Lesson Transcript

Hello everyone, welcome back to italianpod101.com.
My name is Desy. Mi chiamo Desy, mi chiamo Desy, and in this video, we're going to talk about summer holidays.
le vacanze estive
Le vacanze estive for Italians are a big deal.
The thing is August is the month of holidays, okay?
il mese di vacanza
You can use this term in the singular form or in the plural one as well.
If I say vado in vacanza, I'm going on holiday.
Dove farai le vacanze?
Where are you going to have your holidays?
They both work but you want to pay attention to the fact that in, so on, only works with vacanza, singular form.
In plus singular, in vacanza, sono in vacanza, I'm on vacation or vado in vacanza, I'm going on vacation
but in vacanze doesn't work, le vacanze, okay?
Another way to say vacanza is ferie, which is always plural, okay?
Sono in ferie, I'm on vacation, ferie, never feria, feria doesn't exist and feria again means vacanze
but it's the ones, how to say, the days that you have as a riot, let's say, when you're working,
they have to give you feria, so it's a period of vacation, it doesn't mean that you have to go somewhere,
that's the difference, when you say sono in vacanza, you're probably going somewhere.
When you say sono in ferie, it means that you're just not working because that's your holiday period,
that they have to give you.
I think it's like two to three weeks depending on the company that you're working for
but the thing is, as I was saying before, August is the month of vacation for everyone,
especially the two weeks in the middle of August, those are the ones when you cannot basically do anything,
meaning like business-wise, because everything is closed and that's because there is Ferragosto,
Ferragosto, Ferragosto is the 15th of August, okay, every year, of course,
it's a holiday that comes from religion, in fact, it's the day when the Assumption of Holy Mary
is celebrated, l'Assunzione di Maria, but what we do basically is we grill,
so it's a barbecue day, il giorno di grigliata, grigliata, a lot of people decide to spend it
at the sea, al mare, al mare, but people that are not actually living on the sea or that are not there
for vacation, the ones that stay in the city or somewhere else anyway, grilling is the tradition,
la grigliata di Ferragosto, la grigliata di Ferragosto.
So given that August and in particular the 15th of August is the most important day,
everything evolves around that, so that's why we have the two central weeks of August as Ferie,
and then depending on the company, maybe three weeks as well or maybe the whole month too,
lucky them, and what do Italians do? As I was saying, vanno al mare, they go to the sea,
andare al mare. D'estate, tutti vanno al mare. In summer, everyone goes to the sea.
Ti piace stare in spiaggia? Do you like laying on the beach,
being at the beach? Ti piace stare in spiaggia?
No, fa troppo caldo. No, it's too hot. No, fa troppo caldo.
Preferisco la montagna. I prefer the mountains.
Since we're really lucky and Italy had almost everything, so the sea but great mountains as
well and then hills, especially in Tuscany, you can basically choose to do anything. So il mare,
la montagna, la collina, mi piace stare in città. I like staying in the city.
Because there's no one.
Perché non c'è nessuno.
That's a question that you may hear among friends or couples or families,
everyone talks about that.
What do we do this summer? Where are we going this summer?
Where are you going this summer? Where are you going in summer, more in general?
I'm going camping on the lake.
On the lake.
Since it's summer, it's going to be alta stagione, so high season.
High season, while if it's not high season, it's called bassa stagione,
low season, which means that of course in alta stagione prices are a bit more expensive.
In high season, hotels are more expensive.
Albergo is just another word, an Italian word to say hotel, but we also say hotel.
I think it's just a different pronunciation.
Which hotel did you choose?
I'm renting a house.
Probably at the sea.
That's basically what people do for vacation and what they do on vacation and then probably
just relaxing.
I like to relax on vacation while someone else may want to be more active and go for
escursioni.
Let's organize an excursion.
Personally, what I like to do on vacation is leggere libri, reading books, giocare
a carte, playing card games, giocare a carte, but also visitare le città, to visit some
cities.
No matter what you do in summer, please pay attention to colpo di calore, heat stroke,
because especially in Italy and in the city, it's really really hot, molto molto caldo.
In fact, even when shops are not closed for vacation, in which case, by the way, you will
see chiuso per ferie, closed for vacation, chiuso per ferie dal al, for example chiuso
per ferie dal 10 al 30 agosto, closed for vacation from the 10th to the 30th of August.
So even when shops are not closed for vacation, you may see that they open later than usual.
So for example, if during the year they do from 9 to 6, in summer it's possible that
they have the break in between.
So for example, they do from 9 to 12, and then from 4 to 7, or from 4 to 8, because
it's too hot in the middle.
So even if they're open, people don't go, because it's just not advised to go outside
under the sun when it's so hot.
What are you gonna do for your vacation?
Let me know in the comments.
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I'll see you soon.
Thanks for watching.
Bye bye.
Ciao ciao.

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