Italian Word of the Day: Tartaruga (turtle)

When I was in primary school, our class adopted a pet tartaruga (feminine, plural: tartarughe) and by all accounts, he is still alive and well! 🐢 Below are some different kinds of turtles you may already be familiar with: La tartaruga ha un guscio molto duro. The turtle has a very hard shell. Although the tortoise …

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Italian Word of the Day: Pulcino (chick)

Today’s word of the day is part of our Italian Easter Word series. Each day during the week leading up to Easter, we’ll post a word that is related to this special time of year. Enjoy! 🐰 For Christians, Easter is the feast of rebirth and the pulcino (masculine, plural: pulcini), the Italian word for …

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Italian Word of the Day: Colomba (dove)

Today’s word of the day is part of our Italian Easter Word series. Each day during the week leading up to Easter, we’ll post a word that is related to this special time of year. Enjoy! 🐰 The word colomba (plural: colombe) is the feminine form of the word colombo, the name given to the entire family …

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Italian Word of the Day: Agnello (lamb)

Today’s word of the day is part of our Italian Easter Word series. Each day during the week leading up to Easter, we’ll post a word that is related to this special time of year. Enjoy! 🐰 A common Easter symbol along with rabbits (conigli), doves (colombe) and eggs (uova) is the lamb, which translates as agnello …

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Italian Word of the Day: Gattino (kitten)

In Italian, the diminutive suffixes -ino / -otto / -etto are often added to the end of animal names to denote their offspring. A good example of this is our word of the day, gattino (masculine, plural: gattini), which means kitten. Gattino is simply the word gatto (cat) with -ino attached to the end. When …

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Italian Word of the Day: Ragno (spider)

Arachnophobia, or the fear of spiders, is one of the oldest and most common phobias in the world. This word and ragno (masculine, plural: ragni), the Italian word for spider, are both derived from the ancient Greek word arachne. It is estimated that approximately 1,600 types of spider exist in Italy, with the most common …

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