Imagine that your best friend was dumped by his partner a year ago, and despite the passage of time, continues to brood over the break-up. You might be tempted to tell him to come to terms with the separation, or resign himself to the situation, however unpleasant or painful.
In Italian, you can use the idiomatic phrase farsene una ragione in this situation. It can mean “to resign oneself,” “to come to terms with,” “to accept,” “to get over,” or “to deal with” depending on the context.
farsene una ragione
to resign oneself / to come to terms with / to accept
This idiom is made up of two important parts: the pronominal verb farsene and the feminine noun ragione which means reason or motive.
Farsene is the combination of the reflexive verb farsi, which combines the verb fare (to do / to make) and the reflexive pronoun si (oneself), and the particle ne (meaning “of something”). Note that when combined, si becomes se.
Unfortunately, farsene isn’t particularly easy to define on its own, but if we translate it literally, it’s something close to the long-winded “to make use for oneself of it.” (Source: My Italian Diary) In actual speech, you’ll probably hear it translated as one of the following:
- “to be of use”
- “to want with (something)”
- or quite simply “to do”
These verbs are usually said with a hint of exasperation, frustration, confusion, or sarcasm as you will see in the two examples below:
Che cosa me ne faccio di questi occhiali da sole in un giorno come oggi? Sta piovendo!
What am I supposed to do with these sunglasses on a day like today? It’s raining!
What use are these sunglasses on a day like today? It’s raining!
What do I want with these sunglasses on a day like today? It’s raining!
Non so cosa farmene di quest’informazione.
I don’t know what to do with this information.
I have no use for this information.
In the idiom farsene una ragione, however, we are literally saying that we are giving ourselves a reason to understand and resign ourselves to an unpleasant situation. Don’t worry – as is the case with most idioms, it’s best not to overthink them and just learn them off by heart!
Here are a few real-life examples where you’ll encounter this idiom:
- Fattene una ragione! = Deal with it! / Get over it!
- Non sa farsene una ragione. = He doesn’t know how to come to terms with it.
- Quando gli ho dato la notizia, non è riuscito a farsene una ragione. = When I told him the news, he couldn’t accept it.
- Dobbiamo farcene una ragione. = We have to resign ourselves to it.
Heather Broster is a graduate with honours in linguistics from the University of Western Ontario. She is an aspiring polyglot, proficient in English and Italian, as well as Japanese, Welsh, and French to varying degrees of fluency. Originally from Toronto, Heather has resided in various countries, notably Italy for a period of six years. Her primary focus lies in the fields of language acquisition, education, and bilingual instruction.
