Emozioni in Italiano: Your Guide to Expressing Feelings

Expressing emotions and feelings in Italian involves using specific vocabulary and phrases that convey different emotional states. Here is a brief overview with some common words and expressions for emotions and feelings in Italian:

Common Italian Words for Emotions

• Felice — happy
• Triste — sad
• Arrabbiato/a — angry
• Paura — fear
• Sorpreso/a — surprised
• Ansioso/a — anxious
• Amore — love
• Dispiaciuto/a — sorry, regretful
• Contento/a — content, pleased
• Deluso/a — disappointed
• Stanco/a — tired (often used to express emotional or physical fatigue)

Useful Phrases to Express Feelings

• Mi sento… — I feel…
  • Example: Mi sento felice (I feel happy).
• Ho paura di… — I am afraid of…
• Sono molto arrabbiato/a per… — I am very angry about…
• Mi dispiace — I am sorry / I regret
• Sono contento/a di vederti — I am happy to see you
• Sono deluso/a da… — I am disappointed by…

Expressive Cultural Notes

• Italians often emphasize feelings through expressive tone and gestures.
• Emotions can also be conveyed metaphorically, often referencing the heart (cuore) as a symbol of emotional life.

This concise vocabulary and these phrases provide a solid foundation for expressing a variety of emotions in Italian, whether in casual conversation, writing, or more poetic or dramatic contexts.

References

• ‘Am I Sincere about My Feelings?’: Changes in Multilinguals’ Self-perceptions when Discussing Emotional Topics in Different Languages

• The Power of lyricism in Puccini’s drama

• Fraseologismi con la componente somatica cuore nella lingua croata e italiana. Approccio contrastivo

• Expression of Emotions in the Spanish and Italian Filmic Audio Descriptions of The King’s Speech

• Sociolinguistics of unhappiness: the display of emotions in a multilingual migrants’ community

• Characterising alexithymia in individuals with functional motor disorders: a cross-sectional analysis of the Italian Registry of Functional Motor Disorders

• A sentiment analysis of Spanish and Italian news articles about COVID-19 : exploring the emotional reaction on government-applied restrictions

• Being an Emotional Business Leader in the Time of the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Importance of Emotions during a Crisis

• Study on Translation of Remember Me from the Perspective of Three Beauties Theory: Taking Italian, Mandarin and Cantonese as Examples

• ‘Weeping tears of blood’: exploring Italian soldiers’ emotions in the First World War

• Metaphorical Conceptualization of Positive and Negative Emotions in Italian

• Linguistic Markers of the Emotion Elaboration Surrounding the Confinement Period in the Italian Epicenter of COVID-19 Outbreak

• Linguistic Markers of the Emotion Elaboration Surrounding the Confinement Period in the Italian Epicenter of COVID-19 Outbreak

• SER_AMPEL: a multi-source dataset for speech emotion recognition of Italian older adults

• AriEmozione: Identifying Emotions in Opera Verses

• The psycholinguistic and affective structure of words conveying pain

• Embodied emotions in ancient Neo-Assyrian texts revealed by bodily mapping of emotional semantics

• The Italian Sensorimotor Norms: Perception and action strength measures for 959 words

• Cross-Cultural Calibration of Words and Emotions: Referential, Constructionist, and Pragmatic Perspectives

• COVID-19 in Italy: Performing Power and Emotions