Today we’re going to be talking about a very short yet extremely important word in Italian: e which means and. Just as in English, e can join two nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs or sentences. Ho guardato un film e poi sono andato a letto. I watched a film and then I went to bed. Similarly …
When a group of employees refuses to work as a form of organised protest, this is called a sciopero (masculine, plural: scioperi) in Italian (or strike in English). There are two main ways that you can say to go on strike in Italian: scioperare, the verb from which sciopero derives, and fare sciopero, which literally …
Felicità, the Italian word for happiness, comes from the Latin word felix meaning happy, blessed or lucky. English speakers shouldn’t have any trouble remembering this word if they call to mind the term felicity, a close synonym for happiness. Felicità is a feminine noun that takes the following definite and indefinite articles: Some closely related …
It’s difficult to believe that we are already well into the month of May, known as maggio in Italian. Maggio is the fifth month of the year (quinto mese dell’anno) according to the Julian and Gregorian calendars. As is the case with all months of the year, maggio isn’t capitalised in Italian as it is …
The affectionate name children use towards their father (padre) in Italian is papà. It is the equivalent of dad, daddy or pa in English. A very easy mistake you might make when you first start learning Italian is to accidentally place the emphasis on the first rather than the last syllable. If you place it …
The name almost all children call their mother (madre) in Italian, no matter their age, is mamma, which translates as mom / mommy in American English or mum / mummy in British English. Three possible variations are the affectionate diminutives mammi, mami and mammina. When using a possessive adjective like mia (my), you have the …