Lesson Transcript

Hello everyone, welcome back to italianpod101.com.
My name is Desy.
Mi chiamo Desy.
And in this video, we're going to learn together what happens in October in Italy.
ottobre in Italia
October in Italian is Ottobre, Ottobre.
Please don't get confused just because Otto, Otto means eight.
It's not August, it's not the eighth month of the year, but it's October the tenth.
That being said, not the first day of October, but just the second.
So il due di Ottobre, il due di Ottobre è la festa dei nonni.
È la festa dei nonni, grandparents' day.
The second of October is actually the day when guardian angels were celebrated.
I mean they're still celebrated, but that's also why they picked that day for grandparents
because they're called the Angeli Custodi sulla terra.
So guardian angels on earth.
Angeli Custodi sulla terra.
On this day, i nipoti, nipoti, so nephews, actually nipote, nipote, singular form,
it's used both for female and male, grandchild, while grandchildren is nipoti, nipoti,
both for female and male as well.
Nipoti is also nephew if you are the uncle or the aunt, for example, same word,
but nonni, nonni is grandparents, so nonno, nonno is grandpa and nonna, nonna is grandma or grandmother.
We don't really have a shortened way to say nonno or nonna.
On this date you congratulate them saying auguri, auguri, so congratulations in general,
or grazie and a postcard or some flowers, grazie, so thank you.
There aren't many celebrations on specific days, so fast forward to almost the end of October,
the 25th is actually the World Pasta Day.
So you may know it because it's everywhere, but it's the day when people celebrate pasta
and in particular since it's the most used meal in Italy, the most consumed meal in Italy,
we celebrated eating different types of pasta.
The most common one is corta and rigata, corta, short and rigata, edged,
so there are little lines on top of the pasta, you know, like rigatoni, for example, or penne.
Actually every type can be either liscia, liscia, so smooth, liscia, or rigata, as I just said.
The difference is that rigata is most common, liscia is not really used that much.
I prefer edged pasta because
because
So if there is liscia and rigata, then we also have the contrary of corta, so short, as I just said,
long, lunga, pasta lunga, like spaghetti, fettuccine, linguine, you tell me, tagliatelle also.
Depending on the sauce that you want to eat, you choose the pasta, that's how it goes.
Then of course the 31st is Halloween, even though in Italian we say Halloween, different accent,
but anyway, there has been controversy about this celebration because people say that that's
a pagana, festa, so a pagan celebration, festa pagana, but actually it turns out that in the past
there were many rituals that were actually kind of similar to what happens on Halloween in other countries.
Also it has to be said that in Italy we celebrate Ogni Santi or Tutti Santi on the 1st of November,
so the night is actually when the thing happens and what I mean with the thing is that we celebrate
every saint, Tutti Santi or Ogni Santi, each saint, which to be fair is dead people,
so it makes sense to celebrate il giorno dei morti, the day of the death, for us as well.
Either way, recently it has become more common, especially for kids, to celebrate Halloween,
so in Italy too they say trick or treat, but they say dolcetto or scherzetto, dolcetto,
which is sweet, tiny sweet, so treat, dolcetto, or scherzetto, scherzetto, which comes from scherzo,
which is prank, so little prank, scherzetto.
Some more common vocabulary about this would be of course pumpkin, so zucca, zucca,
then there are fantasmi, ghosts, fantasmi, or cappello da strega, witch head or wizard head,
if it's stregone, stregone, so the male version, or also spiders, so ragni, or ragnatele,
spider webs, ragnatele, and then I'd say that you can also see like pirate costumes, so pirati,
or like prisoners, prigionieri, pirati, prigionieri, and so on, like we're evolving on costumes as well.
On top of specific days, celebrations, October is known for vendemmia in Italy, vendemmia.
Vendemmia actually happens from July till November, but depending on which region you're in
and what kind of wine you're producing, October is a big month for vendemmia.
So what does vendemmia mean? It's actually grape picking, but the grape that you use for wine.
So wine, grape picking.
The grapes are ready for vendemmia, so are ready to be picked, they're mature enough.
It's interesting how in the past they actually picked the grapes, then they put that in big containers
called tinozzi, tinozzi, and then people just stepped on it, so calpestare, step on calpestare
l'uva, so that the must of grapes, il mosto d'uva, came out of the big tinozzi, of the big containers.
And then calpestare l'uva, so stepped on grapes, scalzi, barefoot, scalzi.
Or you could say a piedi nudi. A piedi nudi literally means with naked feet, piedi nudi,
but you can also say scalzi, which means without calze, which is socks, right?
Because the S before the word makes it the contrary.
So scalzi, or a piedi nudi, pestavano, they stepped on l'uva, to make wine, per fare il vino.
Something else that happens in October is the beginning of university year.
So when you start, you're a freshman, right?
That's called matricola, matricola in Italian, because matricola is actually the serial number
that you get on your student card, on your tessera universitaria, tessera universitaria,
so university card, and that's where it comes from.
So if you are a matricola, you're new, because you just got your serial number.
University starts in October, which means that there were admission tests before,
even like March or April, some just September, okay, but it depends on the university, of course.
If you don't have a test di ammissione, which is admission test,
then your university is ad accesso libero, free access, accesso libero, free admission, ammissione libera.
Either way, the moment you start university is the best one,
because you don't have any exams to take before starting the year, so it's when you enjoy the full summer.
Speaking of which, in this month it's not too cold yet, but I wouldn't say you can go to the sea.
Some years maybe, depending on how the summer went in the south,
but for the rest I'd say that it starts getting colder, so I'd advise to go to cities if you want to visit Italy
and not really to the seaside, but still you can explore easily because it's not super cold,
but it's still nice to go, to be outside. It's like chilly, I'd say.
Lastly, but not less important, not everyone knows that October is also known as the pink month,
and why is that? Because it's the month of prevention for female cancers,
so basically breast cancers and so on, but yeah, it's pink October, Ottobre Rosa.
You can find many visite di prevenzione, prevention visits, gratuite, so for free.
So yeah, that's pretty much what happens in October. I hope I gave you a general overview of the month.
Please let me know in the comments what happens during this month in your country
and maybe how you celebrate if you do Halloween.
And remember, if you haven't done it yet, you can sign up for your free lifetime account on ItalianPod101.com.
Thank you for watching and I'll see you soon. Bye bye, ciao ciao!

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