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 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, …
The prickly shrub that bears red, pink, yellow or white flowers is called a rosa (feminine, plural: rose) in Italian. It is also the name given to the colour pink, presumably because many roses come in a pink shade. Questa rosa mi sembra più rosa che rossa. This rose looks more pink than red to …
The Italian word for colour, or color if you live in the States, is colore (masculine, plural: colori), both of which come from the Latin color. The seven most commonly cited and remembered colours of the rainbow (colori dell’arcobaleno), as defined by Isaac Newton, are as follows: Ci sono sette colori in un arcobaleno. There are …