Il corpo (the body)

From head to toe

You already know the odd couples of Italian anatomy — la mano, le mani; il braccio, le braccia — and the head-words la testa, l'occhio, l'orecchio, il labbro. This lesson completes the body:

parte del corpo	English
the mouth	la bocca
the mouth
the nose	il naso
the nose
the throat	la gola
the throat
the shoulder	la spalla
the shoulder
the back (of the body)	la schiena
the back
the stomach	lo stomaco
the stomach
the skin	la pelle
the skin
the heart	il cuore
the heart
il piede	the foot

After the irregular plurals of the last lesson, these behave: le spalle, le schiene, i piedi — and la bocca keeps its hard c in the plural with an h: le bocche.

Where it hurts

You can already say ho mal di testa. The same mal di pattern now stretches across the new words: mal di gola (a sore throat), mal di stomaco (a stomachache), mal di schiena (a backache). Italian usually skips the possessive with body parts — the article is enough:

On your feet

With il piede comes the phrase Italian uses for to stand: to stand, to be standing

stare in piedi — literally to stay on feet, always in the plural.

With all your heart

the heartil cuore beats at the center of Italian feeling, and *con tutto il cuore* is how you love: wholeheartedly.