It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that tesoro (masculine, plural: tesori) is the Italian word for treasure! The origin of both terms can be traced back to the Greek word thesauros (storehouse, treasure). Il pirata aveva seppellito il tesoro prima di morire. The pirate buried the treasure before he died. However what …
If you’ve been learning Italian for a while now, you may already be familiar with the classic greeting Buongiorno! which is how to say Good day! / Good morning! / Hello! in a formal context. Buongiorno. Come sta? Good morning! How are you? If you want to explicitly wish someone a good day however, it …
The word for trousers or pants in Italian is pantaloni. If you find yourself struggling to remember this term, simply think of the English word pantaloons! Both the Italian pantaloni and English pantaloons derive from the French pantalon, which in turn owes its name to the famous Commedia dell’Arte character, Pantalone, whose costume consists of …
A staple food of Italian cooking is rice or riso in Italian. In particular, it is used in the popular dish risotto which can be made with any variety of short-grain rice including Aroborio, Carnaroli, Vialone, Nano, and Baldo. Unlike other kinds of rice, the short-grain kind has a higher starch content and absorbs less …
One of the key ingredients in most Italian dishes is aglio, the word for garlic in Italian. A bulb of garlic in Italian is testa d’aglio, which literally translates as a “head of garlic”, and each bulb is made up of a number of spicchi d’aglio (garlic cloves). Pensi che io abbia messo troppo aglio …
The Italian word domani (tomorrow in English) comes from the Latin de mane whose rough translation is starting from the morning. Domani can be paired with different words that denote the time of day: Domani sera vado da un amico per una cena. Tomorrow evening I’m going to a friend’s house for a dinner. The …