10 Italian Cultural Traits Captured in Words

Certain Italian words are really difficult to translate — not because English is short on vocabulary, but because it lacks the context that gives those words their meaning.

For instance, you can translate sistemarsi as “to settle down,” sure. But it fails to capture the fact that this is the ultimate Italian merit badge, unlockable only after years of relatives demanding progress reports (Ti sei sistemato/a? – Have you settled down?) at every family gathering. Or you can use raccomandazione as “recommendation,” but this simple translation doesn’t tell you why amico/a di (friend of) is basically a credential in Italy.

So let’s explore ten Italian words, each one a small door into Italian culture, helping you understand a little more about Italy.

Guidebooks often love painting Italians as one big, warm, welcoming community. Except, we can barely tolerate our own neighbours. And no, I’m not talking about the North/South feud; the real rivalry is far more local: town vs. town, bell tower vs. bell tower. That’s campanilismo in a nutshell.

The word comes from campanile, the bell tower standing at the center of every Italian town. To understand why it matters, you have to consider that Italy only unified in 1861, so while on paper we’re all Italian, many feel far more loyal and attached to their hometown, convinced that their bell tower (their town) is the best one, and never missing a chance to criticise the village next door to prove it.

And here’s the best part: campanilismo is not some deep, hidden layer of Italian culture. This rivalry shows up everywhere in daily life, from arguing over whose pasta sauce is superior to defending the local football club like it’s a matter of honour. And it can range from playful banter to unvarnished hostility.

Even good old Goethe noticed it back in the 1700s, and he was just a tourist. In the notes from his famous trip to Italy, he wrote that qui sono tutti in urto l’uno contro l’altro, in modo che sorprende. Animati da un singolare spirito di campanile, non possono soffrirsi a vicenda (everyone here is at odds with everyone else to a quite astonishing degree. Driven by a fierce loyalty to their own town, they simply can’t stand one another). 

Three centuries later, nothing has changed. Take Pisa and Livorno, two Tuscan cities close enough to practically see each other. Livornese people have a saying: Meglio un morto in casa che un pisano all’uscio (Better a corpse in your house than a Pisan at your door). Pisans, naturally, fire back with their own: Le parole le porta via il vento, le biciclette i livornesi (The wind carries away words, the Livornese carry away bicycles). Ah, neighbourly love!

Compaesano/a is another word that packs an entire sense of belonging. It comes from paese (town, village), and at its most basic it just means someone who’s from or lives in our same hometown. But its real meaning is in the feeling: that instant camaraderie that kicks in the moment we bump into someone from back home. We’ve never met this person in our life, we have nothing in common except a shared geography, and yet, within thirty seconds, we’re talking like old friends, swapping news from back home and probably exchanging numbers and Instagram handles.

We use compaesano/a precisely to underline that bond. The word can refer to a fellow Italian abroad, in the broadest sense, or, more specifically, to someone from our exact hometown. Context (and how far from Italy we both are) usually makes it obvious which one we mean.

So let’s say that while campanilismo is the rivalry we keep alive at home, compaesano expresses the bond that magically appears the moment we leave it and are far enough away to actually miss it.

Compaesano/a is the standard word, but you’ve probably already heard its shorter version, paisà, which is especially common in southern dialects and in Italian-American communities. It also appears in the Neapolitan classic Simmo ‘E Napule Paisa, a song tied to post-war Naples.

Every town and city in Italy has its own patron saint, and on that saint’s feast day, the whole place shifts into celebration mode. Public offices and schools are closed, and the town operates on its own logic for the day (if you’re planning a trip to Italy, better to check the local calendar first).

Technically it’s called la festa del santo patrono, but we usually just call it festa del paese (the town’s festival), because the saints, bless them, are almost secondary. This is the one day for the entire community to celebrate its own identity. Even the most committed non-believer can sense the energy in the air, the enthusiasm, and the rituals, many of which are often rooted in centuries-old traditions. Those who have moved away might return home for the celebration, and it’s not uncommon to bump into that one old school friend you’ve successfully avoided on Facebook for the rest of the year.

The scale of these celebrations varies wildly. Some towns go absolutely all out, like Viterbo, where Santa Rosa is honored with a massive structure (the macchina di Santa Rosa), nearly 30 meters tall and weighing over 5 tonnes, carried through the historic center at night on the shoulders of a hundred men. Other towns keep it much humbler: a few fairground rides, some market stalls, and lots of irresistible fried treats (a frittella with lots of sugar for me, please!).

