All the words you need for a card game in Italian | A Coffee Break with Francesca

Coffee Break Italian

Coffee Break Languages

Language Learning, Courses, Intermediate Italian, Basic Italian, Italian Language, Learn Italian, Education, Italiano, Italian Lessons

4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 11 November 2025

⏱️ 6 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Join Francesca from the Coffee Break Italian team for a coffee break and get ready to improve your Italian over just 10 minutes.

In this little espresso lesson, Francesca explores one of Italy’s favourite pastimes: giocare a carte, playing cards! You’ll also pick up useful phrases like fare le carte (to shuffle the cards), un mazzo (a deck), and even a fun memory trick, come quando fuori piove, to help you remember the order of the suits. ♣️♥️♦️♠️

➡️ To get more helpful content like this directly in your inbox, be sure to subscribe to the Coffee Break Italian newsletter!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Ciao to all, I'm Francesca from the Coffee Break Italian team, and I'm delighted to join you for a coffee break.
0:11.8	As always, I'm here to help you improve your Italian one step at a time through these short mini lessons in between main seasons of coffee break Italian.
0:25.2	Allura, I'm sure. So, let's comechamo. Today's topic is something very popular in
0:36.4	Italy. Le Carte. That's right, playing cards is a national
0:42.3	pastime and it's something I love doing when I'm back home, especially after a nice
0:50.1	Sunday lunch, El Pranzo della domenica.
1:01.6	I have decided to talk about this topic because during one of my recent visits to Italy, I suddenly realize that there are so many useful words and phrases linked to playing cards,
1:10.5	so I thought I would share some of them with you.
1:15.7	Prima di Tuto, you should know that there are so many different types of card games in Italy.
1:23.8	Among the most popular feature Scopa, Biscola and my all-time favorite, Scala Quaranta.
1:34.1	Although there are different types of cards with their own specific features, here is some useful vocabulary.
1:42.3	The names of Iseigne or or semi the suits are quadri diamonds,
1:51.7	fiori clubs, quarry, hearts,. Spades.
2:02.6	But there are also signy typical
2:04.1	of the cards
2:04.9	of the game
2:05.5	Italian.
2:07.4	Bastoni,
2:09.0	clubs,
2:10.4	coppe,
2:11.8	cups,
2:13.3	denari,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Coffee Break Languages, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Coffee Break Languages and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.