National Dictionary Day: Italian

Dictionary Day has been a lot of fun and we hope you will continue to celebrate all week by taking advantage of the the free access to Oxford Language Dictionaries Online. Our final quiz is about Italian words. Which quiz did you do best on, French, German, Spanish or Italian?

Question 1: In English we turn as red as a beetroot; what vegetable do we resemble in Italian?

Question 2: If someone offers to go alla romana on a meal out, what do they mean?

Question 3: You want to translate the news to your Italian friend – what are the Italian terms for climate change? fair trade? PFI?

Question 4: You are familiar with your everyday cappuccino, but what did the word originally describe? And what do latte and macchiato mean in Italian?

Question 5: What’s the Italian for weekend, marketing, pub, happy hour?

AnswersQuestion 1: As red as a pepper, or peperone. You can find this out by typing as red as a beetroot into E-I.

Question 2: It’s the equivalent of our going Dutch (i.e. paying half each). This is a little harder to find. You need to be aware that romana is the feminine form of the adjective romano, and type in romano on I-E.

Question 3: Cambiamento climatico, commercio equo e solidale, iniziativa di finanza privata.

Question 4: Cappuccino is the Italian for Capuchin, as in the order of monks. Latte means milk, and macchiato means (approximately) spattered, dashed, mottled. You can find this out by typing cappuccino, latte, and macchiato into the I-E side.

Question 5: The same – weekend, marketing, pub, happy hour. You can find this out by typing the words into the I-E side