Put together some basilico (basil), pinoli (pine nuts), fresh parmigiano and aglio (garlic), along with some olio d’oliva (olive oil), succo di limone (lemon juice), and sale (salt), and what do you get? One of the most delicious sauces on the planet: pesto! pesto pesto sauce / black and blue Pesto is also widely known …
The Italian adjective molle is used to describe things that yield to touch or pressure. In English, we might use descriptors such as soft, flabby or damp depending on the object being described, but in Italian, molle neatly covers all these translations. molle soft / flabby / damp In Italian, adjectives always agree with the …
If you want to talk about older boys and young men in Italian, there is no better word than ragazzo. Let’s discover it now! ragazzo boy / guy / young man / boyfriend Ragazzo comes from the Arabic word raqqāṣ (رقّاص), which originally meant something like messenger, courier, or errand boy. This Arabic word was …
I don’t know about you, but whenever I start learning a new language, I have the terrible habit of mixing up the verbs that correspond to “to hear” and “to listen” (and let’s not even get into “to watch” “to see” and “to look”!) Today’s verb is ascoltare which means “to listen” – let’s discover …
If the first thing that pops into your head when you hear piano in Italian is tinkling keys and sweet melodies – fair enough. After all, piano is used in the English too! But in Italian, it plays many different roles: it’s an adjective, an adverb, and a noun too (il piano masculine singular and …
Ah, la gelosia! That passionate mix of love, doubt, and a few overreactions we’d rather forget. In Italian, this word sounds and means pretty much the same as “jealousy” in English, but it hides another meaning that might just surprise you. Curious? Let’s find out what it is! Gelosia But first, a quick grammar note: …