Premio Strega: Italy’s most prestigious literary award
The Premio Strega is Italy’s most prestigious and sought-after literary award.
When learning Italian it’s sometimes not very clear when we have to use an adjective and when an adverb. Let’s see exactly what’s the difference between adjectives and adverbs in Italian.
An adjective describes a noun, i.e. describes how a person, an animal or a thing is. Adjectives must be adapted to the gender and number of the reference word. The reference word is always a noun.
La signora è gentile. | The woman is polite. |
La pasta è buona. | The pasta is good / tasty. |
Ho comprato una macchina rossa. | I bought a red car. |
Ho molti cani. | I have lots of dogs. |
Questo tè ha proprio un cattivo sapore. | This tea tastes really bad. |
Il mio italiano non è molto buono. | My Italian isn’t very good. |
An adverb describes verbs, adjectives or other adverbs in more detail, e.g. it describes how we do something or adds information to an adjective. Adverbs are unchangeable. The reference word is not a noun, but a verb, an adjective or another adverb.
La signora chiede gentilmente un’informazione. | The lady politely asks for information. | How does the lady ask? Relates to the verb. |
Parlo bene l’italiano. | I speak Italian well. | How do you speak Italian? Relates to the verb. |
La casa è tremendamente sporca! | This house is terribly dirty! | How dirty is it? Relates to the adjective sporca. |
Non mi piacciono molto i film western. | I don’t like western film very much. | How (much) do you like them? Relates to the verb. |
Stai guidando troppo velocemente. | You are driving too fast. | Here we have two adverbs: 1) Troppo relates to velocemente; 2) Velocemente describes how you are driving. |
Some adjectives, like veloce, are sometimes used as adverbs, particularly in the colloquial language. The adverb corresponding to veloce is velocemente. However veloce can be also used as adverb.
Your online bookstore specialized in learning Italian.
The Premio Strega is Italy’s most prestigious and sought-after literary award.
La capretta Lilli voleva aiutare, ma cosa poteva fare? – con PASSATO PROSSIMO E IMPERFETTO
A simple quiz in Italian about Dante and the Divine Comedy
Summary of The Divine Comedy with significant quotes
Un breve racconto per esercitarsi con il congiuntivo • con ESERCIZI