It doesn’t matter whether you’re learning a brand new language or looking to enhance your grasp of your native one, having a dictionary at hand is always useful for looking up new words and expanding your vocabolario (vocabulary). In Italian, this invaluable resource is called a dizionario, a word that sounds quite similar to its …
When I moved to Italy, I embraced most of the local eating and drinking customs—pizzas, late dinners, and apertivos—but the one thing I couldn’t quite get used to was il caffè – sacrilege, I know! That’s because, being British-Canadian, I’m a dedicated tea drinker! In Italian, the word for tea is simply tè. tè tea …
We’ve already covered mountains—montagne—in a previous article, but what about their smaller, humbler cousins? In Italian, the word for hill is collina. collina hill According to Devoto-Oli, the feminine noun collina comes from Late Latin collina, which is the feminine form of the adjective derived from collis (meaning “hill” in Latin). A possible synonym for …
It’s not every day that we come across a word that primarily exists only in its plural form. Occhiali, meaning glasses, originates from the adjective and noun occhiale, which refers to anything related to or designed for the eye. occhiali glasses While occhiale is still used in everyday Italian, it is more common to use …
Here in Wales, where we live, it rains quite a lot, as you can imagine. But since today is a rare sunny day, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to dive into the ever-relevant Italian verb piovere (to rain)! piovere to rain Piovere is an -ERE verb that is only ever conjugated in the …
Where we live in Wales, it feels like there’s a castle around every corner. But Italy, too, boasts its fair share of stunning castles, my favourite being Castel dell’Ovo in Naples! As you may have guessed, the Italian word for castle is castello. castello castle Castello is derived directly from the Latin castellum, which is …