Adventures of Learning a Language – Part 7

Have you ever heard Italian phrases that you swear you have never heard before and then all of a sudden you find yourself hearing them all the time?

Well, that’s exactly what happened to me with a certain Italian phrase that seems to be popping up all over the place since I first heard it.

The phrase I am referring to is…

“Un sacco di <insert Italian noun here>”

Italian phrases
Photo Credit:  Dey

Literally translated it means “A bag/sack of” and it is basically equivalent to the English way of saying “plenty of”, “tons of” or “heaps of”.

In order to complete the saying, you must tack a noun to the end of it.  Below are some nouns that you might hear used with the saying, “un sacco di…”.  Take note, that the noun should be plural unless you are using an uncountable noun (such as money or time).

tempo – time
persone – people
parole – words
cose – things
domande – questions
soldi – money
errori – errors

The list goes on and on.  You can pretty much add any noun to the phrase “un sacco di..” in order to stress the fact that there is/are a lot.

Have you heard this Italian phrase in passing, in conversation, or in any other context? Do you know any similar Italian phrases?

Check out my other “Adventures of Learning a Language”:
Adventures of Learning a Language – Part 6
Adventures of Learning a Language – Part 5
Adventures of Learning a Language – Part 4
Adventures of Learning a Language – Part 3
Adventures of Learning a Language – Part 2
Adventures of Learning a Language – Part 1

  1. Laura from Ciao Amalfi

    July 11, 2009 at 10:43 am

    Ciao Lulu! Just yesterday I noticed my indoor/ outdoor cat has fleas. Ugh! I asked how to say fleabag in Italian and the response was “un sacco di pulci!” A sack of fleas! 🙂 I also learned that you can buy Frontline at the farmacia here. Good to know!

    Ha! That’s funny…I didn’t see that one coming!! Poor thing, let hope the cat doesn’t have to deal with “un sacco di pulci” for very long.

  2. Paula - bell'alimento

    July 7, 2009 at 6:11 pm

    Un sacco di traffico!

    That is a good one!! 🙂

  3. lucy

    July 7, 2009 at 7:42 am

    un sacco di PATATE

    how did I miss this one?! haha

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