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Showing posts with label Italian words. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Italian words. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 18, 2025

Italian words which sound or look similar to English words

 Here are some of the words I have learned recently from Duolingo. I found some of them had obvious connections with similar or longer English words. When I was stumped, I asked my husband and he added a couple more useful suggestions. Notice that the Italian words usually end with a vowel, a, o, e, i. Sometimes the last consonant is dropped, leaving the Italian word ending in a vowel.



Italian - English

farmacia - pharmacy (sounds the same, ph=f) farmaci-a

dito  - finger (like digit) dit -o

ha - has (she has, consonant dropped)

lei - she (To remember the letters, like the French elle, using the letters l and e. Il is he, so you add e to get the feminine lei, and reverse the letter il for he to get lei for her, putting her letter e in the middle of the l and i. Or using the sounds to remember, I remember, 'he was ill and she lay down with him.')

Medico - doctor, in the medical profession, prescribes medicine medic-o

(le) pareti - walls (like partition, starts par, includes the letter t, Italian ends with i , i being plural like the word spaghetti)

pericolo - danger, peril, something perilous pericol -o

preferisco - I prefer (My memory aid is ,'I prefer San Francisco - preferisco San Francisco')

sei - are you? (I rmember, 'Say, are you ...?'

sforzi - effort or force - all have the letters for, in Italian add a hiss at the start and the vowel i at the end sforz - i

vivace - lively, vivacious vivac - e


English - Italian

are you? - sei

danger - pericolo

doctor - medico

effort / force - sforzi

finger - dito

has - ha

I prefer - preferisco

Pharmacy - farmacia

she - lei

vivacious - vivace

walls - paretti


Glossary (mini dictionary of words used in a document)

vowel - voiced sound, a e i o u (and sounds with added y, eg ay)

consonant - what goes with the (vowel) sound, or stops it, usually using the tongue or lips, b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p , q, r s, t v, w, x, z

e.g. Latin for for example

Useful Websites

Duolingo - Italian and other languages

Wiki - consonants

Wiki - vowels

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Sunday, March 8, 2020

Italian words which most people know


Italian flag - three colours

Alas, Italy and Italian tourism has been badly hit by the coronavirus. Where to learn and practise Italian?

Italian restaurants, worldwide.
Pizza restaurants.
Read Italian words on foods in supermarkets, pasta, chocolates such as Ferrero Rocher.
Wine bottle labels: Lambrusco, Prosecco, Asti.
Visit Italy,
Italian speaking parts of Switzerland,
Roman ruins - Latin is similar, and
Latin in Roman Catholic churches - in the hymns and prayers and gravestones.
Italian films - Fellini. The Leopard. Watch on YouTube.
Opera and operettas.
Coffee shops selling Italian style coffee.
Italian airlines and ships.
Italian cars such as Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Lambourghini,
Clothes labels.

A dictionary of musical terms will give you lots of Italian words used in many languages.

Italian Words
apartment
aria - song, short song words
balcony
ballerina
bravo
bust
concerto
crescendo
diva - temperamental chief singer (usually female)
duet
duo
falsetto
fiasco
finale
folio - sheets of paper, as in music or Shakespeare play text
forte - loud and strong
impresario
librettist - writer of the songs and words in a musical
Madonna -  (my lady)
maestro - master or expert
nostalgia
pasta - noodles (like the English noun paste)
pianoforte - predecessor of the modern piano (literally quiet loud), full name of piano, keyboard instrument with pedals for making loud and soft musical notes
piano - quiet
piccolo - wind instrument (the word means small)
quartet
scenario - scene (imaginary or staged)
solo
soloist - player on their own whilst the rest of the orchestra is silent
soprano -
trio
trombone
vista
vendetta

Useful Websites
https://grammar.yourdictionary.com/word-lists/list-of-english-words-of-italian-origin.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Italian_origin

About the author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Polyglot. Teacher of English and other languages.


Monday, January 2, 2017

Word of the Day in Italian for English speakers


Problem
How do you learn a foreign language? Which ones are easiest, and how do you make them easier? How long should you allow?

Answers
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Language_Learning_Difficulty_for_English_Speakers
http://www.wikihow.com/Learn-Any-Language
https://www.exploringlifesmysteries.com/fluenz-vs-pimsleur-vs-rosetta-stone-vs-duolingo/

Story
I make up my own memory aids, (called mnemonics).
Accetare is Italian for the verb to accept.
You can see that the first four letters are the same. The T at the end of the second syllable is the same in both languages.

Tips
Use Duolingo for just five minutes a day to start or cement a language.

Author
Angela Lansbury, author and speaker and language teacher.Please follow me on: Blogger.com ; Facebook;LinkedIn; YouTube; Instagram; Twitter. Like my posts and share them with the fiends and family and colleagues and followers.