Heather Broster
Today’s word of the day is clacson, which is the word for horn, or more specifically, car horn in Italian. Now, you may be thinking to yourself that clacson doesn’t look very Italian, and you’d be right. This is because it comes from the English word klaxon, a type of electromechanical horn or alerting device …
Soon after our son turned six months old, he went from being a very sociable baby who would flash his gummy smile at pretty much anyone in his immediate vicinity to being extremely shy and appiccicoso, which is the Italian word for clingy / clinging (when figuratively talking about a person) or sticky (when talking …
The word for library in Italian is biblioteca (feminine, plural: biblioteche). Its origin can be traced back to the ancient Greek word βιβλιοθήκη which is a combination of βιβλίον (biblion meaning book) and -θήκη (-theke meaning box or chest). Some different kinds of biblioteche include: Mia cugina lavora in biblioteca da cinque anni. My cousin …
The Italian word for a person one does not know or with whom one is not familiar is sconosciuto if you are talking about a man or sconosciuta for a woman. It is the past participle of sconoscere, a relatively uncommon verb meaning to disown or not want to recognise. The respective plurals are sconosciuti …
C’era una volta… (literally ‘there was a time‘) is a stock phrase in Italian used as an opening line to introduce a narrative of past events, typically in fairy tales for children. It is the equivalent of Once upon a time… in English. Let’s take a look at how this phrase breaks down into its …
The Italian adjective mite (plural: miti), which comes from the Latin mitis of the same meaning, has a number of English translations but in every case, it describes something that lacks severity or harshness. The first translation, mild or temperate, is mostly used to talk about the climate, weather or air. Il Regno Unito ha …