Heather Broster
The other day, while we were having lunch at our favourite local restaurant in Turin, the waiter—looking more cheerful than usual—came over and asked if he could share a few of his favourite freddure (the Italian word for puns or quips). He proceeded to list three, but we only managed to understand one! freddura pun …
Some Italian words take time to master because they lack a precise or direct equivalent in English. The adverb ormai is a prime example of this. ormai While ormai is commonly translated as now, by now, at this point, nearly, finally, anymore, and already, it’s not always clear when each translation is appropriate. Given its …
A useful idiomatic expression for indicating something is absolutely certain or blatantly obvious is Non ci piove. Non ci piove! No doubt about it! The literal translation of this phrase is It doesn’t rain on it, with piove meaning “it rains” and the particle ci meaning “on it.” Some possible English equivalents include: It’s often …
Imagine you are taking part in a heated discussion at work, and all of a sudden, one of your colleagues forcefully interrupts the conversation in order to assert their opinion. When someone aggressively enters a conversation, debate or discussion without waiting for their turn, you can describe their behaviour with the idiomatic expression entrare a …
At its core, the Italian word gusto refers to the literal sense of taste. It plays a key role in our perception of flavours, working alongside our olfatto, or sense of smell, to create the full experience of taste. gusto taste / flavour Gusto is derived from the Latin gustus of the same meaning. Being …
Today, we’re going to explore one of the most quintessentially Italian words: the adverb and conjunction pure. Like many words in this grammatical category, it has a broad range of translations in English, making it challenging to master in the early stages of learning the language. Let’s see if we can break it down and …