One of the more traumatic memories from my time living in Italy involves a walk along the River Po in Torino with a little girl I used to babysit. About halfway along the path, she decided to climb up the river bank, and took an unfortunate tumble into an enormous patch of nettles. Between her …
An alcoholic beverage prized the world over is beer, known as birra in Italian. Like its English counterpart, its origin can ultimately be traced back to the German Bier. Birra is a feminine noun whose plural form is birre. The definite and indefinite articles are as follows: la birrathe beer una birraa beer le birrethe …
The Italian word sgarbo sounds just as unpleasant as the meaning it suggests. It can be translated in many ways, including rudeness, discourtesy, impoliteness, and slight depending on the context. Sgarbo is a masculine noun whose plural form is sgarbi. Because it starts with the consonant cluster sg-, the definite and indefinite articles it takes …
The Milky Way, or Via Lattea as it is known in Italian, is the spiral galaxy (galassia) that we call home. An estimated diameter of 100,000 light years (anni luce), it contains the Sun (Sole) and the Solar System (Sistema Solare) in addition to at least 100 billion other stars (stelle), planets (pianeti), clusters (ammassi), …
The Italian word for wreath or garland is ghirlanda. Although its origin is uncertain, it is thought that it might derive from the Provençal word guirlanda. Ghirlanda is a feminine noun whose plural form is ghirlande. la ghirlandathe wreath una ghirlandaa wreath le ghirlandethe wreaths delle ghirlande(some) wreaths Lucia sta attaccando una ghirlanda fatta a …
Kermesse is a Dutch language term that was borrowed in English, Italian, French and many other languages. Derived from ‘kerk‘ (church) and ‘mis‘ (mass), it originally denoted the mass said on the anniversary of the foundation of a church, in honour of the patron. kermesse country fair / festival Kermesse is an invariable feminine noun, …