Sometimes Italian words can be really tricky. It’s enough to change gender, or even just an accent, to turn a word into a completely differen one. This lesson presents to you couples of words with completely different meanings but with a similar form: words in list two seem to be the feminine forms of words in list one.
LEARNING TIP: tricky words like the ones displayed below are actually easy to learn. In fact, you can associate two different meanings to the same word by only changing its grammatical gender. If you have a good visual memory, you may try to associate both meanings to a single image, e.g.: ‘il porto’ (port) + ‘la porta’ (door): imagine a ship “parked” in a door. Sounds silly? Try it, and see if it works!
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| IL PORTO [port] | LA PORTA [door] |
| il boa [snake]il buco [hole]
il busto [bust] il capitale [fin. capital] il cerchio [math. circle] il cero [candle] il collo [neck] il colpo [blow] il corso [course] il fine [aim] il fronte [front] il gambo [stem] il manico [handle] il palmo [palm] il palo [pole] il panno [cloth] il pezzo [piece] il pianto [crying] il pizzo [lace] il suolo [soil] il torto [tort] |
la boa [marine signal]la buca [grave]
la busta [envelope] la capitale [capital] la cerchia [circle of friends] la cera [wax] la colla [glue] la colpa [blame] la corsa [race] la fine [end] la fronte [forehead] la gamba [leg] la manica [sleeve] la palma [palm tree] la pala [shovel] la panna [cream] la pezza [patch] la pianta [plant] la pizza [pizza] la suola [sole] la torta [cake] |
