Valentine’s Day, known as San Valentino in Italian, is a special occasion celebrated in many countries around the world. It is a time to express your deepest love and affection towards your romantic partner in life.
If you want to impress your Italian partner or friends, you can greet them with the phrase Buon San Valentino which means Happy Valentine’s Day in Italian. In this article, we will take a closer look at this phrase, as well as other romantic Italian phrases to make your loved one feel extra special.
Buon San Valentino!
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Buon, the contracted form of buono, is an adjective in Italian that means good, but when used in a greeting such as this one, it means happy or merry. Buono becomes buon whenever it immediately precedes a masculine singular noun.
Speaking of contracted forms, we also have San which comes from santo (saint). You can think of it as the equivalent of St. in English.
The meaning of the word Valentino is obvious even if you don’t know Italian. The history of the saint himself, on the other hand, is shrouded in mystery and legend. It is believed that San Valentino was a Christian priest who lived in the third century AD in Rome. During this time, Emperor Claudius II had banned marriages because he felt married men made bad soldiers. Despite this, Valentine secretly performing marriages for young couples in love, defying the emperor’s orders. Alas, things did not end well for our dear saint. He was arrested and imprisoned, and ultimately executed on February 14th, which is now celebrated as la Festa di San Valentino (Valentine’s Day).
In addition to wishing your beloved a Buon San Valentino, you may also want to woo them with your impressive Italian language skills. Below you’ll find a link to our article about the most romantic Italian phrases, which you can memorise and use with your partner at any time. Enjoy!
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.
