After the release of the song “Hello, Pronto” on the Russian stage, people began to show interest in this foreign word. It is often found in the languages of the Romanesque group: Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese. It has several meanings and can be used as an adjective and adverb. What is “prono” and where is it appropriate to use it, we will examine in more detail.
Pronto in Italian
The word is far from new and it can be seen in the names of firms, outlets and various products. In particular, it has almost the same meaning in people of many nationalities.
Going on a trip to Italy, we immediately guess what pronto is, because Italians use this word when they start a telephone conversation. Therefore, it 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 by –a, and even if a woman picks up the phone, she speaks prono. The translation from Italian reads “ready, prepared”, unlike our “hello”, which no longer performs any functions in the Russian language.
Grammar
If a foreigner wants to use the word "prono" as an adjective, one must take into account the affiliation of the described subject. When the object is masculine, we speak prono, when the feminine is prono. And do not forget that the Italian language is very clear, you need to pronounce all the letters "o", even unstressed, otherwise you can get into a funny situation. "Pronto" as an adjective can occur in the following expressions:
- Pronto per partire (prono peer partire). Ready to leave.
- Pronto per il test (prono per il test). Ready for the test.
- La colazione pronta (la colazione pronta). Ready breakfast. (Here the ending changes to –a, since the “breakfast” in the Italian language is feminine).
As an adjective, the word "prono" can also be used in the meaning of "fast, agile, fast, prone to rapid movements and actions." For example, an ambulance - pronto soccorso (prono Soccorso). And the role of the adverb is prontamente (pronamente), which means "quickly, immediately, instantly."
Pronto in romance languages
With Italian sorted out. And what is prononto in other representatives of the romance group? This word has the same meaning, since languages are related. In Spanish, pronto is used both with the verb ester (to be), which means "to be prepared, ready for something or ready to do something", and as an independent word (adjective or adverb).
In French, prono has the meaning of "urgent, fast." If you ask the Portuguese what pronto is, they will answer that with this word they begin their telephone conversations, like Italians, describe objects (ready, fast) and use them as an adverb (immediately, urgently).
And the presence of the words that are identical in meaning and sound in a conversation between representatives of different nationalities is explained by the fact that the above languages have a common ancestor (Latin) and are part of the Romanesque group of dialects and dialects.