An extremely useful word in Italian is volentieri and if you learn to use it correctly, you’ll be one step closer to sounding like a native speaker! It comes from the French word volontiers which in turn derives from the Latin voluntarie. Volentieri can translate in numerous ways depending on the context, though in every …
A handy word you will find yourself using all the time in Italian is abbastanza. It comes from the ancient form a (to) + bastanza (an antiquated derivative of bastare = to suffice). The doubling of the letter b can be attributed to a linguistic phenomenon called syntactic gemination. There are two predominant translations for …
The word squarciagola in Italian, when preceded by the preposition a (at), is the equivalent of the idiomatic English expressions at the top of one’s lungs or at the top of one’s voice. Note that there is an equivalent expression in Italian: a pieni polmoni (lit. with one’s lungs full). It is a combination of …
The word for yesterday in Italian is ieri. Both this word and the ‘yester‘ in yesterday can be traced back to a common Indo-European root shared by the Latin heri and the Greek khthes. As in English, the Italian ieri can be divided into the four times of day: The day before yesterday can be …
One of two ways to translate the word together in Italian is insieme, which comes from the vulgar Latin insemel. The other is assieme, and while they are almost completely interchangeable, insieme is the term you will hear more often. Note: If you have trouble remembering this word, I find it helps to think of …
Today we’re going to talk about a little word with a very big meaning: the adverb cioè. It is a fusion of the pronoun ciò (this, that) and è, which is the verb essere (to be) conjugated in the third person singular of the present tense. Cioè is used to introduce detailed information, a correction …