So far, in the first two articles of this series, I’ve been concentrating on the positive aspect of expressive vocabulary. What a wonderful world it would be if we only ever needed to talk about good and beautiful things! But of course life isn’t always so kind and sometimes we need to express distaste or disappointment.

Now don’t get excited, this is a respectable web site and I’m afraid I can’t teach you any parolacce (swear words), but don’t worry, you won’t have any trouble learning those once you spend a bit of time in ‘Il Bel Paese’ (‘The Beautiful Country’ or Italy) because we use them abundantly!

Hopefully you have come to grips with using the verb piacere to express the concept of ‘to like’, if not you should have a look at my article A different point of view

There are a couple of things to look out for however when using piacere in the negative:

To simply say ‘I don’t like it/this/that’ etc. you should use non mi piace, and use non mi piacciono, to mean ‘I don’t like them/these/those’ etc.. For example: non mi piace questa gonna (I don’t like this skirt), and non mi piacciono queste scarpe (I don’t like these shoes).

However, be careful with the verb dispiacere. If you say non mi dispiace questa gonna you are saying I don’t dislike this skirt, or literally ‘this skirt doesn’t displease me’. But if you simply say mi dispiace without the non, you mean ‘I’m sorry’, e.g. mi dispiace per la gonna (I’m sorry about the skirt). If on the other hand you say se non ti/le/vi dispiace what you mean is ‘if you don’t mind’, e.g. se non ti dispiace me ne vado fra dieci minuti (if you don’t mind I’m leaving in ten minutes), or if you are speaking to two or more people use se non vi dispiace. You can put dispiacere into the conditional by changing dispiace to dispiacerebbe, e.g. non mi dispiacerebbe comprare quella gonna! (I wouldn’t mind buying that skirt!), or ti dispiacerrebe se me ne vado fra dieci minuti? (would you mind if I leave in ten minutes?).

So much for displeasure! Many of the words and phrases that we looked at in parts one and two can easily be put into the negative by the simple addition of non. For example non essere entusiasta means not to be keen on, enthusiastic about, or happy with: non sono entusiasta della tua idea (I’m not enthusiastic about / keen on your idea). Likewise with non essere appasionato/a/i/e, e.g. non sono appassionata del calcio (I’m not keen on football).

Now for a few useful descriptive words and phrases. The first three are pretty obvious and have the same meaning as their English equivalent:

orrendo = horrendous

terribile = terrible

ripugnante = repugnant

brutto = bad / ugly, for the correct usage I recommend that you read my article The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

noioso = boring, e.g ‘è stata una riunione molto noiosa’ (it was a very boring meeting).

sgradevole = disagreeable, e.g. è stata una giornata sgradevole! (it’s been a disagreeable day!)

fastidioso/a/i/e = annoying, irritating, troublesome, e.g. come sono fastidiose queste mosche! (how annoying these flies are!), or basta con le domande fastidiose! (that’s enough of the irritating questions!).

We also use dare fastidio, which literally means that something annoys or irritates you, for example: mi da molto fastidio quel chiasso! (that racket / noise really annoys me!), or ci da fastidio il puzzo del traffico nella città (the stink of the traffic in the city bothers us).

N.B. fastidioso is a so called ‘false friend’ because it sounds like it should mean fastidious, but it doesn’t. In fact we use the word pignolo/a to mean fastidious, or fussy, e.g. lui è una persona molto pignola (he is a really fastidious / fussy person).

Another expression very similar to dare fastidio  is scocciare which means ‘to annoy’, ‘to bother’, or ‘to bore’, e.g. ti scoccia la televisione? (does the TV bother you?).

deludere is another false friend because it sounds like it means ‘to delude’ but instead means ‘to disappoint’. When you are disappointed with something you can use the past participle deluso, e.g. l’ultimo libro di Pinco Pallino mi ha deluso (Pinco Pallino’s last book disappointed me). Deludente means disappointing, e.g. l’ultimo libro di Pinco Pallino è stato deludente (Pinco Pallino’s last book was disappointing).

Last but not least we have that wonderfully expressive word schifoso/a/i/e, which means disgusting, e.g. che tempo schifoso! (what disgusting weather!). We also have una schifezza and uno schifo which both mean ‘a disgusting thing’, e.g. pulisci la tua camera, è una schifezza! (tidy up your room, it’s disgusting!). Then we have the expression che schifo! which means how disgusting!, e.g. hai visto quello scorpione, che schifo! (have you seen that scorpion, how disgusting!).

If you want to say that something disgusts you, use the expression fare schifo, e.g. i ragni non mi danno fastidio ma gli scorpioni mi fanno schifo! (spiders don’t bother me but scorpions disgust me!)

And now have fun with your new expressive vocabulary. Esprimiti!

In the first article of this series Esprimiti! part 1 I introduced a number of useful words and expressions aimed at extending your expressive vocabulary. Let’s continue in the same vein in part two by looking at a range of descriptive words and phrases that will help you to esprimerti (express yourself). In Italian we use quite a lot of expressive vocabulary that doesn’t translate very easily into English, and I often find the given definitions in dictionaries a bit unsatisfactory. As usual, therefore, in order to give you more of a feeling for each word or expression I will give common examples of their usage.

Appassionante: this is roughly equivalent to ‘thrilling’, e.g era un film appassionante (it was a thrilling film).

Stupendo and meraviglioso are more or less interchangeable and share the same meaning of ‘wonderful’ or ‘marvelous’. Don’t forget, however, to change the final vowel depending on the gender of the subject, e.g. oggi e’ stata una giornata stupenda / meravigliosa (today has been a marvelous day), questi fiori hanno un profumo stupendo / meraviglioso (these flowers have a wonderful scent).

Affascinante and pieno di fascino don’t translate quiet so well into English but they both mean something like ‘enchanting’, ‘attractive’, or ‘glamorous’, e.g. secondo me, Siena e’ la citta’ piu affascinante della Toscana (in my opinion, Siena is the most enchanting town in Tuscany), molti uomini dicono che Monica Bellucci e’ una donna piena di fascino! (many men say that Monica Bellucci is a glamorous woman!).

Eccezionale/i is roughly equivalent to the English word ‘exceptional’, although in Italian we also tend to use it a bit more in every day colloquial language with the meaning of ‘extraordinary’, ‘rare’, ‘wonderful’, ‘unusual’, or ‘special’, e.g. Le mura di Lucca sono eccezionali (The walls of Lucca are exceptionally good / special), Sophia Loren era una donna di bellezza eccezionale (Sophia Loren was a woman of rare beauty).

Incredibile and incredibilmente are equivalent to ‘incredible’ and ‘incredibly’, e.g. che notizia incredibile! (what incredible news!), questa notte il cielo era  incredibilmente limpido (last night the sky was incredibly clear).

You can also use favoloso in exactly the same way as the English word ‘fabulous’, just remember to modify the ending according to the gender of the subject, e.g. un cielo favoloso (a fabulous sky), delle mele favolose (some fabulous apples).

Rimanere sbalordito/a/i/e is a useful expression that means ‘I was, you were, we were, etc. stunned’, e.g. sono rimasta sbalordita dalla grandezza del Duomo di Firenze! (I was stunned by the size of Florence Cathedral!). Essere sbalordito/a/e/i, on the other hand, simply means ‘to be stunned’, e.g. question: Giovanni, cosa pensi del Duomo di Firenze? reply: Sono sbalordito! (question: Giovanni, what do you think of Florence cathedral? reply: I’m stunned!)

To be continued…………………………….