Heather Broster
When I first moved to Turin many years ago, I was surprised to discover that not only is Thanksgiving not celebrated in Italy, but also that many Italians have never even heard of the national American holiday. (Looking back, I probably shouldn’t have been so shocked since the celebration is based on the 1621 harvest …
Although Italian has gained the reputation of being a “phonetic language” – meaning that there is a direct relationship between the spelling and sounds – there are a few pesky letters that aren’t always pronounced in the same way. One such letter is C. In today’s article, we’re going to discover the different ways in …
The idioms are common in all languages, and each is inextricably linked to the language itself and the culture of the country from which it originates. This means that Italian expressions are not the same as those in English. In fact, when one has to translate a common saying from one language to the other, …
When you see someone you know, it’s only natural to ask how they are doing. One way you can do this in colloquial Italian is by asking the question Come va la vita? which literally means “How’s life?“ Come va la vita? How’s life? Come is the word for “how” in Italian, whereas va is …
Today we have a phrase that was requested by one of our pasta-loving readers! Mi piace la pasta! I like pasta! If you want to say “I like [X]” in Italian, you need to memorise the expression “mi piace [X]“. Before we take a closer look at this phrase, it is important to point out …
The air is getting colder, the streets are filled with colourful lights, the trees are covered in beautiful decorations: that’s right, Christmas is just around the corner! In Italy, Christmas is everyone’s favourite time of year. Children, in particular, spend Christmas Eve anxiously waiting for Santa Claus, the jolly fellow who has spent the entire …