Interesting - "Farà mica paura?"

@morbrorper Ciao, I wrote about this one but cannot find it anywhere. Piero in our Italian club approves of “Won’t it be a bit scary?” That tricky word “mica” = a scrap, a crumb, tiny bit.

Hope you don’t mind a repost. A dopo … Floria

7 Likes

‘Mica’ is a tough one. It would help to watch a few youtube videos about it to clarify.

The way i think about it, is that it’s equivalent to the word “even” when the sentence is set in a negative context.

I believe it’s latin for crumb. It may be used sometimes to actually mean ‘crumb’, but I’ve never seen it.

“Will it even be scary?”
“Will it be scary at all?”

Sometimes it could mean ‘hardly’.

“I could hardly hear him”.
“I couldn’t even hear him.”

Both of these sentences could use ‘mica’ in italian. I would say “Non riuscivo mica a sentirlo” if I absolutely needed to, but I’m only 80% sure of the word order in that sentence.

5 Likes

“Mica” is originally a small part of bigger thing, a splinter of marble, a grain of salt or most commonly a small piece of bread.

I think " a bit" is the perfect translation, because it is the same mental image: It is what you have after you have bitten off a piece of a bigger thing (don’t try it with marble :grinning:).

BTW. it is the same in German: “Ein bisschen” = “ein kleiner Biss” = “a small bite”

5 Likes

Both very helpful. I found this in some recent reading “Non sono mica scemi” - I’m not that stupid, and “Non ho mica intenzione…” - I have absolutely no intention…, and lastly “Mica è colpa mia” - It’s not my fault! and “Mica male” - not bad.

Hope this hasn’t confused - just couldn’t resist adding them to the mix. I’ve popped mica into various bits of writing and nobody has taken me to task yet…

A dopo :wink: and always happy to be corrected.

4 Likes