After the release of the song "Hello, pronto" on the Russian stage, people became interested in this foreign word. It is often found in Romance languages: Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese. It has several meanings and can be used as an adjective and adverb. Let's take a closer look at what "pronto" is and where it is appropriate to use it.
Pronto in Italian
The word is far from new and can be seen in the names of companies, outlets and various products. In particular, it has almost the same meaning in people of many nationalities.
Going on a trip to Italy, we will immediately guess what pronto is, because Italians use this word when starting a telephone conversation. Therefore, this is an analogue of our Russian "hello".
An interesting fact: regardless of the gender of the speaker, the ending of the adjective does not change to -a, and even if a woman picks up the phone, she speaks pronto. The translation from Italian reads "ready, prepared", as opposed tofrom our "hello", which no longer performs any functions in Russian.
Grammar
If a foreigner wants to use the word "pronto" as an adjective, you need to take into account the belonging of the described subject. When the object is masculine, we say pronto; when the object is feminine, we say pronta. And do not forget that the Italian language is very clear, you need to pronounce all the letters "o", even unstressed ones, otherwise you can get into a funny situation. "Pronto" as an adjective can occur in the following expressions:
- Pronto per partire (pronto per partire). Ready to go.
- Pronto per il test (pronto peer il test). Ready for the test.
- La colazione pronta (la colazione pronta). Ready breakfast. (Here the ending changes to -a, as "breakfast" is feminine in Italian.)
As an adjective, the word "pronto" can also be used in the meaning of "quick, agile, quick, prone to quick movements and actions." For example, an ambulance is pronto soccorso (pronto soccorso). And the role of the adverb is prontamente (prontamente), which means "quickly, immediately, instantly."
Pronto in Romance languages
Italian is sorted out. And what is pronto in other representatives of the Romanesque group? This word has the same meaning, since the languages are related. In Spanish, pronto is used as with the verb ester (to be), which means to be prepared, ready for something or ready to dosomething”, and as an independent word (adjective or adverb).
In French, pronto has the meaning "urgently, quickly." If you ask the Portuguese what a pronto is, they will answer that they start their telephone conversations with this word, like the Italians, describe objects (ready, fast) and use it as an adverb (immediately, urgently).
And the presence of words that are identical in meaning and sound in the conversation of representatives of different nationalities is explained by the fact that the above languages have a common ancestor (Latin) and are included in the Romance group of adverbs and dialects.
