Sunday, March 07, 2010

Jaipur al Italiano

Scrabblette and I (and Miss Jane) are learning Italian for some reason which is not clear to me. We're very enthusiastic about at the moment, and I'm trying to use it as an excuse to play games whenever I can. This morning we played Straw with Italian scoring. I've been wanting to show Jaipur to Scrabblette, so this evening with the help of il dizionario I tried to teach her how to play in Italian. I've only had two lessons of Italian For Travellers, so this was what we call at work a "stretch target". Anyway, it went like this (see how much you can follow).

Jaipur. gioco di carte, per due giocatori (gioco = game)
tre rotondo, tre punti di vittorio, una punto di vottorio, per rotondo (rotondo = round)
carte di colori - giallo, rosso, grigio, marrone, viola, verde
tessere di colori - giallo, rosso, grigio, marrone, viola, verde (tessere = tiles)
tessere - una punto, due punti, tre punti, etc.
qui è mercato. tre i mercato (mercato = market, cammelli = camels)
ogni guiocatore cinque carte (ogni = each)
ogni giacotore una pila di cammelli qui (pila = pile)
ogni turno quattro opzione (turno = turn)
opzione uno - prendo una carta di mercato, no cammello (prendo = take)
opzione due - prendo tutto cammello a pila di cammello
opzione tre - scambiare carte di foglio è cammello per carte di colori del mercato (scambiare = exchange, foglio = hand)
foglio sette carte!
opzione quattro - comprare carte di una colore per tessere di punti di colore (comprare = buy)
tre carte, tessera gratifico tre; quattro carte, tessera gratifico quattro, etc. (gratifico = bonus)
tre pila vuoto, rotondo finere (vuoto = empty, finire = finish)
più cammello, cinque punti. (più = more)
contere punti. più punti vinceri una punto di vittorio (vincere = win, contere = count)
due punti di vittorio, tu vinceri!

So with a lot of pointing and guessing and repetition Scrabblette got the hang of it. The first round was a big win to me as Scrabblette struggled to learn the rules and figure out a strategy. The second round, she monopolised the camels and kept me low on cards and she managed a narrow win. In the ultimo rotondo she didn't notice I was going to end the round, and I ripped her off for enough points to win the round and the game.

Even if you don't speak Italian, or aspire to, Jaipur is a great game. It very much fills the role of Lost Cities, with a little bit more character. Sébastien Pauchon looks like becoming a very good designer, even though he's not Italian at all :-).


5 comments:

Unknown said...

So, where to begin… from the title, of course! I don’t know what you wanted to say, but “Jaipur al Italiano” doesn’t mean anything. Maybe you wanted to say “Jaipur in Italiano”: “in” is the same in both Italian and English. Or you could have said: “Jaipur giocato in Italiano” which means “Jaipur played in Italian”. The verb is “giocare” that means “to play”. Some examples:
Io gioco -> I play
Tu giochi -> You play
Egli/ella gioca (but when you talk you always say, instead: lui/lei gioca) -> he, she plays
Noi giochiamo -> We play
Voi giocate -> You play
Essi giocano (again, when you talk you say: loro giocano)
La settimana scorsa giocammo a Jaipur -> Last week we played Jaipur
Ieri sera abbiamo giocato a Jaipur -> Last night we played Jaipur (but “ieri” means yesterday, and “sera” means evening: in Italian you sya night only when you refer to the hours people usually sleep, so let’s say after midnight)
And now, some corrections to your translation… Some of you phrases, literally translated, sound really hilarious in Italian! 
>Jaipur. gioco di carte, per due giocatori (gioco = game)
Perfect translation!
>tre rotondo, tre punti di vittorio, una punto di vottorio, per rotondo (rotondo = round)
You’re right when you say rotondo=round, but round as an adjective! For example: a round table=”un tavolo rotondo”. If want to say “round of a game” you must say “turno” or you can also say “round” which is sometimes used in Italian, too.
Then, “Vittorio” is the name of a friend of mine, and victory points is translated as “punti vittoria”.
So, your phrase is: “Tre turni, tre punti vittoria, un punto vittoria per turno”.
>carte di colori - giallo, rosso, grigio, marrone, viola, verde
Ok, but you say “carte di colore”, singular.
>tessere di colori - giallo, rosso, grigio, marrone, viola, verde (tessere = tiles)
Again, you must say “tessere di colore”
>tessere - una punto, due punti, tre punti, etc.
“Punto” is masculine, so it’s “un punto”.
> guiocatore
No.
> giacotore
No, again: it’s “giocatore”
ogni turno quattro opzione (turno = turn)
“Opzione” is singular. It’s plural is “opzioni”
>opzione uno - prendo una carta di mercato, no cammello (prendo = take)
You can say “carta-mercato” or “carta del mercato”, but not carta di mercato. However many strangers who talk Italian use “di” instead of “del” (di+il), “dello” (di+lo”), “della” (di+la), etc. because it’s easier. I don’t think Italian is an easy language.
>foglio = hand
No: “foglio”=sheet (of paper), while hand is “mano”.
>gratifico = bonus
“Gratificare” means to renard, and bonus is also used in Italian.
>tre pila vuoto, rotondo finere (vuoto = empty, finire = finish)
You’re right with the translation of the words, but the phrese should read: “Tre pile vuote, finisce il round” (the presento f “finire” is: io finisco, tu finisci, egli finisce, noi finiamo, voi finite, essi finiscono).
>contere = count)
“Contare”=to count.
However, nice job foro ne who is just approaching the Italian language! Bye!

