Non solo ‘in bocca al lupo’ - 8 Italian animal idioms | A Coffee Break with Michela

Coffee Break Italian

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4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 14 October 2025

⏱️ 7 minutes

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Summary

Ready to learn new idioms in Italian? In this mini espresso lesson, Michela explores some Italian idioms inspired by animals, gli animali. 🐾

Just like in English, animals in Italian are used to describe traits, habits, and everyday situations. You’ll learn how to say things like:

lento come una lumaca 🐌
sano come un pesce 🐟
cavallo di battaglia 🎶
andare a letto con le galline 🌙🐓

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The Grand Sumo Tournament comes to the Royal Albert Hall.
0:05.0	Over 40 elite sumo wrestlers from Japan will battle for the coveted title of Grand Champion over five days.
0:14.0	Witness the battle of power and endurance between these great athletes.
0:19.0	From the 15th to the 19th of October.
0:22.7	For tickets and more information, head to royal alberthall.com.
0:32.1	Ciao to all, I'm Michael Michaela and welcome to this mini episode in between main seasons of Coffee Break Italian.
0:41.3	As always, I'm here to help you to help to make your Italian,
0:45.3	in a while, atravers these mini-lezzion.
0:49.3	Iniziamo! Now, if you've been learning Italian for a while, I'm sure you will have come across the very
1:00.0	popular expression, In Bucca al-Lubo, which literally means in the mouth of the wolf, and is used to say,
1:10.2	good luck.
1:12.2	So, since our previous episodes on idioms were so popular, I thought today we could have a
1:18.2	closer look at some other animal idioms other than in Boko Lumpo.
1:24.6	Alora, animal idioms are often introduced by the word
1:28.3	Corme, which means as or like, and here are a few of the most popular ones.
1:34.3	Eser leantto combe a lumaca, which means to be as slow as a snail.
1:42.3	Eser testardo like a mule, to be as slow as a snail. Eser testardo like a molo, to be as stubborn as a mule.
1:50.4	Eser is sano like a fish, to be as healthy as a fish.
1:56.9	Eser is furbo like a wolf, to be as sly or cunning as a fox.
2:04.6	There are also some more creative idioms which go beyond the simple comparison.
2:11.0	The first one is Esere a topo di or da bibliotheca.
2:17.3	While in English we say to be a book worm, di or da bibliotheca.
	...

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