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Questo sito è straordinario! Peccato che l'ho scoperto tardi... recupererò il tempo perduto.

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Questo sito è straordinario! Peccato che l'ho scoperto tardi... recupererò il tempo perduto.

This site looks extraordinary. It's I pity I didn't know about it before today... I'll make up for the lost time.

Wouldn't "is" be better translation than "looks" in the first sentence?

And 'it's a pity' instead of 'it's I pity'...

I recently had to follow some (pretty useless) lectures about 'creativity in academic writing', where the lecturer kept on stressing our insane need to replace the verb "to be" with more elaborate forms, to make its meaning milder or to make the sentence sound better: e.g. "scientific evidence suggests/shows that Pluto is smaller than the Moon", instead of "Pluto is smaller than the Moon". And also, nothing "is" extraordinary: it just "seems" so.
I didn't like the lectures at all, and therefore I'm now leading a personal crusade in favour of replacing the verb "to be" with milder or more accurate forms whenever it's needed.

(but consider that the lectures were about the Italian language; in English I'm much more comfortable using the verb "to be"...)

WinstonSmith wrote:(but consider that the lectures were about the Italian language; in English I'm much more comfortable using the verb "to be"...)

Your apparent meaning, that even though the lectures confined themselves to the Italian language, you still feel more comfortable in English when using more direct verbal forms to express existence or lack of such existence, leads me to believe that although you speak English well, perhaps some aspects of its usage may be unfamiliar to you. In particular, expressing a definite opinion on any subject whatsoever, may, in polite circles, cause no little embarrassment. To avoid such humiliation, or even social ostracism, the well-educated Englishman will never express an opinion, no matter how firmly held, that may cause offence simply by the fact that it contradicts that of another. Example:
Man 1: "How's your wife?"
Man 2: "Elizabeth? She's fine!"
Man 1: "Elizabeth? But I could have sworn her name was Emily!"
Man 2: "Well, I think it's Elizabeth, but then again I could be mistaken.."
Man 1: "No, no, I'm sure you're right, she's called Elizabeth, but I was sure.."
Man 2: "No, come to think of it some people do call her Emma.."
--the conversation last twenty more minutes before it transpires that Man 2 is not married at all.

This is a matter of meaning; mine was rather a matter of "different ways to express the same idea".

Man 1: "How's your wife?" ---> Italian: "Come sta sua moglie?" (stare = to feel)
Man 2: "Elizabeth? She's fine!" ---> "Sta bene!" (again, to feel, and not to be)

...and so on
Anyway you're right, I don't know English to such an extent!

Actually, the whole response was a (poor) attempt at a joke: the first paragraph was just an attempt to write a paragraph without using the verb "to be". The dialogue following was just an extreme example of how the English consider it rather impolite to be certain about anything at all (or at least to avoid offense by seeming to be certain). Your example of

"scientific evidence suggests/shows that Pluto is smaller than the Moon", instead of "Pluto is smaller than the Moon"

is a classic example of this, and actually sounds very English to my ears!.

But I could be wrong.

's is a short for "is". Therefore, the example is broken

no, no, no, just the first paragraph is the example .... unless I'm very much mistaken

Why we have to speak English, if England is outside of Europe?

Let's speak Esperanto!

Or, perhaps, why don't open a "latini topicum"?
(One of those days, I will do it)

EDIT 2 Yes, I edited because I wrote "is" for a mistake, I corrected in "if". Now I have edited twice

Pauci nostrum vel linguam latinam vel linguam esperantam apprehenderunt.

Gauss wrote:Pauci nostrum vel linguam latinam vel linguam esperantam apprehenderunt.

Pauci, sed pugnaces!
Anglorum lingua totum mundum pervadit, sed minores partes superstes erunt

claudio vda wrote:Or, perhaps, why don't open a [new] "latini topicum"?

Gauss wrote:something written a that uses mother unintelligible in language no-one as language

You're OFF-TOPIC!!!!

androl wrote: You're OFF-TOPIC!!!!

Opss! I'm sorry, but I think all this topis is off-topic, isn't it?.

But you are right, stop with the latin discussion here

PS: I didn't understood at all your English traduction of Gauss' message: maybe in Latin it was better for me

EDIT PPS: but THIS topic is a sort of off-topic, why we can't discuss of Latin? We have discuss of English and the original was "EBT is beatiful"
What the moderators say?