The word for a pedantic person who raises questions and objections, and causes difficulties or problems over things of little importance is piantagrane in Italian. Some possible translations in English include troublemaker, fault-finder and nitpicker. Piantagrane is the combination of the verb piantare (to plant) and the noun grana, which in addition to meaning ‘grain‘ …
The Italian word for a person with magical powers, or a person that performs magic tricks, is mago. Mago is a masculine noun, and for this reason, it is only used to denote male figures with magical powers. The feminine equivalent is maga and their respective plurals are maghi (masculine, plural) and maghe (feminine, plural). …
The generic word used to indicate any woman, other than the mother, who takes care of a child is tata (feminine, plural: tate) in Italian. Some possible translations in English include babysitting, nanny and childminder. Usually, tata denotes a woman whose full-time profession is childminding, rather than a teenager or young woman who occasionally babysits. …
The word for an artist in Italian is artista. Despite the -a ending, this noun applies to both male and female artists, with the respective plurals being artisti (for men or mixed groups) and artiste (for women). One way of telling whether the artist in question is male or female is by looking at the …
A person who is always ready to start an argument or pick a fight, often over trivial matters, is an attaccabrighe in Italian. The closest English translations are troublemaker and quarrelsome person. Because it is an invariable noun, its form does not change if you are talking about a woman or multiple people. The word …
The other day, my husband and I decided to watch Johnny Stecchino, an Italian comedy from the early 1990s directed by and starring the fantastically funny Roberto Benigni. The story follows Dante, a naive yet kind-hearted bus driver and part-time banana thief, whose uncanny physical resemblance to Sicilian mobster-turned-police informant Johnny Stecchino lands him in …