The Standard Italian Language, or more simply Italian, is the official language of Italy. It is spoken by approximately 70 million people who mostly reside on the Mediterranean Peninsula or its islands such as Sicily and Sardinia. However, it is also used in the southern areas of Switzerland – specifically in the Ticino and Graubünden …
As in all languages, some words appear more frequently than others in Italian. This happens because in everyday life we tend to repeat the same words over and over again, simplifying our speech and making it more accessible to the listener. This also facilitates the study of a new language, as even a small vocabulary …
When I first moved to Turin many years ago, I was surprised to discover that not only is Thanksgiving not celebrated in Italy, but also that many Italians have never even heard of the national American holiday. (Looking back, I probably shouldn’t have been so shocked since the celebration is based on the 1621 harvest …
Although Italian has gained the reputation of being a “phonetic language” – meaning that there is a direct relationship between the spelling and sounds – there are a few pesky letters that aren’t always pronounced in the same way. One such letter is C. In today’s article, we’re going to discover the different ways in …
The idioms are common in all languages, and each is inextricably linked to the language itself and the culture of the country from which it originates. This means that Italian expressions are not the same as those in English. In fact, when one has to translate a common saying from one language to the other, …
Sicilian, which in Sicily is known as sicilianu, is a Romance language like all the dialects distributed across the Italian Peninsula. With more than five million native speakers, mainly located in Sicily, this dialect descends from a variety of historical languages. This is owing to the geographical position of the island, located strategically in the …