Don’t let the appearance of today’s word fool you: fattoria (feminine, plural: fattorie) is the word for farm in Italian, not factory! (If you’re interested in learning about even more “false friends” in Italian and English, check out our dedicated article!)
It derives from the word fattore, the name for a person who manages a farm.
Some common animali (animals) you’d expect to see on a farm include:
- capra = goat
- asino = donkey
- anatra = duck
- toro = bull
The way you’d say to work on a farm in Italian is lavorare in una fattoria.
Da piccolo sono cresciuto nella fattoria di famiglia. Ero circondato da animali di ogni tipo.
As a child, I grew up on the family farm. I was surrounded by all kinds of animals.
Some different kinds of farms include the fattoria biologica (organic farm), fattoria collettiva (collective farm), fattoria statale (state farm) and fattoria didattica (teaching farm).
When talking about animal farming and breeding, the word allevamento is generally used instead. For example, a sheep farm would translate as allevamento di pecore.
You may also come across the term azienda agricola, with azienda meaning business and agricola meaning agricultural or farming. Unlike a fattoria, which simply breed animals and grow produce, an azienda agricola is a more commercially oriented farming businesses.
As for the words farmhouse or farmstead, there are a few possible translations:
- casa colonica: a type of farmhouse where the residents work the land but do not own the farm
- cascina: a square-yard farm located at the centre of a large piece of cultivated land
- cascinale: a group of farmhouses in the open countryside
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.
