The other day, my friend Jean – who runs a series of Italian language immersion trips in Italy – admitted that she was still struggling with the correct usage of the conjunction finché in Italian. Surprised that I hadn’t already covered this word, I promised her I’d make it a priority, so here we are! …
Imagine you’re in Venice, leaning dangerously off a vaporetto to capture the perfect shot of the Grand Canal (hard to resist, I know), when the ticket controller rushes over shouting: Non è sicuro!(It’s not safe!). Then, in full tourist mode, you book a local guide for the afternoon. Don’t worry, your hotel receptionist reassures you, è una guida …
During our most recent trip to Montepulciano, a word that came up multiple times during our wine tasting session at Cantina Crociani was grappolo, the word for a bunch of grapes, but also other things that come in groups as we’ll discover below. grappolo bunch / cluster Grappolo is a masculine noun that takes the …
If there is one thing that stops us from becoming more confident speakers of Italian, it’s that ever-looming sense of doubt in our own abilities. Doubt in Italian can be translated as dubbio, which should be easy to remember given how similar they look and sound. dubbio doubt The origin of dubbio is straightforward – …
Have you ever heard of a Tuscan pasta dish called gnudi? They’re basically ravioli with no pasta wrapper, just the delicious filling, served as it is. Naked dumplings, if you will. Which brings us—quite naturally and very deliciously—to today’s word: nudo. nudo In Italian, nudo can work both as an adjective and as a masculine …
Do you need to scrub the floor to remove that stubborn stain? Maybe you’ve realized they made you pay way too much for that coffee? Or perhaps someone grabbed the last taxi right under your nose? In Italian, we have one verb that perfectly captures the frustration (and action!) in all these situations: fregare. fregare …