Mamma mia, it’s hot.
If there’s one thing Italians talk about a lot this time of year, it’s the heat. Whether it’s way too hot or not as hot as expected, the summer weather is usually top of mind.
Talking about the heat is the perfect opener for your casual conversations in Italian.
Here you’ll learn a few simple ways to say “it’s hot” in Italian, followed by some colloquial phrases that will help you blend in with the locals.
Importantly, you’ll also learn how to avoid saying something rude by accident!
It’s hot! 3 Basic Ways to Talk about Hot Weather in Italian
Is it hot? Or really hot? Or really, really hot? Italians have a lovely way to express how extreme something is. Look at the expressions in this table:
| Fa caldo | It’s hot | FAH KAL–DOH |
| Fa molto caldo | It’s really hot | FAH MOL–TOH KAL–DOH |
| Fa caldissimo! | It’s extremely hot! | FAH KAL–DEES–SEE–MOH |
The most basic way to say “it’s hot” is fa caldo, which literally means:
Fa – It does
Caldo – Hot
If you want to say “it’s really hot”, just add molto:
Fa – It does
Molto – Really/a lot of
Caldo – Hot
Finally, if you want to communicate that something is happening to an extreme degree, you can add – issimo to the end:
Fa – It does
Caldissimo – Extremely hot
To sound really Italian, remember to make the double SS nice and long: Caldissssssimo!
Common mistake alert
Keep in mind that in Italian, you can EITHER insert molto OR use the –issimo ending: you can’t use both together:
❌ Fa molto caldissimo
Very Italian-Sounding Expressions to Talk about the Heat
Now you know the basics, it’s time to learn some informal expressions that Italians often use as conversation starters in the hot weather.
| Fa un caldo tremendo | It’s terribly hot | FAH OON KAL–DOH TREH–MEN–DOH |
| Fa un caldo incredibile | It’s unbelievably hot | FAH OON KAL–DOH EEN–KREH–DEE-BEE–LEH |
| Che caldo! | It’s so hot! | KEH KAL–DOH |
| Si muore di caldo | We’re dying from the heat (hyperbole) | SEE MWOH–REH DEE KAL–DOH |
Did you notice how the first phrase starts in a similar way to the one you already learned? What’s the difference?
Fa caldo – It’s hot
Fa un caldo – It’s really hot (literally “it does a hot!”)
In this funny little phrase, Italians use un to add emphasis. You can also hook other words onto the end, like tremendo or incredibile to really stress your point.
A mezzogiorno fa un caldo tremendo! – At midday it’s terribly hot!
Oggi fa un caldo incredibile! – Today it’s unbelievably hot!
In the next phrase, to say “it’s so hot”, we literally say “what heat”: che caldo! Italians often use che in this way, to mean “it’s so….”:
Che caldo a Milano! – It’s so hot in Milan
Che caldo qui dentro! – It’s so hot in here!
Mamma mia, che caldo! – Goodness, it’s so hot!
And did you notice the expression si muore di caldo? This literally means “one dies of heat”, and it’s mostly used in a figurative way. A bit like how we might say “I’m starving”, when we’re really hungry.
I’m Hot (not Horny!): How to Avoid This Awkward Mistake
To talk about being hot, because of the weather, Italians use the verb avere , which means “to have”:
Ho caldo – I’m hot (lit. I have hot)
Hai caldo? – Are you hot? (lit. You have hot?)
Be careful not to say “sono caldo” (lit. “I am hot”) because in Italian, this means “I’m horny”! There are a few expressions that differ in similar ways between English and Italian: learn more about these common expressions with avere here .
Types of Heat: Expressions Italians Use All the Time
Hot weather is an important part of Italian life, so they have a few different ways to talk about different types of heat (perhaps just like eskimos do for snow!)
| L’afa | Sweltering heat (suffocating, heavy heat) | LAH–FAH |
| Che afa! | It’s sweltering! | KEH AH–FAH |
| L’umidità | The humidity | LOO–MEE–DEE–TAH |
| C’è molta umidità | There’s a lot of humidity | CHE MOL–TAH OOM–EE–DEE–TAH |
| Un caldo umido | A humid heat | OON KAL–DOH OO–MEE–DOH |
| Un caldo secco | A dry heat | OON KAL–DOH SEK–KOH |
Let’s see how Italians might use some of these phrases in conversation:
Mamma mia, che afa! – Goodness, it’s sweltering!
Sì, c’è molta umidità oggi. – Yeah, there’s a lot of humidity today.
Al mare fa caldo, ma è un caldo secco. – At the seaside it’s hot, but it’s a dry heat.
Bene, non sopporto il caldo umido! – Good, I can’t stand humid heat!
Talking about the Temperature in Italian
Here’s another classic small talk topic: just how hot is it? Katie was talking to her mamma about this recently, a little in English, and a little in Italian!
