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10 useful Italian words and phrases you won’t learn in a textbook*

We started putting this list together in February...

So much of the words and phrases we hear around us every day were not things we learned from Italian class before we came. It was hard to make heads or tails of what people around us were saying at first, but really once you know a little basic Italian plus some of the most commonly used idioms, you’ve got a pretty good head start.

dai! (die!) I imagine Elaine from Seinfeld hitting Jerry in the chest, this word literally means 'give,' but is used to mean 'come ON!' and 'No way!'

(una) roba (row-bah) means 'stuff' and is used similarly, unless you close your eyes and lick your lips while you say it, in which case you are clearly talking about food and mean to say that it was really, really good.

(un) casino (cah-zee-noh) literally means 'brothel,' but is used to mean mess, any kind of mess. It is not uncommon to hear people say that their home is a 'casino.'

mah! literally 'but!' used to express indignation about the course of events (someone cuts you off while driving, the mechanical cow is out of milk, your bus is not coming because there is a strike, the museum is unexpectedly closed due to lack of personnel...).

cioè… (cho-eh) literally 'which is...' used as a verbal pause such as 'like' in English, it's hard to hear a sentence spoken without a few supplementary 'cioè's thrown in, which often get shortened to sound like 'ch-ay'

bambino/a, bimbo/a, ragazzo/a, maschio, femina tricky, because in most languages I've studied, there are basic words for boy and girl. Here the word ragazzo or ragazza not only means boy or girl, but also could refer to anyone as old as 55. In fact, I would say the use of this list of words illustrates an interesting trend in Italy to emphasize youthfulness: bambino/a could refer to a baby as old as 5 or 6, bimbo/bimba (also literaly 'baby') works fine for children as old as 15, ragazzo/ragazza, as I mentionned before, though it means boy/girl could be someone as old as 55 or so, and when used with the posessive pronouns mio/mia or tuo/tua means one's significant other (about 50% of ragazzi our age who have children are not married), which becomes confusing in conversation- are you asking me about Gus or Gibbs? Thankfully there are at least generic terms to refer to males and females, to help alleviate at least some of the confusion or offer opportunities for clarification- mascio and femina are not just technical terms in italian, they might say there were 10 ragazzi at the party, 5 masci, and 5 femine.

quindi, comunque, dunque, insomma, allora, invece, anzi, però, infatti these are all important verbal pauses, the words themselves hold very little meaning (most mean 'so'). It was in starting to use these in Italian and then trying to speak English later that I realized we don't really have these the same way the Italians do. My personal favorite is 'invece,' which literally means 'rather,' but also insinuates 'it's not like you think it is, in fact, it's quite different and let me tell you how now...' I have a friend who noticed you might hear an Italian use a string of any 5 of these to introduce any given sentence, her husband said this is culturally critical- you have to say SOMETHING, but you also need time to think of what you'll say, these work nicely for both purposes.

ce la faccio, literally, as clearly as I can tell, this means: 'I've got the can-do.' Something like- "ce la fai?" "sì, ce la faccio," 'Have you got it?' 'Yes, I've got it.' My favoite example of this incredibly common expression came from early in our trip, Gus' best friend Nico was riding a bike down a steep grassy hill, at the bottom he yelled, "ce l'ho fatta!" 'I did it!'

cavalo/col cavalo, literally 'cabbage,' or 'with cabbage.' It can be used to mean 'that's his/her business,' as in the expression 'cavoli suoi' (literally, his cabbage), or by itself it usually means 'heck!' or 'wow!' I recall one mamma at school complaining about something that the kids were supposed to do, to which she replied, 'Col cavalo!' (With cabbage we will be doing that!)

proprio is proprio the most used word proprio ever proprio after the proprio most commonly used 'cioè' (see above). It literally means 'properly,' but we would say 'really' 'actually' 'exactly' and/or 'totally.'

Now you, too, can say what I said to the kids today:

Insomma, la vostra camera è proprio un casino! Mah! Cioè... con tutta questa roba, ce la fate? Dai bimbi, cavalo!

In short, your room is a really a brothel! Ugh! Like... with all this stuff, can you handle it? Come on kids, heck!

*Disclaimer- Gibbs reminds me that he DID learn most of these words in class before we arrived, but it's their idiomatic use that is surprising. I, in fact, hadn't learned these before arriving, but that probably has more to do with my lack of studies than anything...