Heather Broster
An adverb in Italian that means more or less, approximately or roughly is grossomodo. It may also be written as two words – grosso modo – with grosso meaning large and modo meaning way. grossomodo roughly / approximately Siamo grossomodo a metà strada. We’re approximately halfway there. Grossomodo ci saranno quaranta persone questa sera. There …
In every aspect of life, there are inevitably winners and losers. The word for the former is vincitore, whereas the latter is our word of the day: perdente. perdente loser Perdente is a noun that can be either masculine or feminine. The plural form for both genders is perdenti with an -i on the end. …
Today we’re going to be taking a look at one of my favourite vegetables, the humble yet incredibly tasty carciofo. Unlike many Italian words, the word doesn’t have a Latin origin – rather, it comes from the Arabic kharshuf. It is the word, not only for the edible part of the plant, but also the …
For the first year of my son’s life, he had a fairly strong preference for his father, constantly wanting to be held by him and searching for him when he wasn’t around. Now that he’s older, he has become much more of a mammone, which is the word for a mama’s boy (or mummy’s boy) …
Before moving to Italy, I was completely unfamiliar with the finocchio, an aromatic yellow-flowered plant of the parsley family with feathery leaves and gentle aniseed flavour. It has since become one of my favourite winter vegetables! finocchio fennel Finocchio is a masculine noun, and the plural is finocchi. Here are the definite and indefinite articles …
There isn’t an exact one-word translation in English for the Italian word refrigerio, but it can be best described as ‘relief from the heat’. It comes from the Latin refrigerium, a derivative of refrigerare meaning ‘to refrigerate / become cold’. Refrigerio is a masculine noun, and its plural is refrigeri. un refrigerioil refrigerio dei refrigerii …