Italian english 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…

Italian English: "customers gentile" and other fables

15 April, 2020

Far be it from me to criticise Italians for their English, this one comes from the locals themselves. I have been an English teacher in Italy and congratulate myself that none of my students would produce anything quite as creative…

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…

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…

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…