Heather Broster
The greatest turning point in history for the human species was the discovery of fire, or fuoco in Italian (masculine, plural: fuochi). Mi sono seduto vicino al fuoco per scaldarmi. I sat beside the fire to warm myself up. In a figurative sense, fuoco can also be translated as hearth or flame (in the sense of …
In situations where you aren’t entirely thrilled with the status quo or the outcome of a situation, but have resigned yourself to accepting it for what it is, you might want to use the phrase È così! in Italian. This expression usually translates as It is what it is! or That’s how it is/things are! …
Whereas in English, we have separate words for grandson, granddaughter, grandchild, nephew and niece, in Italian, there is just one word that covers them all: nipote (plural: nipoti). In order to figure out which relative is being referred to, it helps to pay attention to the gender of the article or possessive adjective that precedes …
Winter – or inverno (masculine, plural: inverni) in Italian – is the coldest season of the year due to the Earth‘s axis being oriented away from the sun. It occurs between autumn (autunno) and spring (primavera) each year. When it is winter in the Northern Hemisphere (emisfero nord), it is summer in the Southern Hemisphere …
The name both Italians and English speakers give to the delicious toasted Italian bread covered in olive oil, garlic or tomatoes is bruschetta (feminine, plural: bruschette). Learn how to pronounce “bruschetta” with our video You may be wondering why today’s ‘word of the day’ is an Italian word that also exists in the English language. …
In English, we have one adverb of place to describe the location of something close to us – here – and another to describe the location of something further away – there. This is why many learners are surprised to learn that four different adverbs exist in Italian: qui and qua (the equivalents of here) …