But, hey, no matter the size of the event, some things about the day never change. In the morning, we queue up at the local pasticceria (pastry shop) for pastries to bring to the family lunch, where lasagna is, naturally, non-negotiable. Kids get taken to the fairground rides, and everyone has a go at the pesca di beneficenza, the charity lottery stand where we inevitably win something we didn’t know you needed, like a mystery bath set or a questionable painting. Then in the evening, everyone is back out on the street, eating a panino from a food stand, listening to some live music and, possibly, watching a fireworks display to close out the day.

You know the saying, “it’s not the destination, it’s the journey”? Tweak it slightly and you’ve got the passeggiata: it’s not the destination, it’s the sheer pleasure of walking.

One of the hardest things to translate about the passeggiata culture in Italy is its relationship with time. It embraces the idea that not every moment needs to be spent achieving something. We just go out and walk, aimlessly, on purpose. The ideal pace is slow enough to leave room for the occasional interruption — a coffee here, a quick hello to an acquaintance there, maybe a little detour to check the shop windows. If you’re power-walking with headphones on, constantly checking whether you’ve hit 10,000 steps, you’re not really doing a passeggiata.

The nice thing is that la passeggiata turns the public corso (main street) or lungomare (seafront) into an open-air living room, where different generations share the same space at once: elderly folks debating on benches, parents pushing strollers, teenagers clustered in small groups, and at least one dog dragging its owner toward literally every other dog in sight.

If you want to head out for one, the classic casual invite is Facciamo due passi? (literally, “Shall we take two steps?”). And if you’re going on your own, you can say Esco a fare due passi (literally, “I’m going out to take two steps”). 

Raccomandazione: six syllables that explain how things often work in Italy.

On the surface, a raccomandazione is just a caring recommendation from someone who loves you or knows better. Think of a mother shouting mi raccomando, copriti! (wrap up warm, please!) as her child runs out the door, or a doctor advising us to avoid colpi d’aria (literally “hits of air”) if we don’t want our stiff neck to get worse.

Then comes the other meaning: a raccomandazione is also that little push that makes things “easier.” Sure, networking and referrals exist everywhere, it’s not some uniquely Italian invention. But in Italy, it’s almost always tied to favouritism. It’s the unspoken understanding that the right cognome (surname) or the right acquaintance can magically open doors that would otherwise stay firmly, bureaucratically shut.

Which is why phrases like figlio di (son of), amico di (friend of) or conoscere qualcuno (to know someone) often function as great credentials. Want to land a job interview, but LinkedIn shows over 100 people already applied? If you happen to conoscere qualcuno inside the company, chances are they’ll find your CV anyway. Trying to book a doctor’s appointment, but the receptionist sweetly informs you there’s nothing available for the next year (yes, this really happens)? If you’re amico di someone who works at the hospital, an appointment will materialize by tomorrow (and if you don’t know anyone, you pay — i.e., skip the public waitlist and go private). 

The lucky person on the receiving end of all this is called a raccomandato, a word that carries a negative undertone, almost a hint of shame. As Vittorio De Sica put it in the movie Il Vigile (The traffic policeman), instead of raccomandato si dice ‘segnalato’! (we say ‘flagged’!) — proof that even when we admit to it, we can still find a way to make it sound classier.

To understand sistemarsi, you first have to understand sistemare, a verb that covers everything from tidying a bedroom to fixing a clunky engine. If a child’s room looks like a crime scene, a mother yells, Sistema la tua camera! (Tidy your room!). If a chair leg breaks, Bisogna sistemarla (it needs fixing).

Turn it reflexive (sistemarsi), however, and you become the thing being fixed and tidied. Sistemarsi is to achieve the ultimate Italian holy trinity: il posto fisso (a permanent job contract), un mutuo (a mortgage), and una famiglia (a family). Everything neatly checked off the list.

Naturally, there’s a reason behind all this: family has always been a central value in Italy, and so has owning a home (consider that Italy actually has one of the highest homeownership rates in Europe, with over 70% of Italian families owning their home). Add to this that, even though the job market has changed a lot since our nonni’s days, the myth of il posto fisso still holds strong.

That’s why one of the most popular questions every Italian over 25 faces at family gatherings is Allora, ti sei sistemato/a? (So, have you settled down yet?). And when you can finally answer sì (yes), you’ve done it. You’ve handed over the happy ending every nonna has been quietly praying for while lighting a candle in church.

If sistemarsi is about getting our life in order, arrangiarsi is about finding a way through whatever challenges we encounter along the way. It’s the reflexive form of arrangiare (to arrange), and, in a way, it really is about arranging things — just not neatly, and rarely according to plan.

