Today’s word of the day was my favourite vegetable as a child: the humble carrot or carota (feminine, plural: carote) in Italian. Once you’ve washed (hai lavato) and peeled (pelato) your carrots, there are numerous ways to prepare them. I always preferred eating raw carrot sticks (bastoncini di carote crude) as a child but these …
The word for monster in Italian is mostro (masculine, plural: mostri). Be careful not to confuse this word with the similar sounding mostra, the Italian word for exhibition! As in English, the word mostro, in its most literal sense, refers to a large, ugly and frightening imaginary creature whose origins may be religious, literary, mythical …
The word for the hair on one’s head is the plural capelli in Italian. The singular capello, on the other hand, usually refers to an individual strand of hair. This word is easily mixed up with the similar sounding cappelli, the plural of cappello, which is the Italian word for hat. You can hear the …
We have officially entered the first days of July (i primi giorni di luglio) which means it is time to get out the swimsuits, sunscreen and the classic Spritz – one of Italy’s favourite alcoholic summer drinks! Luglio is the seventh month (settimo mese) of the year according to the Julian and Gregorian calendars. As is the case with all months …
The Italian word for mouth is bocca (feminine, plural: bocche), which comes from the Latin bucca meaning cheek. Below are a few common verbs you’ll often see used with bocca: aprire la bocca = to open one’s mouth chiudere la bocca = to close one’s mouth coprire la bocca = to cover one’s mouth tenere …
The word for breakfast in Italian is colazione (feminine, plural: colazioni). Traditionally, the first meal eaten just after waking up was referred to as la prima colazione (the first breakfast), whereas the midday meal was called la seconda colazione (the second breakfast). The latter has since been replaced by the word pranzo (lunch) but the …