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ITALIAN LANGUAGE

8 phrases you need for getting romantic in Italian

With Valentine’s day just around the corner, here are some essential phrases to help you woo your Italian lover.

Published: 13 February 2023 16:12 CET
Here are some choice phrases for declaring your feelings to your Italian lover.
Here are some choice phrases for declaring your feelings to your Italian lover. Photo by YURI CORTEZ / AFP.

1. Mi piaci

Let’s start at the more casual end of the romance spectrum and work our way up from there.

Mi piaci simply means ‘I like you’ – while it’s often non-romantic, it can definitely also mean ‘I fancy you’. Instead of ‘like’ though, Italian uses the verb ‘please’ and inverts the subject and object, so in purely grammatical terms the literal English translation of this expression is more like ‘you please me’. 

READ ALSO: 11 of the most romantic places in Italy to escape the crowds

Don’t let this reversal trip you up: this means ti piaccio doesn’t mean ‘I like you’, but ‘you like me’ (literally, ‘I please you’) which would be a pretty presumptuous thing to say to your crush.

2. Mi sono preso/a una cotta per te

Speaking of crushes, there’s an easy way to tell someone they’re yours: mi sono preso/a una cotta per te means ‘I’ve got a crush on you’ (the o/a past participle ending changes depending on whether the person speaking is a man or a woman).

To simplify things a bit, you can just say sono cotto/a per te, turning cotta from a noun into an adjective.

READ ALSO: Five ways to have the perfect romantic weekend in Rome

And if you really want to ramp things up a notch, you can say sono innamorato/a cotto/a di te – I’m mad about you.

3. Sono pazzo/a di te

If you are mad about someone, you can tell them exactly that. Sono pazzo/a di te – ‘I’m mad about you’ – is one phrase that directly translates between Italian and English. Just like in English, in other contexts pazzo literally means ‘crazy/mad’.

A couple kiss as they enjoy a private beach in Fregene, northwest of Rome.

A couple kiss as they enjoy a private beach in Fregene, northwest of Rome. Photo by FILIPPO MONTEFORTE / AFP.

4. Mi sono innamorato/a di te

When you’re telling someone you love them, sometimes it’s best to be direct about it.

Mi sono innamorato/a di te means ‘I’ve fallen in love with you’/ ‘I’ve fallen for you’; if you want to take things even more back to basics, you can go with a simple ti amo – ‘I love you’.

READ ALSO: Three stories of finding love in Italy that will restore your faith in romance

One phrase you want to avoid is ti voglio bene. You may have heard that this means ‘I love you’ in Italian: it does, but only in a platonic/familial sense. If someone says this to you, it means they love you as a friend, but nothing more.

5. Colpo di fulmine

Literally a ‘lightning bolt/strike’, a colpo di fulmine is the Italian way to talk about love at first sight: it’s as though you were struck by lightning, and haven’t been the same since.

This phrase obviously needs to be used in combination with other words – you might say la prima volta che ti ho visto è stato un colpo di fulmine (‘the first time I saw you it was love at first sight’).

READ ALSO: Did Valentine’s Day really originate in Italy?

A less poetic alternative is amore al primo sguardo/amore a prima vista, which translates directly as ‘love at first sight’.

 Ti amo is the simplest way to tell someone you love them in Italian. Photo by MICHAL CIZEK / AFP.

6. Sei la mia anima gemella

Buckle up, because we’re really heading into intense territory now. A soulmate in Italian is an anima gemella – literally, a ‘twin soul’.

You’ll want to make sure you’re deeply in love – or at least a couple of glasses deep into your Sangiovese – before telling your love interest sei la mia anima gemella: ‘you are my soulmate’.

7. Siamo fatti l’uno per l’altra

Really want to turn on the cheese? You could say siamo fatti l’uno per l’altra – an almost direct translation of ‘we’re made for each other’.

That’s if you’re a woman talking to a man or vice versa – if you’re a man talking to a man, you can say siamo fatti l’uno per l’altro (confusingly, this formula can also be used in a man <–> woman context); for a woman talking to a woman, you’d say siamo fatte l’una per l’altra.

8. Mi sono perso nei tuoi occhi

You’ll want to know your audience here: for some this expression might represent the height of Mediterranean romance, while for others, it’s really going to up the ick factor.

Mi sono perso/a nei tuoi occhi is ‘I’m lost/ I got lost in your eyes’. A pick up line version is mi serve una mappa, mi sono perso nei tuoi occhi (‘I need a map, I’ve got lost in your eyes’), but you’ve got more dignity than that.

The phrase has inspired at least one Italian love song:

Enjoy using these expressions with your Valentine’s – and if you’re not currently with anyone, know that your time is coming: Italy makes up for having a day dedicated entirely to couples by making February 15th, La Festa di San Faustino, a celebration of singleness.

