Yesterday, I was eavesdropping on a conversation in an Italian bar (as I like to do) and I overheard someone say something that made me smile, including a very useful little word that Italians use all the time: "casino".
It may not mean what you think it does as it's quite different in English and Italian.
Learn what "casino" means and eavesdrop on an Italian conversation with us in episode 69 of 5 minute Italian.
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Today's Italian Vocabulary
ll governo ci costa un sacco di soldi. E fa sempre casini. = The government costs us loads of money. And they're always making a mess.
il governo = the government
ci = us
costa = costs
un sacco di = loads of
soldi = money
e = and
fa = makes
sempre = always
casini = messes
ho fatto un casino = I made a mess
non fare casini = don't make a mess
che casino = what a mess
fare casino/casini = make a mess
casinò
un sacco di = loads of
un sacco di soldi = loads of money
un sacco di rumore = loads of noise
un sacco di cose = loads of things
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Transcript
Please note, this is not a word for word transcript.
Katie: Ciao a tutti e benvenuti a 5 Minute Italian. I’m Katie
Matteo: And I’m Matteo, ciao!
K: Yesterday morning, I was drinking my usual morning caffè in the bar around the corner, when I overheard an Italian say something that was not only interesting and funny, but also had some mini Italian lessons in it.
M: The sentence was: ll governo ci costa un sacco di soldi. E fa sempre casini.
K: Let's listen to the sentence again nice and slowly and see how much you can get from it:
M: ll governo ci costa un sacco di soldi. E fa sempre casini.
K: So the guy I was eavesdropping on was complaining about the government, and he said: "The government costs us loads of money. And they're always making a mess".
Literally:
M:
il governo = the government
ci = us
costa = costs
un sacco di = loads of
soldi = money
e = and
fa = makes
sempre = always
casini = messes
K: So there are a few interesting things in this sentence that we'll come back to, but first I wanted to talk about the word "casino" which is a word that you'll hear all the time in Italian and has a rather interesting history. When you hear the word "casino", you might think of the English word "casino". And they are related, but they're not exactly the same.
M: In modern Italian, "casino" is a slang word for "mess". It's important to notice that the pronunciation is different too. In Italian, we say casino, which is pronounced as z.
Here are some examples:
Ho fatto un casino = I made a mess
Or
Non fare casini = don't make a mess
K: Sometimes you'll hear it in the singular "casino", or the plural "casini", like the guy in the bar. So what's the relationship to the English "casino", where people play blackjack? Well once upon a time, a casino was the name for gentlemens club, where men used to go and play cards. Overtime, probably because of the other things they got up to in gentlemen's clubs, the word casino took on the meaning of "brothel". And for a long time in Italy, until quite recently, "casino" was considered a swear word or curse word.
M: Nowadays, it's not a curse word any more. It's more just like slang and Italians use it all the time in informal situations.
K: You can say:
Che casino = what a mess.
Or you can use it with the word "fare" which means to make and say
Fare casino/casini = make a mess
And the meaning is actually broader than "mess" in English. You could also use it when someone is making lots of noise, or when they cause trouble.
So the next question: how do Italians say "casino" in the sense of the place you can go to play cards and bet money?
M: They say "casinò", with the stress on the last ò. So to say "a mess", you say "casino" and for the place where you play cards, you say "casinò".
K: To finish off, let's just look quickly at another couple of interesting things in the phrase I overheard. We had:
M: Il governo ci costa un sacco di soldi.
K: Ci costa is interesting, because "ci" means "us" and "costa" means "costs". So we see here how Italians literally say "us, it costs". You can find out more about this by going to episode 61.
M: Next, we have this lovely phrase "un sacco di". It's another example of Italian slang, that Italians use all the time.
K: It literally means: "a sack of", but Italians use it to mean "loads". For example:
M:
Un sacco di soldi = loads of money
Un sacco di rumore = loads of noise
Un sacco di cose = loads of things
And if you're one of those people who learns best by seeing things written down (like most of us!) remember you can see all the words and phrases from today's lesson by going to joyoflanguages.com/italianpodcast and scrolling down to episode 69. You'll also find bonus materials like flashcards and a quiz to help you remember what you learnt. Don't forget, you can also practice chatting with us in Italian in our Facebook group, by going to facebook.com/groups/5.minute.italian. You'll also find the links in the show notes.
Ciao for now, see you next time or as we say in Italian,
M: Alla prossima!
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