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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Italian word of the day: ‘Piacere’

It's a pleasure to get this word right.

Italian word of the day: 'Piacere'
Photo: Annie Spratt/Unsplash/Nicolas Raymond

How many beginners’ Italian classes are devoted to piacere?

Click here to hear piacere pronounced:

It’s not just that knowing how to say you ‘like’ something is crucial in any language. It’s also because English speakers are sometimes tripped up by the fact that in Italian, you don’t like thingsthey please you.

Once you get ‘to like’ out of your head and start to think of piacere as ‘to please’ or ‘to be pleasing’, it’s actually pretty easy to use.

It’s an intransitive verb (i.e., it doesn’t have a direct object), which means two things: one, it needs an either an indirect object pronoun (mi, ti – ‘to me’, ‘to you’, etc) or the preposition a followed by the person you’re specifying (a Pino – ‘to Pino’).

And two, it doesn’t agree with the person you’re talking about, but with the thing(s) – that’s why you might see the plural form used even when there’s only one person involved.

It may be a bit tricky to get your head round at first, but the upside is that most of the time you’ll only need to remember two conjugations of piacere in whatever tense you’re using: in the present, piace, ‘something pleases’, and piacciono, ‘some things please’.

Il gelato piace a tutti.
Everybody likes gelato.

Le vacanze mi piacciono fatte in compagnia.
I like going on holiday with other people.

Here’s how it looks in the present perfect (remember to use essere not avere, like with all intransitive verbs)…

Il cantante è piaciuto al pubblico.
The audience liked the singer.

Quali sono i film che vi sono piaciuti di più?
What films did you all like the most?

… and the present conditional.

Mi piacerebbe partire per una lunga vacanza.
I would like to set off on a long holiday.

Gli gnocchi sono buoni, ti piacerebbero.
The gnocchi are good, you’d like them. 

Got it? Now let’s move on to the other meanings of piacere that they don’t tell you about in your first Italian class.

Aside from a verb, it’s also a noun, spelled exactly the same way. It means, essentially, ‘pleasure’.

Ho ascoltato il suo discorso con vivo piacere.
I listened to her speech with great pleasure.

Sono i semplici piaceri della vita che ci portano davvero felicità.
It’s the simple pleasures in life that really make us happy.

You know how we say ‘it’s a pleasure to meet you’ in English? You can say, simply, “piacere!” in Italian to mean the same thing.

– Ti presento mio fidanzato, Antonio.
– Piacere! 

– Let me introduce you to my boyfriend, Antonio.
– Pleased to meet you!

But piacere can also mean something more like ‘courtesy’ or ‘favour’. 

Mi faresti un piacere?
Would you do me a favour?

You can say make a polite request by adding per piacere: just like per favore, it means ‘please’. You’re essentially asking someone to do something ‘as a favour’ to you.

Per piacere, vuoi dirmi che ora è?
Could you please tell me what time it is?

Even more formally, you can ask someone to ‘do you the kindness’ or ‘be so kind as to’ – “mi faccia il piacere?”

Mi faccia il piacere di aspettare qui.
Please be so kind as to wait here.

Though sometimes when Italians are this polite, they’re just being sarcastic.

Mi faccia il piacere di tacere!
Would you please shut up!

In fact, just saying “ma mi faccia il piacere!” or “fammi il piacere!” in an exasperated tone is enough to make clear that you’re fed up – a bit like exclaiming ‘Do me a favour!’

There’s one more useful phrase that features piacere, this time as a verb: mi piacerebbe, ‘I wish’, with the implication that something’s not likely or possible. 

Even better is ti piacerebbe, ‘you wish’ – or ‘in your dreams’.

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

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ITALIAN WORD OF THE DAY

Italian expression of the day: ‘Al volo’

We’re sure you’ll learn this Italian phrase in no time.

Italian expression of the day: ‘Al volo’

If you’ve ever found yourself at an Italian airport and looked up at the departure board, there’s a good chance you’re already familiar with the word volo, which is the Italian equivalent of ‘flight’ – but also the first person singular of the verb volare (to fly) in the present tense.

And if you’re a fan of classical music, you may of course have heard of Italy’s famous opera trio Il Volo (‘The Flight’).

But what do Italians mean when they say they’re going to do something al volo (hear it pronounced here)? 

Much like its closest English equivalent, ‘on the fly’, al volo has very little to do with aircraft or flying as it’s one of the most common Italian phrases to say that you’re doing something ‘quickly’ or ‘readily’, often without having prepared it or thought about it much beforehand.

Facciamoci una pasta al volo e poi usciamo.

Let’s cook some pasta on the fly and then get out.

Ho dovuto preparare la presentazione al volo perché non mi avevano avvisato della riunione.

I had to put the presentation together on the fly as I’d not been notified of the meeting. 

But usage of al volo is not limited to practical actions or tasks you may do quickly and without much thought. 

In fact, you can also pair it with the verb capire (understand), comprendere (comprehend) or imparare (learn) to say that you grasped something ‘immediately’ or ‘in no time’, meaning you won’t need any further explanation. 

Tuo figlio capisce tutto al volo. Ha un grande futuro davanti a lui, a mio parere.

Your son understands everything in no time. He’s got a great future ahead of him, in my opinion.

And if you haven’t fully understood or grasped something on your first try (which is painfully likely when dealing with Italy’s infamous red tape, even for locals), don’t worry: you’ll always have the option to ask a domanda al volo, or a ‘quick question’, to clear up your doubts. 

Another popular way to use the phrase is in relation to big opportunities, whether that be in life, in education or at work. So an opportunity that va presa al volo must be seized immediately as it’s too good to be missed. 

Finally, if you’re planning on watching Euro 2024 matches on Italian TV over the next month, you may hear football commentators use al volo multiple times while analysing a match as colpire la palla al volo means to strike it while it’s in the air, or ‘volley’ it.

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

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