Here are some handy phrases to help you do the same in Italian:
| Quanti gradi ci sono? | How many degrees are there? | KWAN–TEE GRAH–DEE CHEE SOH–NOH |
| Ci sono 40 gradi | There are 40 degrees | CHEE SOH–NOH KWA–RAN–TAH GRAH–DEE |
| Centigradi | Centigrades | CHEN–TEE–GRAH–DEE |
Keep in mind that Italians don’t normally ask “how hot is it”. Instead, they ask:
Quanti gradi ci sono? – How many degrees are there?
Italians measure temperature in centigrades, so you can use a converter like this google one to work out the difference. And of course, to talk about temperature, it helps to know your Italian numbers , too!
Words To Help You Keep Cool in Italy
Italians also talk a lot about how to escape the heat, so these words for keeping cool will come in handy, too!
| L’aria condizionata | Aircon / Air conditioning | LAH–REE–AH KON–DEET–SYON–AH–TAH |
| Il ventilatore | Fan | EEL VEN–TEE–LAH–TOH–REH |
| Il ghiaccio | Ice | EEL GYAH–CHO |
| La piscina | Swimming pool | LAH PEE–SHEEN–NAH |
| All’ombra | In the shade | AL-OM–BRAH |
The pronunciation of ghiaccio (ice) can feel a bit tricky at first! It starts with a G, like in “guy”, followed by YA, like in “yankees”. It ends in CHO, like in “chop”: GYA–CHO.
Let’s see some example sentences with those words in use:
Posso avere del ghiaccio? – Can I have some ice?
L’aria condizionata non funziona – The aircon doesn’t work
Avete un tavolo all’ombra? – Do you have a table in the shade?
One Thing Most Italians do in August
We hope you’ll find these phrases useful for chatting to Italians over the summer, and for keeping cool if you find yourself sweltering in the Italian heat!
Speaking of heat, in Italy August is usually very hot (too hot to work!), and there’s a popular holiday weekend called ferragosto , so this is when most Italians take their annual leave. For this reason, we’ll be slowing down a little ourselves this month and taking a break from our blog and podcast. We’ll be back in September.
In the meantime, we’ll keep publishing mini lessons over on our Youtube channel. Be sure to follow us there so you can keep learning Italian with us over the next few weeks.
K: Ciao a tutti e benvenuti! Hi everyone and welcome to “Learn Italian with Joy of Languages”.
K: Today, we’re talking about the most popular small talk topic in Italy over the summer: the heat!
M: But first, you may or may not know that we have a youtube channel, with mini Joy of Languages Italian lessons. If you haven’t subscribed yet, could you do us un favore, a favour and click the link in the description?
K: This will be great for your Italian, as you’ll see more of our mini video lessons on your youtube feed. And you’ll really help our project grow so we can keep making free lessons for you. Grazie mille!
M: So it’s summer, estate (x2) in Italy. And nearly all of our conversations start with a little exchange about the heat!
K: Yes, even though we’re not in Italy this month, we’ve been keeping in touch with our teachers on whatsapp. From these messages, you can hear lots of natural, native sounding ways to talk about the heat, so we thought we could listen to them today!
M: Keep in mind that these come from natural conversations, so they’ll be a bit fast, but we’ll break them down after. OK, let’s listen:
Che caldo!
Mamma mia che caldo!
Fa caldissimo!
Fa un caldo!
Fa un caldo tremendo
Si muore di caldo.
Qui ci sono 40 gradi!
K: When we spoke to Stefano, he said:
M: Che caldo! – It’s so hot! Literally:
Che – what
Caldo – heat
K: This way of speaking, saying “what heat” instead of “it’s so hot” sounds very strange and old fashioned in English. But this is the most modern and natural way to say it in Italian.
M: Che caldo!
K: In Guglielmo’s message you heard the same phrase, but with a very common Italian exclamation:
M: Mamma mia che caldo! – Goodness, it’s so hot!
Mamma – mamma (as in “mother”)
Mia – mine
Che – what
Caldo – heat
K: Mamma mia is an expression Italians use to express surprise. It can feel a bit cliché, so you might not be sure if you can use it or not.
M: Actually, we really do use it all the time, it sounds natural, so you can use it. As long as you’re not waving your hands around and saying “it’s a me, Mario” after.
K: Can you show us how you’d say it in a relaxed, natural way?
M: Mamma mia, che caldo
K: Just as a little aside, you might have noticed that Guglielmo said che , like “he”, with a h in the place of the c, which is a typical feature of the Tuscan accent : he . You can listen out for this when we repeat the sentences at the end.
K: Then Giorgia said:
M: Fa caldissimo! – It’s really hot! Literally:
Fa – it does
Caldissimo – really hot.
K: The most basic way to say “it’s hot” is fa caldo. Literally “it does hot”. Italians just have a different way of expressing it.
