A tale of 2 related adverbs: a malapena and appena

By Sigrid Lee

Let's check out this great Italian two-word adverb: a malapena. We rarely, if ever, see malapena without its preposition, so we can almost think of it as one word. Let's look at some examples in context to absorb its meaning, and then we'll unpack it.

In this first example, Imma, the deputy public prosecutor of the city of Matera, is at a dinner party at the home of one of her colleagues, the last place she wanted to be, and in fact, some of the other guests are making disparaging remarks about her.

Pensare che parlava a malapena l'italiano e mò [lucano: ora] è diventata pure PM [Pubblico Ministero].

Just think that she barely spoke Italian and now she has even become a public prosecutor.

Captions 55-56, Imma Tataranni Sostituto procuratore S1 EP2 Come piante fra sassi - Part 10
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In this wonderful film for TV, based on a true story about teaching adults how to read and write on TV, Antonio argues with the school principal criticizing his teaching methods. He defends himself by asking her why his methods work, while hers clearly don't.

Mi sa spiegare perché a malapena sanno leggere e scrivere?

Can you explain to me why they can barely read and write?

Captions 62-63, Non è mai troppo tardi EP 2 - Part 5
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In La tempesta, a comedy set in the Venetian city of Treviso, Paolo, a photographer, knocks at the door of his new neighbor (a woman), wanting a favor. She doesn't want to open the door.

No, io a malapena ti conosco. No. -Va bene, allora facciamo le presentazioni:

No. I hardly know you. No. -All right, then let's introduce ourselves.

Captions 50-51, La Tempesta film - Part 1
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In the next example, the context is a bit different, as we are talking about the number of bottles of wine a new winery has produced.

Cavour impiega almeno una quindicina di anni per riuscire a produrre le prime bottiglie. Sono a malapena cento.

Cavour takes at least fifteen years to succeed in producing the first bottles. There were barely a hundred of them.

Captions 38-40, Meraviglie EP. 5 - Part 2
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If we look up a malapena in the dictionary, we find some synonyms: a stento, a fatica, con fatica. But if we do a little more digging, we see it also means appena. If we look for the etymology, we find that malapena is malo (an adjective meaning "bad" or an adverb meaning "badly") plus pena. While la pena is a noun meaning "suffering," a malapena likely comes from appena, from the Latin "ad paene," meaning "almost." In addition, the verb penare means "to struggle." One translation of a malapena is "with difficulty." The evolution of a word, as we have seen on many occasions, is not a straight line!

So we could say a malapena means "almost" but in the negative sense, in other words, "barely." We can use it when we have gone further than "almost," but just by a hair. You made it, but you almost didn't make it! And it took an effort, a struggle, to make it by that small margin.

So if we take our video examples, one by one, we could give these alternative (though inelegant) translations:

"She almost didn't speak Italian." "She struggled to speak Italian."

"They almost don't know how to read and write." "They struggle to read and write."

"I almost don't know you."

"There were almost less than a hundred bottles." "It was a struggle to reach one hundred bottles."

We could use appena in place of a malapena in our video examples (see above):

Pensare che parlava appena l'italiano...

Mi sa spiegare perché sanno appena leggere e scrivere?

No, io ti conosco appena.

Sono appena cento [bottiglie].

Using a malapena instead of appena gives the idea more weight, more effort to reach a limit. With mal as a sort of prefix (meaning malo), there is also a hint of a negative connotation.

In a previous lesson, we looked at the adverb appena in a different context to mean "as soon as" and "just as." But we also use appena to mean "a small amount." Almost nothing!

In the following example, we can keep to the "almost" meaning by thinking that they almost didn't know each other!

Lui e lei si sono appena conosciuti, ma già si amano.

He and she just met, but they already love each other.

Captions 6-7, Adriano Olivetti La forza di un sogno Ep. 1 - Part 19
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Appena in tempo, translated as "just in time," could also be interpreted as "almost late."

"Basta!" -Appena in tempo.

"Stop!" -Just in time.

Caption 33, Dixiland Coppa di cioccolato
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Here is an example of appena used just like a malapena.

Lo conoscevo proprio appena, perché vivo in Italia da un anno e...

I barely knew him, because I've been living in Italy for a year, and...

Caption 8, Il Commissario Manara S1EP7 - Sogni di Vetro - Part 3
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I almost didn't know him, because...

To round out this lesson about a malapena and appena, let's just add that when you are talking about something very, very slight, it's common to repeat the adverb appena.

Qui ci sono ancora le tracce del colore originario che si riescono appena appena a vedere.

Here, there are still traces of the original color which one can just barely see.

Captions 13-14, In giro per l'Italia Asciano - S. Giuliano Terme: Villa Bosniascki - Part 2
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For sure, appena is used more often than a malapena, but now we see where they cross paths. Do a Yabla search of appena on the videos page and you will see scores of examples. See if you can single out the nuances of meaning.

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Topics Adverbs Vocabulary

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