Italian Word of the Day: Prezzo (price / cost)

Prezzo is a masculine noun that means price or cost in English. It is derived from the Latin pretium meaning value or reward. prezzo price Il venditore mi ha fatto un buon prezzo per questo divano. The seller gave me a good price for this couch. Quanto costa questo libro? Non vedo il prezzo. How much is this …

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Italian Word of the Day: Stasera (this evening / tonight)

Stasera, meaning this evening, is one of the very first and most essential adverbs of time you’ll encounter when delving into the Italian language. It is the combination of the adjective questa (this), with the removal of the initial que-, and sera (evening). stasera this evening In everyday conversation, stasera is used more commonly than …

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Italian Word of the Day: Colibrì (hummingbird)

Today we have a word that I actually heard for the first time while playing the game Memory with my son. The theme of the game was animals, many of which were quite obscure! colibrì hummingbird Colibrì is an invariable masculine noun. Invariable is just a fancy way of saying that its singular and plural …

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Italian Word of the Day: Spesso (often)

If you want to say that you carry out an activity often or frequently, you can always rely on the useful adverb spesso in Italian. spesso often The adverb originates from the adjective spesso, which means “thick,” sharing both pronunciation and spelling. This, in turn, can be traced back to the Latin word spissus. Spesso …

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Italian Word of the Day: Contento (happy / pleased / glad / content)

While it might be tempting to assume that the Italian adjective contento is the direct counterpart of the English content, it actually encompasses a slightly broader range of meanings as we’ll soon discover. The most common translations for contento are glad and happy. Like its English counterparts, it denotes a subdued or contained kind of …

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Italian Word of the Day: Leccapiedi (bootlicker / suck-up)

Italian word 'leccapiedi'

In English, we have a remarkable abundance of terms to describe someone who behaves obsequiously towards someone in order to gain favour: bootlicker, sycophant, crawler, brown-nose, suck-up, toady, pufferfish and a few other vulgar options I won’t mention here! leccapiedi bootlicker /lec·ca·piè·di/ – [lekkaˈpjɛdi] Italian, too, has its own range of terms, but the one …

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