How to Talk About Physical Sensations in Italian

You’ve just landed in Italy. Obviously, you’ve already memorised all the food vocabulary (priorities!). Maybe you’ve also rehearsed a few survival phrases. But at some point (and trust me, it will happen) you’ll also need to explain how your body feels.

And I’m not just talking about the “I think that fifth gelato was a mistake” emergencies. I mean the full spectrum of physical sensations you might experience. Like that wonderful, heavy fullness after a four-course lunch. The August heat that drains all your energy. That warmth that starts in your stomach and slowly creeps up to somewhere around your ears, courtesy of the grappa your host enthusiastically poured you before you could politely decline.

In this article, I’ll walk you through the key verbs, some useful phrases, and the kind of idiomatic expressions that’ll make us native speakers look impressed. Of course, there’s a lot we could explore, but to keep things manageable, we’ll focus on some of the ones you’re most likely to use.

The four verbs you need

Before we get into specific scenarios, let’s take a look at the four verbs we use the most when talking about physical sensations in Italian: avere,sentire,fare, and stare. With them, you can cover pretty much any situation where your body has something to say.

• Avere(to have): In Italian, many physical sensations and needs are expressed using avere, where English would normally use “to be.” For example, to say “I’m sleepy,” we say ho sonno— literally, “I have sleep.” Think of it this way: in Italian, feelings like sleepiness, hunger, or thirst are treated like things we have, not states we are.

• Sentire (to feel, to hear, to smell): This verb does a bit of everything. Depending on the context, it can mean to feel a physical sensation (sento caldo — I feel warm), to hear (sento un rumore— I hear a noise), or to experience pain or discomfort (sento male qui — it hurts here). It can even mean “to smell” (sento una strana puzza — I smell something strange). In its reflexive form, sentirsi, it’s used to talk about how you feel overall, like mi sento stanco (I feel tired), mi sento male (I feel unwell).

• Stare(to be/to stay): This is often used to say how we feel overall: sto bene (I’m well / I’m fine), sto male(I’m not well), or simply sto (I am… okay): This last one is very casual, used when we don’t feel strongly one way or the other, and is often accompanied by a shrug.

• Fare (to do/to make): It’s mostly used to describe external physical conditions, especially weather and temperature: fa caldo (it’s hot), fa freddo (it’s cold). But we also use it in a very specific expression for talking about physical pain (more on that in the next section).

Now that you are familiar with the most used verbs, let’s explore some common situations where you might need to talk about physical sensations in Italian.

1. Expressing pain and discomfort

Whether it’s your feet complaining after too many cobblestones, or simply the morning after that grappa situation we mentioned earlier, if your body is in pain, you’ll want to be able to say so.

There are three main patterns you can use:

Ho… — I have… 

This is a quick, easy way to report what’s happening to your body: just conjugate the verb avere (to have) and add the physical sensation you’re experiencing.

• Ho la nausea: to feel nauseous
• Ho la febbre: to have a fever
• Ho i brividi: to have the chills
• Ho il fiatone: to be out of breath
• Ho la schiena a pezzi (literally, to have your back in pieces): my back hurts badly

Ho mal di…— I have a(n) …ache

Want to tell someone something hurts? Use Ho mal di and then say the body part involved. Super simple!

• Ho mal di testa: I have a headache
• Ho mal di schiena: I have a backache
• Ho mal di stomaco: I have a stomach ache
• Ho mal di gola: I have a sore throat
• Ho mal di denti: I have a toothache

If the body part starts with a vowel, the di loses the i, as in: 

• Ho mal d’orecchi: I have an earache 

Mi fa male / Mi fanno male… — It hurts / They hurt

This is a very natural way to talk about pain in Italian. The structure is mi fa male / mi fanno male (literally, it makes me pain / they make me pain)+ the body part(s) giving you trouble. 

The verb fare here agrees with the body part, not with you… which feels kind of appropriate when it’s our poor feet doing all the suffering! So, it’s fa male for one body part, and fanno male for more than one:

• Mi fa male la testa: My head hurts
• Mi fa male la schiena: My back hurts
• Mi fanno male i piedi: My feet hurt
• Mi fanno male gli occhi: My eyes hurt

You can use this pattern for almost any kind of pain. And when everything hurts at once (which, after a long day of sightseeing, is entirely possible) there’s always:

• Mi fa male tutto: Everything hurts

And now some idiomatic expressionsthat will make you sound like a local:

• Essere distrutto (literally, to be totally destroyed): to be exhausted
• Essere cotto (literally, to be cooked): to be completely wiped out 
• Essere morto di stanchezza: to be dead tired
• Essere a pezzi (literally, to be in pieces): to be shattered
• Non essere in forma (literally, to not be in shape): to feel off
• Avere un cerchio alla testa (literally, to have a ring around your head): to have a pounding headache
• Sentirsi uno straccio (literally, to feel like a rag): to be totally drained
• Sentirsi uno schifo: to feel absolutely awful
• Stare da cani (literally, to feel like dogs): to feel terrible

2. Expressing hunger and thirst

Few physical sensations feel more urgent than hunger and thirst. Expressing them in Itaòian is fairly simple, but the opposite of what your English-speaking brain expects. 

