Today’s “word of the day” couldn’t be more timely with news about the coronavirus dominating every headline across the world. The Italian word virus (masculine, plural: virus) is written the same as in English but is pronounced quite differently as you can hear from the audio clip below. The word comes from the Latin virus …
The word for wife in Italian is moglie (feminine plural: mogli), which comes from the Latin mŭlier meaning woman, wife or mistress. Ho conosciuto mia moglie dieci anni fa. I met my wife ten years ago. By making it diminutive, you get the word mogliettina which roughly translates as wifey or little wife in English. …
If you are already familiar with the English word fluvial, you will have no trouble whatsoever remembering the Italian word for river which is fiume (masculine, plural: fiumi). The longest river in Italy, il Fiume Po, runs through the city of Turin where my husband was born. It flows 405 miles from its source near the …
The adjective pulito, whose primary translation is clean in English, is the past participle of the verb pulire (to clean). It comes from the Latin verb ‘polire’ of the same meaning. Pulito is the masculine singular form of this adjective. In order to make it feminine, it is necessary to change the word final o …
Today we’re talking about one of my all-time favourite Italian words: pigro (lazy)! As with all adjectives with a word final o, you must change the ending according to the gender and number of the subject. pigro = masculine, singular pigra = feminine, singular pigri = masculine, plural pigre = feminine, plural Sono troppo pigro …
The name given to the celestial body that orbits around our earth is luna (feminine, plural: lune) in Italian. La luna impiega un mese per orbitare intorno alla terra. The moon takes a month to orbit around the earth. Just as in English, it is also the word used to denote the natural satellite of any planet, …