Home, Town, Neighbourhood and Region
Build your Italian vocabulary for the home and the town: types of home, places you visit, household items and how to describe them, each shown with its English meaning.
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Free, interactive practice on the words and structures the examiner keeps asking for.
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Home and town in Italian
This module builds your Italian vocabulary for where you live: your home, the things in it, and the places around your town. Italian nouns have a gender, shown by the small word in front (il for masculine, la for feminine). Each Italian word here is shown with its English meaning, so you can learn to recognise it.
Home and town words
Start with four common words. Each Italian word is shown with its English meaning.
At home or in town?
It helps to sort the words into things at home and things around town.
Match the word
- appartamento
- centro commerciale
- duomo
- congelatore
- A flat
- A shopping centre
- A cathedral
- A freezer
Which is the cathedral?
Which Italian word means a cathedral?
- duomo
- appartamento
- congelatore
- centro commerciale
Describing places
Two useful words describe cost: costoso means expensive, and a buon mercato means inexpensive. And a person who buys something is a cliente, a customer.
Match more words
- aspirapolvere
- casa a schiera
- abitante
- cliente
- A vacuum cleaner
- A terraced house
- An inhabitant
- A customer
Places in town
Which TWO of these Italian words are places in a town? Choose all that apply.
- centro commerciale
- duomo
- congelatore
- aspirapolvere
Describe where you live
Order these to describe where you live: first the type of home, then something in it, then a place in your town, then your opinion.
- appartamento
- congelatore
- centro commerciale
- costoso
Places in town, in Italian
The Italian for a flat is _____. The Italian for a cathedral is _____. The Italian for a shopping centre is _____. The Italian for a freezer is _____. The Italian word meaning expensive is _____.
Spot the household items
Tap the TWO things you find in a home.
- congelatore
- aspirapolvere
- duomo
- centro commerciale
Italian merges the preposition with the article
The place words become sentences with è (is). Italian merges some of its prepositions with the article that follows them: - Il duomo è nel centro = "the cathedral is in the centre". in + il merges into nel. Italian does this whenever a preposition meets an article, so the two words become one. - Mi piace il centro commerciale = "I like the shopping centre". Mi piace is "I like", literally "it is pleasing to me". Note commerciale follows centro rather than coming before it, which is the opposite of the English order.
in and il merge into one word
in and il merge into one word. Which of these says "the cathedral is in the centre"?
- Il duomo è nel centro
- Il duomo è in il centro
- Il duomo è in centro
- Mi piace il centro commerciale
Cheap or dear?
Which Italian phrase means inexpensive?
- a buon mercato
- costoso
- appartamento
- duomo
Choose the word
For each meaning, choose the correct Italian word.
- You want the word for the place with many shops under one roof. Which word?
- You want the word for the large main church in a city. Which word?
- You want the word to say that something costs a lot. Which word?
Write about your home
Write two or three sentences in Italian about your home and your town.
- Say what type of home you live in
- Name a place in your town
- Give your opinion using expensive or inexpensive