Heather Broster
March marks the beginning of spring (primavera). The weather starts to warm up, flowers begin to bloom, and the days grow longer. Marzo is the third month (terzo mese) of the year according to the Julian and Gregorian calendars. As is the case with all months of the year, marzo isn’t capitalised in Italian as …
If you are brimming with confidence before a difficult task or simply feel ready to take on any challenge the world throws your way, here is the perfect Italian phrase for you! 🙂 Ce la faccio! is the way Italians say I can do it! It comes from the pronominal verb farcela, meaning to manage …
The Italian word succo (plural: succhi), meaning juice in English, comes from the Latin succus. An easy way to remember this word is to think of the term succulent (full of juice). It is closely related to the verb succhiare meaning to suck, presumably because at the time, people would suck on the fruit to …
The Italian word polizia (feminine, plural: polizie) and the English word police both derive from the Latin word politia, which in turn comes from the Greek word politeia meaning citizenship. Of course today both the Italian and English refer to the civil force of a state, responsible for maintaining public order and preventing crime. La …
A very easy adjective for English speakers to remember in Italian is timido, meaning shy, bashful or timid. Both timido and the English timid derive from the Latin word timidus. As with many adjectives in Italian, the ending tells you whether the subject is masculine or feminine / singular or plural. timido = masculine, singular …
In Italian, the diminutive suffixes -ino / -otto / -etto are often added to the end of animal names to denote their offspring. A good example of this is our word of the day, gattino (masculine, plural: gattini), which means kitten. Gattino is simply the word gatto (cat) with -ino attached to the end. When …