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ITALIAN WORD OF THE DAY

Italian expression of the day: ‘Stare con le mani in mano’

Don’t just sit on your hands – get to learning this phrase.

Published: 26 November 2021 11:15 CET
Updated: 20 March 2023 16:33 CET

Italian expression of the day stare con le mani in mano

Photo: Annie Spratt/Unsplash/Nicolas Raymond

In English, we ‘sit on our hands’ when we’re lazing around doing nothing; in Italian you stare con le mani in mano.

It literally means ‘to stay with your hands in your hand’, which gives you a pretty good visual picture of what’s involved (although does confusingly imply the existence of a third hand).

Non stare lì a guardare con le mani in mano, vieni ad aiutarci!
Don’t just stand there with watching, come and help us!

Se ne stanno con le mani in mano ad aspettare un miracolo.
They’re sitting on their hands waiting for a miracle.

You may be wondering why mano takes the feminine form (una mano, le mani) despite looking like it should be masculine with those o/i endings.

The answer is that it comes from the Latin manus, which is a fourth declension feminine noun, and that stuck as the noun evolved into its modern day Italian form.

In the Latin it’s also an anomaly, as almost all other Latin u-stem declension nouns are masculine in gender; but unfortunately we can’t consult with a contemporary Latin speaker to ask them why they made an exception of manus .

To stare con le mani in mano doesn’t necessarily imply laziness or a lack of willingness to take action – it could also mean you’re forced to be idle against your will because you have nothing to do.

In this situation it’s less a case of sitting on your hands and more one of twiddling your thumbs.

Non le piace stare così, con le mani in mano.
She doesn’t like having to sit on her hands like this.

Non possiamo semplicemente starcene con le mani in mano mentre gli altri cercano di trovare una soluzione.
We can’t just sit here twiddling our thumbs while the others try to find a solution.

Bored Sesame Street GIF

If you find yourself sitting on your hands or twiddling your thumbs, try going through our Word of the Day archive and seeing how many Italian words and expressions you can memorise.

Do you have an Italian phrase you’d like us to feature? If so, please email us with your suggestion.

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Italian word of the day: Metà vs mezzo

It’s often the case in Italy that you’ll find several words that mean something very similar, and it’s not always easy to know which one is appropriate. Our new mini series looks at some of the most common word pairs, and sorts out which should be used and when.

Why do I need to know the difference between metà and mezzo?

Because you’ll need to use both of them in daily conversation if you live in Italy, but the difference in meaning isn’t always clear.

What’s the difference?

When you want to talk about ‘half’ of something in Italian, it may seem as though you have two choices.

Depending on what you’re talking about, you could reach for either metà or mezzo (or mezza, which we’ll come to later) but many language learners say they’re not always sure which one to use in certain situations.

Put simply, the difference between metà and mezzo is much the same as the difference between ‘half’ and ‘middle’ in English.

Metà: a half, as in one of two equal parts of something.

Mezzo: the middle, as in equally distant from two points.

For example:

Ha mangiato metà torta

He ate half of the cake

Facciamo a metà

Let’s split it (in half)

E’ sdraiato in mezzo alla strada

He’s lying in the middle of the street

Non penso che ti dovrebbe mettere in mezzo

I don’t think she should be putting you in the middle of this

READ ALSO: Come stai vs come va

But is anything in Italian ever really that simple?

There are some specific situations where the two words seem to be used interchangeably, or where it’s not clear why one is typically used and not the other.

Confusion arises particularly around telling the time in Italian, as you could say:

Sono le undici e mezzo

It’s half past eleven

Il mio treno arriva alle 5.40: vediamoci dieci minuti prima, alla mezza.

My train arrives at 5.40: let’s meet ten minutes before, at half past.

Why in this case aren’t we using metà for ‘half’? And why is it sometimes mezza rather than mezzo?

The English ‘half past’ doesn’t translate literally into Italian. Mezzo is used here instead, since we’re talking about the ‘middle of’ the hour, the point equally distant between two hours.

This might take some getting used to for English native speakers, but it is pretty logical.

As for why it’s mezza in the second example, this isn’t because it needs to agree with the gender of the noun in the sentence.

In fact, dictionaries tell us it’s always more correct to use mezzo regardless (although many Italians themselves find this rule confusing.)

But, in this case, as the language guardians at Italy’s Accademia della Crusca explain, mezza may (if you prefer) be used instead of mezzo when we already know the time, or at least the hour, being talked about.

So if you had earlier told someone an event would start at 8pm, but it’s now been delayed by half an hour, you could then say:

Comincerà alle otto e mezza

But if you’re inviting someone for the first time, you’d probably stick to:

Alle otto e mezzo

This can be a lot to remember when you’re in the middle of a conversation, but with practice you’ll soon get a feel for which word sounds right in which context.

Do you have an Italian word you’d like us to feature? If so, please email us with your suggestion.

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