Italian language Archives

Learning Italian: bruschetta takes on pizza

23 April, 2020

The Italian language is everywhere, especially in the world of cooking (where Italians believe that theirs is the best cuisine on earth), and with the new year come new dictionaries around the world. While some English words are adopted into…

Learn Italian online: word of the day, "espresso" or "espressino"

19 April, 2020

When ordering a coffee in Italy, the word “caffè” is enough to order yourself an “espresso” - the famous coffee that has created famous coffee brands such as Lavazza and Illy.Few know, however, about the little brother of the “espresso”:…

Italian gestures in pictures: learn Italian expressions

17 April, 2020

We’ve seen world famous Italian gestures in this hilarious Italian video, and here we bring you a post on Italian gestures - in pictures! Ever wanted to know exactly what the guy was telling you when you hired your car…

Learning Italian: Antonio Cassano gives us the "cassanata"

17 April, 2020

When it comes to the Italian language, the locals know how to get creative. They can make swear words into nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs and the results are generally quite funny and more often than not, become part of…

Italian words in English: "al fresco"

13 April, 2020

English and Italian borrow words from each other, with Italian words in English generally of the culinary variety. After I was roundly criticised by one commenter for making fun of Italians and their use of the word ‘trendy’, we thought…

2010 Sanremo festival: Italian dialect songs and international artists

12 April, 2020

New rules for Italy’s famous Sanremo music festival mean that songs in Italian dialect will be allowed, and inclusion of foreign artists’ work will also be inaugurated. Other rule changes for the 2010 Sanremo music festival have modernised the event,…

Funny Italian video from Heineken: mime artist attacks a drunk

11 April, 2020

A mime artist attacks a drunk guy with his juggling equipment in Heineken’s “Know the Signs” viral marketing campaign against excessive drinking. The mime artist is in Italy, and, in the funny viral commercial, the guy filming says “I’m going…

Driving in Italy: parking in Rome pisses some people off

11 April, 2020

For the Italian language, or Italian English, we’ve already seen the creative and sparky side of the Romans come out with their “clients gentile” funny photo. Here we have another example, but for something far more serious - parking in…

How to write an Italian Christmas card

9 April, 2020

Christmas in Italy is not normally a time when Italians make long lists of all the people they need to write Christmas cards to, spending a small fortune in stamps and stationery. In fact, probably because families still often live…

Learn Italian and Italian traditions: the mozzarella and cheesy insults

8 April, 2020

After our mini course on cappuccino, espresso, lemons and pizza, today we look at more food. These three cheeses are the golden boys of the Campania region: the three most famous Italian buffalo milk cheeses. Before modern times, a cheese…

Learning to speak Italian: guide to gendered nouns

8 April, 2020

We were going to write some stuff on Italian men and women, but until we get around to doing that, we may as well examine the gendered nouns of the language. For English speakers learning the Italian language, there are…

Italian expressions: in Rome, living on clogs or prostitute street?

5 April, 2020

One of the more unusual streets in Rome for its name, is that of the Via delle Zoccolette. The name appears to have originally derived from the fact that on this street there was an institution for orphans, commonly called…

Italian karaoke and "la vita è bella": Shrek sings in Milanese dialect

26 March, 2020

This video comes from one of my Facebook friends and is advertised as “Shrek Karaoke dance party in Milanese [dialect]! With historic Milanese songs for those fed up with the same old Napoletan karaoke.”So for an insight into the Italian…

Learn to speak Italian: "tu" and "lei" formalities

24 March, 2020

English is quite subtle in its formal and informal registers - you say “good morning” rather than “hi”, “how are you” as opposed to “what’s happening”. But Italian has an entire grammar structure dedicated to formal language in the form…

Italian sayings: being "al bacio" with Perugina and the San Remo festival

18 March, 2020

In Italy, the kiss, or bacio, is very important. One of Italy’s sayings talks about the kiss, meaning perfection.When a recipe has been perfectly prepared, you can say it’s “al bacio”. You did some great spaghetti and knocked the socks…

Cristina del Basso becomes an Italian VIP

18 March, 2020

I’ve recently been reading Beppe Severgnini’s second book on the English language: L’inglese nuove lezioni semiserie. Many of his observations on how Italians use English are not only funny but also very accurate, one of them being the Italian language…

A Fish called Wanda: do you speak Italian?

16 March, 2020

A Fish called Wanda, one of the brilliant commedies of the 1980s, has one of the funniest scenes I have ever seen in my life! Of course I’m talking about the scene in which Kevin Kline stirs Jamie Lee Curtis’s…

Italian people: Riccardo Patrese, taking a spin with a formula one husband

14 March, 2020

As we said on Monday, going to an Italian football match, notably that of Inter at Milan’s San Siro, is a lesson in the Italian character and body language in particular. Anything from the hands behind the head in exasperation,…