As we saw earlier, in Italian we use avere (to have) rather than essere (to be) for bodily states:

• Ho fame (literally, I have hunger): I’m hungry
• Ho sete (literally, I have thirst): I’m thirsty

See the pattern? In Italian, hunger and thirst aren’t states you are, they’re things you have. Like, you literally own your hunger… very Italian!

And when a plain ho fame feels too mild for how hungry you are, you can use these expressions instead:

• Avere una fame da lupi: (literally, to have wolf hunger): to be starving 
• Morire di fame (literally, to be dying of hunger): to be starving
• Avere un buco nello stomaco (literally, to have a hole in the stomach): to be starving 
• Mangerei anche un cavallo: I could eat also a horse 
• Ho una fame che non ci vedo: I’m so hungry I can’t see straight

And let’s not forget the other side of the coin: that heavy, stuffed feeling when even standing up is a challenge. In those moments, the perfect expression is:

• Essere pieno come un uovo (literally, to be as full as an egg): to be absolutely stuffed

And when thirst becomes serious, you could say:

• Morire di sete: to be dying of thirst
• Avere la gola secca: to have a dry throat
• Avere una sete pazzesca: (literally, to have a crazy thirst): to be insanely thirsty

Finally, two uniquely Italian expressions that don’t translate neatly into English but you’ll hear everywhere:

• Avere un languorinois that little whisper from your stomach—not starving, just suggesting a snack wouldn’t hurt.

• Avere l’abbiocco is that sense of sleepiness that hits after a generous meal. 

3. Expressing temperature and how it feels

Time to talk temperature. The Italian summer sun can be brutal: you get off the plane and suddenly you’re wondering why you thought Florence in August was a good idea. Or maybe it’s January, and you’re discovering that “mild Mediterranean climate” was somewhat optimistically described in your guide book. Either way, you’re going to need the right vocabulary.

As we saw earlier, the rule is to use avere (to have) for how we personally feel, not essere (to be):

• Ho caldo(literally, I have warmth): I’m warm  

Warning: if you translate directly from English and say sono caldo/a (I’m warm), it has a very different, ehm… flirtatious meaning.

• Ho freddo (literally, I have cold): I’m cold / I feel cold 

Similarly, if you think in English and say sono freddo/a (I’m cold), it suggests you’re emotionally or sexually cold… probably not what you mean!

Here are some great expressions to use: 

• Morire di caldo / freddo: to be dying of heat / cold  
• Scoppiare di caldo (literally, to be bursting with heat): to be sweltering
• Essere fradicio/a di sudore: to be drenched in sweat
• Sudare come un maiale: to be sweating like a pig (not the most glamorous image, but sometimes brutally honest)
• Avere le mani gelate / i piedi gelati: to have frozen hands / feet  
• Non sentire più le dita(literally, to no longer feel your fingers): to have numb fingers. You can use this both for freezing cold or when struggling with too much luggage.
• Tremare come una foglia (literally, to tremble like a leaf): to be shivering

4. Talking movement and sensations

Sometimes it’s not exactly pain, but rather that unsettling feeling when the world won’t stay still. Maybe it’s a ferry to Capri rocking wildly, or a few too many limoncello shots. Or the sudden regret you feel when looking down from the top of a bell tower. Either way, here are some expressions to help you describe it:

• Avere un giramento di testa (literally, to have a spinning of the head): To feel dizzy 
• Avere le vertigini: To have vertigo 
• Vederci doppio: To see double
• Barcollare: To stagger
• Non reggersi in piedi: To be unable to stay upright
• Avere uno svarione: To feel dizzy (svarione usually means a clear mistake, but here it can also mean a sudden, brief dizziness)
• Avere il mal di mare: To feel seasick
• Avere il mal d’auto: To feel car sick 

5. When our body and our feelings are the same thing

Finally, since our bodies and emotions are always in conversation, let’s explore how to express states that are often both mental and physical.

• Essere nervoso/a: To be nervous
• Essere agitato/a: To be agitated 
• Essere stressato/a: To be stressed
• Essere teso/a: To be tense
• Essere / sentirsi a disagio: To feel uncomfortable

And here are some lovely expressions to use:

• Avere le farfalle nello stomaco: to have butterflies in the stomach
• Stare da dio (literally, to feel like God): to feel amazing / fantastic
• Sentirsi al settimo cielo (literally, to feel on seventh heaven): to feel absolutely amazing
• Avere la pelle d’oca: to have goosebumps
• Avere il cuore in gola (literally, to have your heart in your throat): To have bated breath
• Avere un nodo alla gola(literally, to have a knot in the throat): to have a lump in one’s throat 
• Avere un nodo allo stomaco: to have a knot in one’s stomach 
• Avere i nervi a fior di pelle (literally, to have your nerves right at the surface of your skin): to be on edge, like you’re one small thing away from falling apart or losing your temper.
• Avere il magone: there’s no perfect English equivalent for this one. Il magone can be summarized as that heavy feeling in our chest when something good comes to an end, like hugging someone goodbye not knowing when we’ll see them again or being moved by an old photo. It’s a mix of sadness, longing and sometimes nostalgia.

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.