We recently conducted a survey on our Facebook group, asking them which words their parents used with them most frequently. Unsurprisingly, the short yet powerful word “basta” ranked very close to the top of the list. Basta, when used as an interjection, has a couple of primary translations in English. The first is (that’s) enough, …
The Italian word for patience is pazienza (feminine, plural: pazienze). You can trace the origin of the word back to the Latin patienta meaning suffering. Learn with our video Some common verbs you’ll see used with pazienza include: Sto per perdere la pazienza! I’m running out of patience! In Italy, you will often hear the …
Evviva! is what Italians shout when they want to celebrate something such as a promotion at work or a big lottery win. Two equivalents in English are Hurray! (sometimes spelled Hooray! or Hurrah!) and Yay! Evviva is a variation on the interjection Viva! preceded by the conjunction e (and). Evviva, abbiamo raggiunto quota mille iscritti …
Accidenti! is one of the mildest interjections found in Italian. The plural of accidente (mishap or sudden illness), it is used to express a variety of emotions including wonder, anger and annoyance. Learn with our video Did you know that…?Accidenti is actually the ellipses of expressions such as ti arrivino degli accidenti or ti vengano …
Recently one of our readers asked us to write an article explaining the different uses for magari in Italian. Given that this is one of our all-time favourite words, we were more than happy to oblige! Learn with our video Magari = maybe / perhaps The translation for magari which learners find easiest to comprehend …
Uffa is an onomatopoeic interjection in Italian that is supposed to resemble the sound of a person sighing, grumbling or huffing and puffing (sbuffare) with annoyance. People use it when they are irritated by something and want to get their frustration off their chest by letting out a breathy verbalisation. Learn with our video Some …