M: Fa caldo (x2)
K: If it’s a bit hotter, you can also add “molto”, which means “very” or “really”:
M: Fa molto caldo (x2)
K: And, as you heard in Giorgia’s message, Italians also have this really nice way of adding –issimo at the end, to say really, really, or extremely.
M: Fa caldissimo! (x2)
K: You might have already heard this with words like bellissimo, which means “really, really beautiful” or “amazing”.
M: Bellissimo!
K: Now going back to the heat, there’s a mistake learners often make that can be a bit awkward. Do you know how to say “I’m hot” in Italian? [...] It’s literally “I have hot”:
M: Ho caldo (x2)
K: Be careful not to translate literally with “I am” (sono) because in Italian, sono caldo means “I’m horny”! To say “I’m hot”, for example, because of the hot weather, we say “I have hot”:
M: Ho caldo (x2).
K: This is different from “it’s hot”, where we say “it does hot”. Remember how to say that?
M: Fa caldo (x2)
K: In Mary’s message, we heard:
M: Fa un caldo! – It’s really hot!
Fa – It does
Un – a
Caldo! – hot
K: Here’s another way to make the expression stronger. Fa caldo is neutral, “it’s hot”. But if you add un , it adds emphasis. It’s really hot.
M: Fa un caldo!
K: You can add words to the end to emphasise even more. Use tremendo when you’re really suffering, just like our teacher Annaluna did:
M: Fa un caldo tremendo (x2)
K: Tremendo sounds like “tremendous”, but in Italian, it’s negative. It’s more like “terrible”.
M: Yes, I remember seeing a professor’s feedback on your work in graduate school once…
K: Oh yeah, you saw the English word “tremendous” and you panicked.
M: I thought they were saying that it was terrible! But luckily, tremendo being negative is just the Italian meaning.
K: Coming back to heat, you can also say unbelievable, or incredible, it’s the same word in Italian: incredibile
M: Fa un caldo incredibile (x2)
K: Next, Lavinia said:
M: Si muore di caldo – We’re dying from the heat. This might sound a bit weird, so we’ll explain it shortly. Literally:
Sì – one
Muore – dies
Di – of
Caldo – heat
K: So this phrase si muore di caldo , literally means “one dies of heat”. In this case, Italians don’t usually mean literally, it’s just a form of hyperbole. A bit like how we might say “I’m starving”, when really hungry.
K: Finally, Marco said:
M: Qui ci sono 40 gradi! – Here there are 40 degrees!
Qui – Here
Ci – there
sono – are
quaranta – forty
gradi – degrees
M: This is a really common small talk topic! Not just that it’s hot, but how hot!
K: Interestingly, Italians don’t ask “how hot is it”. They ask “how many degrees are there”?
M: Quanti gradi ci sono? (x2)
K: And to answer, you can say “there are”, ci sono, plus the number. For example, there are thirty degrees.
[...]
M: Ci sono trenta gradi (x2)
K: To talk about temperature, Italians use centigrades:
M: Centigradi (x2)
K: If you normally use fahrenheit, you can convert the temperature to centigradi fairly easily on google so you can express it in a way that Italians will immediately understand.
M: For now, let’s listen to our teachers again.
Che caldo!
Mamma mia che caldo!
Fa caldissimo!
Fa un caldo!
Fa un caldo tremendo
Si muore di caldo.
Qui ci sono 40 gradi!
M: Now, speaking of heat, in Italy August is usually very hot (too hot to work!), and there’s a popular holiday weekend called ferragosto, so this is when most Italians take their annual leave.
K: We’ll be slowing down a little ourselves this month and taking a break from our blog and podcast. We’ll keep sharing new videos on our youtube channel, so if you want to keep learning Italian with us over the next few weeks, you can follow us over there. You’ll find the link in the description.
M - See you next time.
K - Or as we say in Italian.
Alla prossima!
Time to check your understanding and remember everything you just learned! Below you’ll find a mini-quiz and some vocabulary cards to help it all go in.
Quiz
How much did you learn? Find out in the quiz!
Click here to take the quiz for this episode: How to say hot in Italian
Vocabulary
Fa caldo = It’s hot (lit. it does hot)
Fa molto caldo = It’s really hot (lit. it does really hot)
Fa caldissimo = It’s extremely hot (use –issimo!)
Che caldo = It’s so hot (lit. what hot/heat)
Mamma mia! = Goodness!
Ho caldo = I’m hot (lit. I have hot)
Si muore di caldo = We’re dying from the heat (lit. one dies of heat, figurative)
Quanti gradi ci sono? = How many degrees are there?
Ci sono 40 gradi = It’s 40 degrees (lit. there are 40 degrees)
Centigradi = Centigrade
Flashcards: How to say hot in Italian
Not sure how it works? Click here to watch the tutorial
