Heather Broster
If you’re anything like me, you probably spend much of the day on social media platforms such as Twitter, laughing at the funny interactions, rolling your eyes at the often pointless debates or just mindlessly scrolling. But did you know that Twitter can actually serve as a great tool for learning a new language? 😀 …
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that tesoro (masculine, plural: tesori) is the Italian word for treasure! The origin of both terms can be traced back to the Greek word thesauros (storehouse, treasure). Il pirata aveva seppellito il tesoro prima di morire. The pirate buried the treasure before he died. However what …
If you’ve been learning Italian for a while now, you may already be familiar with the classic greeting Buongiorno! which is how to say Good day! / Good morning! / Hello! in a formal context. Buongiorno. Come sta? Good morning! How are you? If you want to explicitly wish someone a good day however, it …
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 …