For us Italians, arrangiarsi is more than just getting by. It’s improvising our way through problems, and somehow making things work out anyway. Missing the right tool for the job? It doesn’t matter, we’ll use three wrong ones and a bit of string. That’s arrangiarsi in its purest form: not giving up in the face of a problem, but cleverly finding a solution. Call it creative resourcefulness if you will. 

After all, we live in a country where dealing with bureaucracy, the economy, or the job market is a constant challenge, and history taught us early on that if we want a problem solved, we have to take matters into our own hands.

So, can’t find a proper job? Ci arrangiamo (we’ll make do) with odd jobs here and there until something better comes along. Unexpected guests show up right at dinner time with zero warning? No problem, si arrangeranno (they’ll make do) with whatever is in the fridge. Heading off on a trip and haven’t managed to book a hotel? Mi arrangerò (I’ll figure it out). And if you’re the one causing the problem and expecting someone else to fix it for you, you might be told arrangiati! (sort it out yourself). 

And yes, sometimes this resourcefulness might blur a little into furbizia (cunning) and opportunismo (opportunism), as captured in the 1954 movie L’arte di arrangiarsi (The art of getting by). But hey, nobody said it was a saint’s game.

No, you won’t find this on any menu, and no waiter will ever bring you una spaghettata. That’s because it’s not a dish, it’s an experience — and one that doesn’t require a reservation or any advance planning whatsoever. 

La spaghettata is what happens when Italian conviviality and our gift for improvisation come together. It’s born purely out of the pleasure of being together, taking one of the most iconic foods in our culture (spaghetti) and cooking it with whatever is in the kitchen. It can be something dead simple, like aglio e olio (garlic and oil), or something more elaborate. It genuinely doesn’t matter, there’s total creative freedom here.

More often than not, this happens late at night — the famous spaghettata di mezzanotte, or midnight spaghetti session that follows a night out with friends. But honestly, a spaghettata can strike at any hour. There’s really only one rule: someone starts boiling water, and everyone else simply stays.

So, if there’s one thing la spaghettata proves, it’s that in Italian culture, food is rarely just about filling our stomach. It’s a way of bringing people together, and turning even the simplest meal into a memory worth keeping.

They say la prima impressione è quella che conta (the first impression is the one that counts), right? Well, we built an entire cultural obsession around this idea, and gave it a name: la figura.

Literally, it means “the figure,” but that translation tells you almost nothing. La figura is like an invisible internal compass guiding how we present ourselves to the world: how we carry ourselves, how we speak, how we interact with others, how we handle things when a problem pops up.

It’s about how we are seen by others, and the way our actions can reflect on the people connected to us. That’s why we talk about fare bella figura and fare brutta figura. The expressions are always paired with the verb fare (to make), because we actively “make” an impression in every interaction.

Fare bella figura means making a good impression: the right words, good manners, everything in place. Fare brutta figura, on the other hand, is when we say the wrong thing, misunderstand the situation, dress inappropriately, or behave in a way that makes people silently think, “Did they really just do that?” 

The fear of la brutta figura is introduced early in life, typically through phrases like Non farmi fare brutta figura (Don’t make me look bad) or Che figura ci facciamo? (What are people going to think of us?). Classic!

Menefreghismo describes the attitude of someone who simply doesn’t care about other people, about the situation around them, about the functioning of a shared society. It’s not malice, but rather an indifferent shrug of the shoulders.

The word comes from the phrase me ne frego (I don’t give a damn), an expression that became famous among Italian assault troops during World War I and was associated with the poet and volunteer soldier Gabriele D’Annunzio. Later, the Fascist regime adopted it as a motto of defiance, sneering at fear and danger.

Today, menefreghismo has lost its historical baggage and now just means everyday indifference — not caring, and not particularly hiding it. Like the coworker who finishes the coffee and leaves the machine empty, as if it will refill itself. The passerby who lets their dog do its business directly on your doorstep, then keeps walking as if nothing happened. The driver who parks squarely on a wheelchair ramp because, hey, it was the closest spot. 

It’s not exactly Italy’s finest trait, but knowing about menefreghismo will at least save you a little frustration should you ever experience it firsthand. By the way, the person guilty of menefreghismo is called a menefreghista (used for both men and women).

Valentina Nicastro

Valentina Nicastro is a travel writer in love with her home country, Italy. Having travelled widely around the globe, she realised there was more to explore closer to home and decided to put the passport aside for a while. When she is not immersed in documenting Italy, you’ll find her donning her communication consultant hat, weaving words as a content writer and bridging linguistic divides as a translator.