Heather Broster
The word for trousers or pants in Italian is pantaloni. If you find yourself struggling to remember this term, simply think of the English word pantaloons! Both the Italian pantaloni and English pantaloons derive from the French pantalon, which in turn owes its name to the famous Commedia dell’Arte character, Pantalone, whose costume consists of …
Many tenses in Italian are formed by combining an auxiliary verb – either avere (to have) or essere (to be) – with the past participle of the main verb. These so-called compound tenses include the passato prossimo (present perfect), trapassato prossimo (pluperfect), futuro anteriore (future perfect), and trapassato remoto (preterite perfect). Whether the main verb …
A staple food of Italian cooking is rice or riso in Italian. In particular, it is used in the popular dish risotto which can be made with any variety of short-grain rice including Aroborio, Carnaroli, Vialone, Nano, and Baldo. Unlike other kinds of rice, the short-grain kind has a higher starch content and absorbs less …
When I was in primary school, our class adopted a pet tartaruga (feminine, plural: tartarughe) and by all accounts, he is still alive and well! 🐢 Below are some different kinds of turtles you may already be familiar with: La tartaruga ha un guscio molto duro. The turtle has a very hard shell. Although the tortoise …
The word for twins in Italian is gemelli (masculine, singular: gemello; feminine, singular: gemella). Whereas in English, we have separate terms for offspring in a multiple birth (twins, triplets, quadruplets, quintuplets, sextuplets, septuplets, octuplets, nonuplets and decuplets), Italian applies the blanket term gemelli regardless of the number. In order to be specific, you must add …
Today’s word is useful on both sunny and rainy days! Ombrello (masculine, plural: ombrelli), which is the word for umbrella in Italian, is the diminutive form of ombra meaning shade and comes from the Latin umbra of the same meaning. The ombrello da pioggia (rain umbrella) can also be called a parapioggia or paracqua in …