Dolce vita or la dolce vita is Italian for the sweet life but when combined into a single word, dolcevita, we get the term for the kind of sweater Americans call a turtleneck and the British call a polo neck. What’s interesting is that dolcevita apparently gets its name from the 1960s film by Fellini, …
So deeply intertwined are olives and Italian cuisine that it is almost impossible to imagine one existing without the other. The word for these delectable oval fruits in Italian is oliva (feminine, plural: olive) whereas the tree which produces them is called olivo (masculine, plural: olivi). Did you know that…?An alternative word for oliva is …
Today’s word of the day is bound to raise your spirits if you’re feeling glum! Allegria (feminine, plural: allegrie) is how you would say cheerfulness, joy or merriment in Italian. If you have trouble remembering this word, it might help to associate it with the musical term allegro, the name given to a lively musical …
The word for fog in Italian is nebbia (feminine, plural: nebbie). If you have trouble remembering this word, I find it helps to create a mental association with the astronomical term nebula with which it shares the same Latin origin. Fog can be described according to its thickness (e.g. fitta = thick; densa = dense; …
Whereas in English, we distinguish between the words paradise and heaven, there is just one word in Italian: paradiso (masculine, plural: paradisi). It comes from the Latin word paradisus which in turn derives from the Greek paradisos. Paradiso, in the sense of heaven, is the place regarded in various religions as the abode of God, …
One of my favourite berries (frutti di bosco) is the raspberry, which is called a lampone (masculine, plural: lamponi) in Italian. In addition to the fruit, it is also the name given to the raspberry bush. In Italy, there are various areas where raspberries are cultivated successfully, with the main production regions being Trentino, Veneto …