Italian time concepts
Talking about time — is the train arriving early? Late? On time? or never?
Compared with other parts of Europe, train travel in Italy is relatively inexpensive, and the network goes everywhere.
It's also the way I learned the Italian word for "late" — in ritardo, since I heard it so often over the station announcements.
Here are some other time-related words and phrases to listen out for.
(The Rome to Milan train surprisingly is on time.)
(Mario was late and missed the bus.)
(It's too late (in the day), the museum is already closed.)
(Come to the party early if you want some cake.)
(It's still early, let's have another beer.)
(I've always wanted to drive a tractor.)
(From time to time Giulia goes busking.)
The two kinds of "late" and "early"
Pay attention to the difference between the two words for "late". "In ritardo" means outside the scheduled time, as in "The 9am train was late", or "I was late for the appointment".
"Tardi" is more like "He always works late on a Thursday", or "It's pretty late to be drinking coffee, you won't be able to sleep."
Similarly, there are two kinds of "early". "In anticipo" means "earlier than the scheduled time", while "presto" means "early in the evening" "early in the movie" "early in their relationship", etc.
Mussolini and the trains
Back to talking about trains... you may hear Italian speakers say: "Quando c'era Mussolini i treni arrivavano in orario." ("Mussolini made the trains run on time.")
Don't be fooled... nobody is actually looking back on the Mussolini era with fondness. The timely trains are a myth. These days this phrase is used in an ironic way to say something is really improbable, usually in the field of politics. A little bit like "Pigs might fly".
