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Love it or hate it Milan is, with Rome, the most important city in the country. For many, it is the real capital of Italy, because it is its main economic and commercial center. Milan is also, needless to say, the trendiest city …

You may have read that opera lirica has recently become a candidate to enter the UNESCO intangible world heritage: another great achievement for our beautiful country and for the world of music. Yes, for our country, because opera as we know it today was …

Today’s word, scorciatoia (skohr-tchah-toh-eeah), has an easy translation, “shortcut.” It’s also quite simple to use because, contrarily to other words that have multiple meanings, scorciatoia means only that. Of course that doesn’t mean we can’t use it in different contexts! A scorciatoia can be a literal …

Today we want to explore a very common Italian expression, hai presente (ah-ee prai-sehn-teh). Avere presente means that we know what the other person is talking about, for instance, ho presente quel negozio, ci ho comprato questi pantaloni (“I know that store, I bought these pants …

On the 25th of September Italians, including those living abroad, are called to vote for the 2022 general elections. It is an important opportunity for citizens living outside of Italy to make their voices heard and choose their representatives for the …

Fuorché (foo-ohr-kai) means “except,” “but,” “apart from” and we use it often, especially in higher registers of language. It always comes in a pair with tutto, tutti, ogni and nessuno, and it always accentuates what we are saying. For instance, oggi posso fare tutto fuorché …

We love to assaggiare (ahs-sah-djah-rai) stuff in Italy! And it couldn’t be any different when you think how much we love good food and wine, because assaggiare means “to taste” or “ to try” something to eat, especially while you – or someone else …

Italy is famous for its saints: don’t they say we are a people of saints, sailors and poets? When you think of it, medieval pilgrims were the first tourists, you could almost say they inaugurated the long, successful era of Italian tourism …

Don’t ask an Italian to read subtitles at the movies: we just don’t do that! Lazy cinema-goers could not be bothered to do it through a foreign film as everyone else in the world does, and in fact, they don’t even need …

Among all the words of the day we have had so far, insolente  (een-so-lehn-tai) is probably the one with the most interesting etymology. In Italian, we say someone is “insolente” when they are very outspoken, to the point of lacking manners. Insolente …