Musicians will know that what anglophones call a ‘piano’ here in Italy is often referred to by its full name, pianoforte – literally, a soft-loud, because it can do both.
And we’ve previously talked about using piano or slowly as an adverb to mean softly, gently, slowly, or little by little.
But did you know that the noun piano has multiple other meanings besides that of a musical instrument?
To start with, a piano can be a ‘plan’ (after a while of studying Italian you’ll notice a pattern of replacing our ‘pl’s with ‘pi’s, or vice versa – so a plaza is a piazza and a plate a dishetc.).
They don’t have to find out the plan.
They mustn’t uncover the plan.
The second meaning of piano you should know is ‘floor’. Not literally the floor (for that you want floor) but storeys in a building: a first floor is the first floor, second floor the second floor, etc.
He lives on the third floor with Lorenzo.
She lives on the third floor with Lorenzo.
Note that Italy uses European floor numbering, so the first floor is the first floor off the ground. Ground level is ground floor – literally, ground floor.
Finally, piano has various technical meanings in the fields of photography and cinematography to denote different types of shots and framing.
A american floor – American shot – is what is known in English as a cowboy shot. It frames the subject from the knees or mid-thigh up to their head, and is so-called because it was widely used in Westerns to make sure the cowboy’s holster got into the frame.
The version you’re most likely to come across outside of a film shoot is the first floor – in this context meaning not ‘first floor’ but ‘close up’.
I first encountered this one while teaching myself Italian by watching the comedy series Boris, about the antics of the cast and crew behind the hammy medical soap opera The eyes of the heart 2 (‘Eyes of the Heart 2’).
“I will use the eyes of the heart – I will use the eyes of the heart,” the theme song goes, “to understand your secrets, to understand what you think, in your intense close-ups… to learn your secrets, to learn what you’re thinking, in your intense close-ups”.
So if you’ve got a plan to take a close-up of your piano – the plan to make a close-up of the plan – you could find yourself in for quite the tongue twister (tonguetwister).
Do you have an Italian word you’d like us to feature? If so, please email us with your suggestion.