READ ALSO: San Faustino: Why February 15th is ‘Singles’ Day’ in Italy

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LEARNING ITALIAN

The key Italian vocabulary you’ll need for a doctor’s visit

Seeing a doctor can be a challenging experience if you’re new to the Italian healthcare system, but possibly even more so if your 'dottore' doesn't have a good command of English.

Published: 17 April 2024 12:16 CEST
The key Italian vocabulary you’ll need for a doctor’s visit

Seeing a doctor is usually seen as a fairly uncomplicated task but everything gets a little harder when you’re in a new country, and Italy is really no exception as its healthcare system can be fairly tricky to navigate at first.

Additionally, not all Italian doctors are competent and confident English speakers, which means that their vocabulary may not be enough to cover the full extent of medical terms and procedures involved in an ordinary visit and they may naturally switch to talking to you in their native tongue when asking questions or providing information. 

As such, having some handy vocabulary under your belt can be a big help when trying to bridge any language gaps during your first appointments.

Making an appointment

In order to get an appointment (visita) with a public general practitioner (medico di base), you must be registered with the Italian national healthcare system (Servizio Sanitario Nazionale, or SSN) and hold an Italian health card (tessera sanitaria).

READ ALSO: Italian healthcare: Should you switch from public to private insurance?

Further, while in some countries you may call the local clinic (ambulatorio) and book an appointment with any doctor on duty, that is not how things usually work in Italy.

In order to see an Italian GP, you must be under the care of that particular doctor. Info on how to register with one of the professionals operating in the area covered by your local health authority (Azienda Sanitaria Locale, ASL) can be found here.

Doctor speaking on the phone

A doctor speaks on the phone while inside his office. Photo by Nicolas TUCAT / AFP

Once you’ve registered with a GP, you can go ahead and book your first appointment. You can generally do so via phone, email or, in some cases, online.

When booking by email or phone, you may be given an overview of the doctor’s office hours (orari di apertura) and asked what day (giorno) and time (ora) you’d like to schedule the appointment (fissare la visita). Should you need to reschedule the appointment later on, you could ask: Sarebbe possibile spostare la visita?

Remember: if you’re in need of an urgent appointment, you can ask to see a doctor from Italy’s Guardia Medica, a medical care centre that operates outside of GPs’ normal working hours and on weekends, or visit your local hospital’s ER (pronto soccorso).

Seeing your doctor

Though they provide patients with a set appointment time, Italian clinics tend to run a little late, so you may have to wait for your turn in the waiting room (sala d’attesa).

Also, new patients are usually handed a form (modulo) to fill out with general information about themselves and their overall health (stato di salute) just before their first appointment. 

Once you’re in their office (ufficio), your doctor (dottore for a man and dottoressa for a woman) will enquire about the reasons behind your visit. 

If you’re there for a routine checkup, you could say that you’re visiting for a simple controllo. But if you’re there for any type of health problem, you’ll likely be asked what your symptoms (sintomi) are. 

You may have fairly common symptoms – for instance, a cough (tosse), a sore throat (mal di gola), fever (febbre) or headache (mal di testa).

READ ALSO: Coughs, colds and flu: What to say and do if you fall sick in Italy

But if you don’t really know what you have or don’t exactly know how to describe it in Italian, don’t worry: you can just indicate where the pain is coming from by saying mi fa male followed by the part of your body that’s aching (stomach, or stomaco, abdomen, or addome, chest, or petto, etc.).

Doctor speaking with patient inside his office

A doctor speaks with one of his patients inside his office. Photo by PASCAL POCHARD-CASABIANCA / AFP

At this point, your doctor may ask you further questions on the type of pain you’re feeling – for instance, whether you have a throbbing (pulsante) or stabbing (lancinante) pain – and ask you to lie down (stendersi) or sit (sedersi) on their table (lettino) to perform a physical examination. 

Among other things, the doctor might measure your heart rate (battito cardiaco) and blood pressure (pressione sanguigna), look in your throat or ears with a torch, or listen to your heart or lungs with a stethoscope (stetoscopio).

Further tests and medicines

Depending on the outcome of the physical examination, your doctor may refer you to a specialist for further diagnostic exams and tests (esami diagnostici), including blood tests (esami del sangue), an MRI scan (risonanza magnetica), an ultrasound (ecografia) or an ECG (elettrocardiogramma). 

But if the source and nature of your health problem is already clear to your doctor, you’ll likely be given a prescription (ricetta) for the purchase of medicines (medicine) as well as some instructions to follow to achieve full recovery (completa guarigione).

READ ALSO: Why are medicines so expensive in Italy?

Medicines may come in the form of powder (in polvere), tablets (pastiglie or compresse), drops (gocce) or syrup (sciroppo).

Remember: Italian doctors tend to have fairly bad handwriting (locals often jokingly refer to it as ‘hieroglyphs’), so make sure you know exactly what you need to get at the pharmacy (farmacia) as well as how many times a day (volte) you need to take each medicine. 

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