Nick

Friendless said...

Thank you for your comments Nicola! Many of the points you make haven't been covered in lessons yet - we've done counting, saying hello, and ordering coffee, and that's almost all. We haven't done any prepositions (al, in, di, del) so I admit I had to guess those, and that's why they were so random. In fact, we haven't even done verbs except as they occur in phrases, so we know to say "piacere" when we meet someone, but we haven't been told that that's part of a verb which presumably goes something like "io piacero / tu piaceri / lei piacere". "Egli" and "ella" I had never heard of until now. So now you can see how much guessing was involved in the things I was saying :-).

Many games have the concept of a round and a turn. A turn is when one player gets to do something, a round is when every player gets to do something. I needed to make the distinction between the two so I found "rotondo" in the dictionary. I will use it in future to describe "un giocatore rotondo" :-). In Italian, what would be the plural of "round"?

As for the mis-spellings of "giocatore", I blame the vino rosso grossolano. When I become more familiar with the words I'll notice when I mis-spell them.

I should have known "mano"! Can that word be used for a hand of cards as well? For some reason I found "foglio" in the dictionary. Similarly with "gratifico" - Scrabblette suggested bonus may not be an Italian word, so I looked up an alternative. I was also looking for relevant words in the Gonzaga rules. maybe I saw it there.

This project has been quite successful so far, so we might do it with some more games. Thank you for your help.

gerrod said...

Curious, why Italian, and not something a bit more global - like Spanish? Como estas? Dos cervesa, por favor!

Friendless said...

Because Scrabblette said. I voted for Hindi (which she already knows) or Russian, but I got out-voted.

Unknown said...

> "piacere" when we meet someone, but we haven't been told that that's part of a verb which
>presumably goes something like "io piacero / tu piaceri / lei piacere"

Well, not exactly as it's an irregular verb. I think we have more irregular than regulars verbs... ;-) However, saying "piacere" when you meet someone is, again, an idiom because the verb means "to like". You use il this way:

Mi piace mangiare --> I like eating (litteraly translated: "It likes myself eating"... we use that verb this way)

>Many games have the concept of a round and a turn.

I know, and that's the reason why we Italians too use the word "round". Yet, it's not a word typical for boardgames: for example, we have rounds in boxing matches, too.

>I found "rotondo" in the dictionary. I will use it in future to describe "un giocatore rotondo" :-).

Yeah, you got it!

>In Italian, what would be the plural of "round"?

Rotondo --> rotondi

In Italian you always (well, not sure it's really always, however I can't find an exception now) make the plural by replacing the final vowel in words with a "i" for masculine and with a "e" for feminine.

>I should have known "mano"! Can that word be used for a hand of cards as well?

Yes, it can.

>This project has been quite successful so far, so we might do it with some more games.
>Thank you for your help.

Feel free to ask for my help as many time as you want, even though I can't grand a quick answer every time.
And feel also free to correct my English: I'll appreciate!
Bye!

Nick