Commonly Confused Words in Italian | Italian for Beginners

Lesson Transcript

Hello everyone, welcome back to ItalianPod101.com.

My name is Desy.

Mi chiamo Desy.

And in this video we're going to discuss

commonly confused words in Italian.

parole spesso confuse in italiano

Actually, comunemente is the word for commonly, literally,

but we use spesso so often, more in that context.

That being said, this is an extremely useful video

because you don't want to be misunderstood,

believe me, especially with some words.

So let's start with some words that can be mispronounced easily

and lead to a different meaning.

So, number one.

pene, pene, with the P,

P of Palermo, pene, means penis, right?

And you don't want to make a mistake

when you're actually referring to the word bene

with the B, like Bologna, bene, or penne,

penne, double N.

Now, bene means well, good, and penne means pens.

Voglio solo il tuo bene.

I only want your wellness, your good, anything good for you.

Voglio solo il tuo bene.

You really don't want to mispronounce that with P, right?

This word is also similar to pane as well, pane, which is bread.

Vado a comprare il pane.

I'm going to buy the bread, pane, with the A, as in Ancona.

I'm giving you all city names.

While mi serve un porta penne per la scuola,

I need a pencil case for school, porta penne.

Now, this is also something that can be confused

because we don't say porta matite, which is pencil.

Matita is one pencil, matite, pencils,

so we say porta penne, so pen case, literally.

So those are all the words that can be mispronounced around bene.

Let's say come va molto bene.

And I said molto bene for a reason.

In fact, the second word that we're going to see is molto,

that can be confused with morto.

So L like Livorno and R like Roma, R in Italian.

Sono molto stanco.

I'm really tired.

Sono stanco morto.

I'm dead tired.

Molto and morto.

It's hard to completely misunderstand what you're saying

because it really depends on the context, but still.

Number three, we have anno.

Anno as in A-N-N-O, it's year,

while anno, I know the pronunciation is the same,

but with H is they have,

and then there's anno with just one N, which is anos.

So there too you want to be careful.

Ogni anno loro hanno fatto una festa.

Every year they have thrown a party, they made a party, they had a party.

Ogni anno loro hanno fatto una festa.

Quest'anno non l'hanno fatta.

This year they didn't have it.

Quest'anno non l'hanno, è la apostrophe H, hanno fatta.

Even if there's not loro, before you know that anno with H is the verb to have.

Now let's move to all those words that seem something that you know,

but it's actually not, so what it's called false friends in English, right?

The first one that probably everyone learns is caldo.

Caldo does not mean cold.

The contrary, caldo means hot.

So caldo and cold are not similar in Italian meaning-wise.

Un tè caldo per favore.

A hot tea, please.

Numero cinque, pretendere.

So pretendere in Italian does not mean to pretend,

because to pretend is fare finta di or fingere.

Non fare finta di piangere.

Don't pretend you're crying.

Non fare finta.

So finta is something fake, so fare finta is don't make the fake act of,

and that's why it's said non fare finta di,

because after D you put what you're pretending to do.

But the proper verb is fingere.

Non fingere di essere interessato.

Don't pretend you're interested.

Fingere di essere interessato.

Confetti.

Confetti is not…. coriandoli in Italian.

So confetti is what you throw in the air, right?

But that for us, the small pieces of paper, is coriandoli.

A carnevale si lanciano i coriandoli.

During carnival, coriandoli are thrown, pieces of paper are thrown around,

while i confetti in Italian is what is given during weddings,

the almonds basically, or chocolate covered in sugar.

Numero sette, similar to what we just said, also to expect.

It's not only aspettare, ok?

It's aspettarsi, so reflexive, because aspettare just means to wait.

Aspettarsi does mean to expect, because you have an expectation, which is aspettativa.

Non mi aspettavo una cosa simile.

I didn't expect a thing like that.

Non mi aspettavo.

So you have to use it to yourself.

I didn't myself expect, kind of.

Or also, avevo un'aspettativa diversa.

I had a different expectation.

Aspettativa also means a period of time that you take off from work,

where you still have your job, but you're not working, you're not getting any money,

because of some personal reasons.

Aspettativa.

Parenti.

Parenti is not parents.

Parents is actually genitori, and parenti means relatives.

A Natale festeggio con i miei parenti.

I spend Christmas with my relatives.

I party at Christmas with my relatives.

Vedo i miei genitori ogni settimana.

I see my parents every week.

Vedo i miei genitori ogni settimana.

Also notice that when you say vedo i miei without adding anything,

and that's a sentence already, I see mines, literally, that is referring to parents.

Vedo i miei ogni settimana.

I already know that you're talking about your parents even though you didn't tell me.

Numero 9.

Excited.

It's not eccitato.

I mean, literally, it is, but we don't use it in the same context,

because eccitato is more like turned on.

So to say excited, we would say non vedo l'ora di.

I can't wait for.

Non vedo l'ora di.

Literally, I can't see the time of.

O sono emozionato per.

I'm moved, like I'm emotionally involved.

I'm really anticipating this thing.

Sono emozionato per la festa.

I'm excited for the party.

But you wouldn't really say eccitato, even though nowadays people are starting to understand what you mean.

Lastly, but as important as the others, is the one that you know already, probably latte.

Latte is not the coffee that you get in your cup, like a takeaway coffee.

That's caffè.

Still, even if it has milk inside, it's caffè for us, while latte is only milk.

Andiamo a prenderci un caffè.

Let's go get a coffee.

Tu lo vuoi macchiato?

Do you want it with milk?

Prendo il caffè con un po' di latte freddo.

I get my coffee with a bit of cold milk.

O prendo il caffè con un po' di latte caldo, with a bit of hot milk.

Cos' macchiato literally means stained, so it's the coffee with some milk in it.

So those are the words that may be tricky, pay attention to those.

But as bonus ones, I can give you some that even Italian people struggle with,

and most of times they don't even know, meaning that they get the orthography wrong.

For example, qual è?

Which one?

You don't want to put the apostrophe.

Qual è il tuo colore preferito?

Which one is your favorite color?

Which is your favorite color?

Qual è?

Even though you may think that since it's not quale è, so you have to take away the E,

you have to put an apostrophe, that's not the case.

Qual works like that.

That's fine as it is.

Qual è?

Or also pur troppo, it's not pul troppo, but unfortunately sometimes you can hear people

using the L instead, so it's the same thing as molto and morto, right?

But the thing is that pul troppo doesn't mean anything, there's not such attention to that,

but it's pur troppo, with the R in Italian.

And also obiettivo, even though when you're pronouncing it,

it seems like it has double B, it doesn't.

Obiettivo.

So yeah, those three were just extra.

If you already mastered the rest, then you can move to pay attention to that as well.

I hope this video was useful and helps you not to get into unwanted situations, right?

And if you want to learn even more Italian, just click the link in the description,

download our PDF lessons and learn Italian in the fastest, easiest and most fun way possible.

Thank you for watching, I'll see you soon.

Bye bye, ciao ciao!

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