Heather Broster
The word for onion in Italian is cipolla (feminine, plural: cipolle). They are a key ingredient in Italian cooking along with garlic, olive oil and tomatoes. Onions can be divided into three broad categories – red onions (cipolle rosse), white onions (cipolle bianche) and copper onions (cipolle ramate) – and within these categories, there are …
When talking about the dark as it relates to nighttime or the absence of light, Italians use the adjective buio. The ending of buio changes depending on the gender and number of the subject it modifies. For example: Just as in English, buio can be used in a figurative sense to describe a troublesome or …
The terms ocean and oceano (masculine, plural: oceani), which derive from the Greek ōkeanos, refer to the largest expanses of salt water on the earth’s surface. Just as in English, Italians often refer to the ocean as il mare (the sea), even though technically seas are smaller in size and have different geological characteristics. There …
Arancione (plural: arancioni) is the word for the colour orange in Italian. It derives from the word arancia which is what Italians call the fruit of the same name. Questa arancia è più verde che arancione. Non sarà ancora matura. This orange is more green than orange. It probably isn’t ripe. The word arancio translates …
Traditionally, in Italy, people have four meals a day: colazione (breakfast), pranzo (lunch), merenda (afternoon snack) and cena (dinner or supper). By adding the suffix -one onto the end of cena, you get the word cenone meaning big supper. Cenare is the verb meaning to have supper or to dine whereas dinnertime translates as ora …
In Italian, there are two main ways you can translate the word now. One is ora and the second is adesso. ora adesso For all intents and purposes, ora and adesso are synonyms in modern day Italian, and swapping one for the other will rarely sound strange to the native ear. Ora derives from the …