Problems (i problemi) are a common part of daily life, but that doesn’t make them any less challenging to handle! Today’s idiom – essere alle prese con – addresses precisely this issue as we’ll see below.
essere alle prese con
to be dealing / struggling with / up against
Sono alle prese con un sacco di problemi burocratici.
I’m up against lots of bureaucratic issues.
Essere is the verb to be, whereas presa is a feminine noun that has different meanings such as grab, grasp, grip and handle. It can also mean electric / wall socket.
Essere alle prese con can be literally translated as “to be at grips with.” While the literal translation might seem similar to the English expression to come to grips with, in Italian, this would actually be translated differently – accettare (to accept), capire (to understand), or padroneggiare (to master) – depending on the context in which it’s used.
A synonymous yet less poetic expression of this week’s idiom is lottare con (to fight against).
Sto lottando con un sacco di problemi burocratici.
I’m fighting against a lot of bureaucratic issues.
Heather Broster is a graduate with honours in linguistics from the University of Western Ontario. She is an aspiring polyglot, proficient in English and Italian, as well as Japanese, Welsh, and French to varying degrees of fluency. Originally from Toronto, Heather has resided in various countries, notably Italy for a period of six years. Her primary focus lies in the fields of language acquisition, education, and bilingual instruction.
