Ciao, Amore

Remember the hardworking farm boy of the Rosetta Stone ads?

He disappeared from magazines about six months ago. But his quixotic saga lives on. In January, Rosetta Stone asked fans to continue the story of the farm boy and the model. By Jan. 29, when the contest ended, there were 286 stories on the Rosetta Stone site, most of them with happy endings.

But wait, there’s more! In December 2008, Minnesota Public Radio’s Jeff Horwich wrote a song about the farm boy/supermodel romance that he performed at a company cabaret. Nice rhyming of “impress her” and “undress her,” Jeff!

And of course there was Ian Frazier’s hilarious parody in the New Yorker:

 

 

Are you aware that stalking a supermodel without her consent is a violation of Italian law?

 

Lei è consapevole che infastidire una top model senza il suo consenso è una violazione della legge italiana?

 

This pocket dictionary of Italian prison slang may be useful to you.

 

Questo dizionario tascabile di gergo carcerario italiano le potrebbe essere utile.

The hardworking farm boy even casts a shadow over a rival language-software company, Instant Immersion, which in recent weeks has been running this homage (oh, all right: low-rent knockoff) in The New York Times:

Yellow background: check. “One chance”: check. Hand-scrawled underscore: check.

Also: Apparently women do not ever buy foreign-language CDs. Nope, it’s totally a heterosexual guy thing. That’s been your experience, right?

Comments

[Nick]

I still remember finding an old ad on the inside cover of a match book that read: "You can learn to speak fluently any one of 66 languages quickly and easily in your own home with...LP records! $39.99/ money back guarantee" I guess things haven't changed much.
Also,maybe I'm wrong, but wouldn't the Spanish woman in the newspaper ad be thinking," Est guy's ningul n farmboy mundo." ? (from babel fish )