What’s the difference between buono and bene? And what about bello and bravo? If you’ve ever felt confused about when to use these words, today's lesson is for you.
To help you remember what you learnt in today's lesson, below you'll find bonus materials like word lists, quizzes and flashcards. But first...
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Bonus Materials
Remember and practice using what you learnt with the bonus materials for today's episode.
Today's Italian words
cominciamo = let’s start
è buono = it tastes good
Il caffè è buono = the coffee is good
la pizza è buona = the pizza is good
il servizio è buono = the service is good (quality)
il bambino è buono = the baby is well behaved
è bella = she’s beautiful
è bello = he’s beautiful
il film è bello = the film is good (use bello for creative works)
il libro è bello = the book is good (use bello for creative works)
è bravo = he’s talented
è brava = she’s talented
come stai = how are you?
sto bene = I’m well
parlo = I speak
parlo bene italiano = I speak Italian well
parli = you speak
parli bene inglese = you speak English well
Take the Quiz!
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Click here to take the quiz for this episode: The difference between buono, bene, bello and bravo
Italian flashcards
Remember the vocabulary from your 5 Minute Italian lessons by downloading the digital flashcard pack.
- Download the flashcards: Molto buono! Or is it bene?
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Transcript
Please note: This is not a word-for-word transcript.
Katie: When should you say buono and when should you say bene? And what about bello and bravo? If you’ve ever felt confused about when to use these words, today’s episode is for you. Find out more in episode 20 of 5 minute Italian.
Ciao a tutti e benvenuti a 5 minute Italian, hi everyone and welcome to 5 minute Italian. I’m Katie…
Matteo: And I’m Matteo. Ciao.
K: And in this week’s episode, we’re going to learn the difference between buono and bene, and two other words which are commonly mixed up: bello and bravo. We’re also going to learn a very simple sentence structure which will immediately help you sound more advanced.
Let’s start: Cominciamo.
Let’s imagine I’m eating il mio gelato preferito, my favourite ice-cream, gelato alla nutella.
I’m enjoying it so much that I want to tell everyone about it. It’s good! What would I say?
Matteo: è buono!
Katie: So è buono, means "it’s good". We often use it to talk about food, to say something tastes good. So what else is buono in Italia?
Matteo: il caffè è buono
Katie: the coffee is good
Matteo: la pizza è buona… la pasta è buona….
Katie: Ah. So did you notice that il caffè è buono, but la pasta è buona, with an “a” at the end? What’s the difference? Well, in Italian, nouns are split into two groups: masculine or feminine. So we get il gelato and il caffè, which are masculine, but la pasta and la pizza which are feminine.
Matteo: With masculine nouns, we use buono. Il caffè è buono. Il gelato è buono. And with feminine nouns, we use buona. La pizza è buona, la pasta è buona.
Katie: Wine is il vino (masculine) So how would you say “the wine is nice”?
Matteo: il vino è buono.
Katie: Great. So we use buono to say something tastes nice. We also use it to talk about quality. If something is good quality, for example, il servizio, the service, we use buono. So how would you say “the service is good”?
Matteo: il servizio è buono.
Katie: We also use it to talk about good behaviour. To say “the child” we say “il bambino”, so if we want to say that il bambino, is good, as in well behaved, we say:
Matteo: il bambino è buono.
Katie: So what about bello?
Matteo: Bello means beautiful. But we use it more frequently in Italian compared to in English.
Katie: So we can use it to talk about women, bella. To say he/she or it is in Italian is always the same: è. So to say she’s beautiful, we say è bella, with the feminine "a" ending, but we can also use it to talk about men, to say he’s handsome. How would you say that?
Matteo: è bello. With the masculine “o” ending.
Katie: Like in English, we use it to talk about esthetic things, like monuments, cities, views or clothes.
Matteo: So you can say Roma è bella "Rome is beautiful", or il Colosseo è bello (the Coliseum is beautiful), il t-shirt è bello. (The t-shirt is beautiful).
Katie: But we also use it to talk about creative works, like films and books. So in Italian, you wouldn’t say the film is good, you’d say it’s beautiful.
Matteo: il film è bello.
Katie: the book is il libro so you’d say...
Matteo: il libro è bello.
Katie: Next, bravo. Which you probably already recognise because it’s a word we English stole from the Italians. It means to be talented at something. So if you want to say that Brad Pitt is good, in the sense that he’s a talented actor, you’d say
Matteo: è bravo.
Katie: but if you want to say he’s handsome, you’d say:
Matteo: è bello.
Katie: Now let’s look at bene. Bene is different to buono, bello and bravo. Buono, bello and bravo are adjectives, which means that they describe people and things, like Brad Pitt and Gelato. Bene describes actions, like “speak” or states like “to be”. You can translate it directly with the English “well”. In Italian, to say “how are you?” We say:
Matteo: Come stai?
Katie: To say “I am” as in I am well, we say “sto”. So how would you say “I’m well”
Matteo: Sto bene.
Katie: And bene always stays the same, we don’t change the endings with "o" and "a" like we do with buono, bello and bravo. How do you say “I speak”?
Matteo: Parlo
Katie: So I speak well is
Matteo: Parlo bene.
Katie: In English, we say “I speak Italian well”, with "well" at the end. But in Italian, it goes straight after the verb. So how would you say I speak Italian well?
Matteo: Parlo bene italiano.
Katie: And this is something that most Italian learners don’t really know about. Almost everyone learning Italian says parlo italiano bene. So if you want to impress Italians and sound immediately more advanced, make sure you remember the word order: parlo bene italiano. You speak is:
Matteo: Parli
Katie: And English is inglese. So how would you say "you speak English well"
Matteo: Parli bene inglese.
K: That’s all we have time for today, thanks for listening. And if you’d like to get more mini Italian lessons delivered to your inbox, don’t forget to subscribe by following the link below. Grazie, and ciao for now, see you next time, or as we say in Italian, alla prossima!
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