Heather Broster
Recent heatwaves in Italy and elsewhere across the world have made one household item absolutely indispensable – il ventilatore, or fan in English. ventilatore fan / ventilator Ventilatore is a masculine noun made of up two parts: the verb ventilare (to air out / ventilate) and the suffix -tore, indicating a person or thing that …
Essere in vena is a very common Italian expression used when you feel inspired to experience or tackle something, or when you feel in the mood to do something. If you are in vena, you are in the best possible frame of mind and body to take on a specific task. essere in vena to …
What do you do when something annoys or discourages you to the point of feeling completely drained? You probably let your arms fall to your sides like dead weight, right? That’s exactly the image behind the Italian expression far cadere le braccia – literally “to make your arms drop,” used when something is so frustrating …
I don’t know about you, but it’s hard for me to imagine a world without the ever-present tastiera, which is the Italian word for keyboard. Back in school in the ’90s, I wrote out all my notes by hand, and there’s plenty of evidence suggesting that this method can improve memory retention. Still, when it …
One of the primary ways we engage with the word is through our mani (hands), or more specifically, our fingers. In Italian, the word for a single digit is the masculine il dito, while the most commonly used plural is the feminine le dita. We will delve deeper into this phenomenon of masculine nouns becoming …
Today we will be investigating a word that has a variety of meanings depending on the context: carico, which comes from the verb caricare (to load / to charge). This verb, in turn, comes from the Late Latin carrĭcare, a derivative of carrus meaning carro (cart / wagon). carico First, let’s get the grammar out of the …