Archive for 'Italian Language'
Cicero’s chickpea Posted by Serena on May 7, 2009
A few days ago I had an interesting reply to my blog La Farinata from Vince, who wrote: “Did you know that Cicero is a nickname meaning chick pea? Thus it seems the word is ceci in modern Italian. At least this is what I have read”. I was intrigued by this comment and decided to do…
Parole Curiose, le soluzioni e una leggenda molto interessante. Posted by Serena on Apr 25, 2009
(Unusual words, the answers and a very interesting legend.) Well done everyone who had a go at my little quiz called ‘Parole Curiose’. It was, admittedly, quite hard and no one has attempted to answer all the questions. Let’s begin with the answers, and then I want to tell you a story related to one…
Parole Curiose Posted by Serena on Apr 19, 2009
One of the things that attracts a lot of people to the Italian language is its musicality. This is probably largely due to our rather ‘generous’ usage of vowels which enable scorrevolezza (fluency), well at least for us ‘natives’, students of Italian may disagree! Try this little scioglilingua (tongue twister) for example: Sopra la panca la capra…
Un po’ di giardinaggio Posted by Serena on Apr 16, 2009
Oggi facciamo un po’ di giardinaggio (today we are going to do a bit of gardening). At this time of year we are very busy working on the orto (vegetable garden). I wouldn’t say that we are big gardening experts, but we have had an orto for many years now and we manage to be self sufficient…
Un cappuccino per favore Posted by Serena on Apr 10, 2009
‘Un cappuccino per favore’ is probably one of the most common phrases learnt by tourists visiting Italy, yet as with many things Italian a cappuccino isn’t always what you think it is. To the tourist a cappuccino is nothing more than a fancy cup of coffee with foam on top, but how many realize that a cappuccino…
La Camera di Canaletto? Posted by Serena on Apr 4, 2009
Speaking of misleading words (see my recent series ‘Misleading Word of the Day’), another word that I have often seen included in lists of so called ‘falsi amici’ (false friends) or false cognates is ‘camera’. I don’t however consider ‘camera’ a ‘false friend’ but rather a ‘helpful friend’ because it is one of the many…
La Primavera! Posted by Serena on Mar 31, 2009
The 21st of March was the official beginning of Primavera (Spring), and as the proverb goes: ‘a San Benedetto una rondine sotto il tetto’ (for Saint Benedict a swallow under the roof), because in the Italian calendar the Saint for the 21st of March is San Benedetto, and when the swallows appear it’s a sign that…