Heather Broster
I firmly believe that to truly master a language and make it an integral part of who you are, some form of full immersion is essential. But what exactly does full immersion mean? It’s about living and breathing the language as if it were your native tongue. If you reside in a country where the …
We’ve already covered mountains—montagne—in a previous article, but what about their smaller, humbler cousins? In Italian, the word for hill is collina. collina hill According to Devoto-Oli, the feminine noun collina comes from Late Latin collina, which is the feminine form of the adjective derived from collis (meaning “hill” in Latin). A possible synonym for …
It’s not every day that we come across a word that primarily exists only in its plural form. Occhiali, meaning glasses, originates from the adjective and noun occhiale, which refers to anything related to or designed for the eye. occhiali glasses While occhiale is still used in everyday Italian, it is more common to use …
Here in Wales, where we live, it rains quite a lot, as you can imagine. But since today is a rare sunny day, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to dive into the ever-relevant Italian verb piovere (to rain)! piovere to rain Piovere is an -ERE verb that is only ever conjugated in the …
The word for a person (usually a king or ruler) who holds absolute power, and exercises it in a cruel or oppressive way, is despota in Italian. It comes from the Greek despótēs which was the word for the “master of the house”. In ancient Italian, the word ended in an -o rather than an …
Where we live in Wales, it feels like there’s a castle around every corner. But Italy, too, boasts its fair share of stunning castles, my favourite being Castel dell’Ovo in Naples! As you may have guessed, the Italian word for castle is castello. castello castle Castello is derived directly from the Latin castellum, which is …