Heather Broster
Today’s Italian phrase will come in handy whenever you find yourself wondering about the mysteries of the universe! Mi chiedo perché. I wonder why. As is customary, let’s break it down into its component parts: Mi chiedo The verb chiedere means to ask but if you drop the -e of its infinitive ending and add …
Today’s word of the day is pianoforte (masculine, plural: pianoforti) which is how you would say piano in Italian. Learn with our video Composed of the words piano and forte (literally ‘soft and loud’), it is an abbreviation of the original name which Bartolomeo Cristofori gave his invention in the early 1700s: gravicembalo col piano …
Gettonato is an adjective that has interesting links to the early days of popular music. Although today it can denote almost anything that is popular or well-liked, it used to refer specifically to popular songs or singers. Learn with our video To understand why, we need to take a deeper look at the origin of …
The verb to walk in English usually translates as camminare in Italian. It derives from the noun cammino (walk, journey) which entered the language from the Latin camminus. Learn with our video Camminare is a regular-first conjugation verb finishing with -are, which means it conjugates in the following manner in the present tense: io camminoI …
The Italian word for wisdom is saggezza (feminine, plural: saggezze). It is derived from the adjective saggio (meaning wise) and can be traced back to the Latin sapere (to know) via the French sage. Learn with our video The expression con saggezza (with wisdom) is often used with the verbs parlare (to speak), agire (to …
If you have a soft spot for sugary foods like chocolate, cakes and candy, an adjective you should add to your Italian lexicon right away is dolce, which means sweet. Learn with our video ‘Dolce’ as an adjective Dolce is one of those adjectives whose form only changes for the plural, not for the gender. …