This page directs you to some of the most striking differences between English and Italian.

Here are a few general remarks by way of introduction.

The approach is a comparative/contrastive one. Expressions like "English X is Y in Italian" or "English X corresponds to Italian Y" are seldom 100% correct but only reliable approximations - exceptions and special cases are frequently to be expected. Only such technical terms as "Eng. synchrotrone / It. sincrotrone" seem to be one-to-one correspondences without uncertainties.

As a matter of fact, different languages are not different labels placed on the same objects or concepts, but different ways of organising reality. Here are a few examples:

• English uses the same word key both for what you use to open locks and for what you press on a computer board. This sounds absurd to an Italian who, since early childhood, has always called the former "chiave" and the latter "tasto".
  

• In English, an exercise-book is a kind of book; in Italian, "libro" (book) is a different concept from "quaderno" (exercise-book, notebook).
  

• On the other hand, the italian noun "casa" embodies what is either a house or a home to an English speaker; similarly, the verb "dire" combines say and tell.

The two languages are remarkably different in several ways and most of the differences are not self-explanatory at all. Some rules or explanations are repeated in different pages; this is a deliberate choice, in order to reinforce essential concepts.

Clicking on the blue arrows () lands you on the requested pages.

Special topics

• A missing person

• A missing gender

• Addressing people

• Agreement / Concord

• No conversions (almost)

• From letters to sounds

• Conjugating verbs

• Mood and modality

• Time and tenses

• Place, time, manner and other "complementi"

• Possessives and gender

• Basic syntax

• Premodification