the sentence as you would any other phrase with a ‘le’, ‘la’ or ‘les’ in it.

Masculine

Le is the most common preposition for two names (probably something to do with the patriarchy) with Le Havre, La Mans, Le Touquet and the town of Le Tampon on the French overseas territory of La Réunion (more on that later)

A good example of this is Le Havre, a city in northern France where former Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, who is tipped to one day run for the French presidency, serves as mayor. 

Edouard Philippe’s twitter profile describes him as the ‘Maire du Havre’, using a masculine preposition

Here we can see that his location is Le Havre, and his Twitter handle is Philippe_LH (for Le Havre) but when he comes to describe his job the Le disappears.

Because Le Havre is masculine, he describes himself as the Maire du Havre rather than the Maire de Havre (Anne Hidalgo, for example would describe herself as the Maire de Paris). 

For place names with ‘Le’ in front of them, you should use prepositions like this:

Ja vais au Touquet – I am going to Le Touquet

Je suis au Touquet – I am in Le Touquet 

Je viens du Touquet – I am from Le Touquet 

Je parle du Touquet – I am talking about Le Touquet

Le Traité du Touquet – the Le Touquet Treaty

Feminine

Some towns carry ‘La’ as part of their name. La Rochelle, the scenic town on the west coast of France known for its great seafood and rugby team, is one such example.

In French ‘à la‘ or ‘de la‘ is allowed, while ‘à le‘ becomes au and ‘de le’ becomes du. So for ‘feminine’ towns such as this, you should use the following prepositions:

Je vais à La Rochelle – I am going to La Rochelle

Je viens de La Rochelle – I am coming from La Rochelle 

Plural

And some places have ‘Les’ in front of their name, like Les Lilas, a commune in the suburbs of Paris. The name of this commune literally translates as ‘The Lilacs’ and was made famous by Serge Gainsbourg’s song Le Poinçonneur des Lilas, about a ticket puncher at the Metro station there. 

When talking about a place with ‘Les’ as part of the name, you must use a plural preposition like so:

Je suis le poinçonneur des Lilas – I am the ticket puncher of Lilas 

Je vais aux Lilas – I am going to Les Lilas

Il est né aux Lilas – He was born in Les Lilas  

Islands 

Islands follow more complicated rules. 

If you are talking about going to one island in particular, you would use à or en. This has nothing to do with gender and is entirely randomised. For example:

Je vais à La Réunion – I am going to La Réunion 

Je vais en Corse – I am going to Corsica 

Generally speaking, when talking about one of the en islands, you would use the following structure to suggest movement from the place: 

Je viens de Corse – I am coming from Corsica 

For the à Islands, you would say:

Je viens de La Réunion – I am coming from La Réunion 

When talking about territories composed of multiple islands, you should use aux.

Je vais aux Maldives – I am going to the Maldives. 

No preposition needed 

There are some phrases in French which don’t require any a preposition at all. This doesn’t change when dealing with ‘Le’ places, such as Le Mans – which is famous for its car-racing track and Motorcycle Grand Prix. Phrases that don’t need a preposition include: 

Je visite Le Mans – I am visiting Le Mans

J’aime Le Mans – I like Le Mans

But for a preposition phrase, the town becomes simply Mans, as in Je vais au Mans.

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