Recent heatwaves in Italy and elsewhere across the world have made one household item absolutely indispensable – il ventilatore, or fan in English.
ventilatore
fan / ventilator
Ventilatore is a masculine noun made of up two parts: the verb ventilare (to air out / ventilate) and the suffix -tore, indicating a person or thing that performs an action. Here are its definite and indefinite articles:
- il ventilatore = the fan
- i ventilatori = the fans
- un ventilatore = a fan
- dei ventilatori = some fans
Whereas in English, a ventilator normally refers to a machine used medically to support the breathing of a person, ventilatore in Italian is used equally to mean fan, the device used to cool down a space, and ventilator, the medical device.
Here are a few verbs you’ll often see used with ventilatore:
- accendere il ventilatore = to turn on the fan
- spegnere il ventilatore = to turn off the fan
- regolare (la velocità) del ventilatore = to adjust (the speed) of the fan
- mettere il ventilatore (al massimo / minimo) = to set the fan (to maximum / minimum)
Punta il ventilatore verso di me! Ho così caldo…
Turn the fan towards me! I’m so warm…
While most people own at least one ventilatore, l’aria condizionata (air conditioning) isn’t nearly as popular, at least not in Europe. This is rapidly changing, however, with summers becoming increasingly unbearable due to il cambiamento climatico (climate change).
One kind of fan I’d personally love to own is the ventilatore da soffitto (ceiling fan) but I’ve had to settle for two compact ventilatori elettrici (electric fans). At least they do the job!
Another translation you might hear for the word fan in Italian is ventola, but they differ significantly in size, function, and application. A ventola is a smaller, often unseen fan built into a larger system and its primary job is to cool down equipment or force air through specific channels (think PC cases, ovens, car engines, and so on). A ventilatore, on the other hand, is a standalone appliance designed for ventilation or heavy-duty industrial air circulation.
Dobbiamo comprare un nuovo ventilatore perché il nostro si è rotto.
We need to buy a new fan because ours broke.
And what about those small hand-held, accordion-like fans that are especially popular in Asia? These are known as ventagli (sing. ventaglio).
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.
