What does “quanto pesano le parole” mean in Italian?
Quanto pesano le parole in cucina
B1 Italian listening practice · Standard Italian · Picked for people who know some
After a contestant is told her dish still isn’t as good as one from a famous chef, she reacts with ahia... quanto pesano le parole — “ouch... words really do have weight.” It’s Italy’s version of “words can hurt”: a way of saying that even a casual comment can land like a physical blow when it touches something you care about.
The saying works because Italian treats peso (weight) as something abstract feelings can have too — you’ll also hear una parola pesante (a heavy/harsh word) or pesare le parole (to weigh your words, i.e. choose them carefully) as the advice version of the same idea.
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Harder words in this video
These words are harder than B1. Here is what they mean.
Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · OpenSubtitles 2018 (HermitDave) (spoken). These numbers are close, not perfect.