'It's dog cold!': How to complain about winter weather like a true Italian

Fa un freddo cane

When the cold is really biting, simply saying fa freddo (it's cold) doesn't go far enough. Fa un freddo cane is an idiomatic phrase used in spoken Italian on those freezing cold days. It means "it's freezing cold!"

The phrase literally translates as 'it makes a cold dog', which doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. It means something more like 'it's dog cold!'

Dogs don't have much to do with the phrase in reality, much like with the English phrase 'it's raining cats and dogs'. It's just a (polite) way of emphasising how awfully cold it is. For more language tips on this phrase, see here.

Ho il naso gelato

Sono stanco e ho fame, ho la coda gelata, e il naso gelato, e le orecchie gelate, e i piedi gelati.

This adorable quote from one of the puppies in Disney's 101 Dalmatians pretty much sums up winter. Everything is cold and frozen.

As the family of dogs made their way through freezing snow drifts to escape the evil clutches of Cruella de Vil, one of the exhausted little fellas said: 'I'm tired and I'm hungry, my tail is froze, and my nose is froze, and my ears are froze, and my feet are froze.'

Of course, it should be frozen in English but he's only little for getting past participles right.

Although you'll likely best know gelato as a staple of Italian food, in winter, you'll probably have an 'ice cream nose' at some point. It really means you have a frozen nose, as gelato simply means 'frozen' from the verb to freeze (gelare).

Che freddo, ho i brividi!

When you want to express how chilly the weather is making you feel, you might want to convey that it really is so cold that you're shivering.

So you could say through chattering teeth, che freddo, ho i brividi! to mean 'it's so cold! I've got the shivers!'

Ho la pelle d'oca

Another way of saying that you're suffering from the freezing temperature is to compare your skin to that of a goose.

In English, you'd say, 'I've got goosebumps', whereas the Italian equivalent is close: ho la pelle d'oca means 'I've got goose skin'.

Cielo a pecorelle, acqua a catinelle

If you really want to show off your language chops, try throwing this Italian proverb into conversation. It literally means, 'sheep-shaped sky, water in buckets' and is the great classic of Italian weather proverbs.

Not only does it give a clear picture of the impending rain shower, but it also has a solid scientific basis.

Those small clouds similar to lots of little cotton balls - that look like a flock of sheep - are cirrocumulus clouds found between 6,000 and 7,000 metres above sea level. They indicate the presence of cold and unstable air at that altitude, often signalling the arrival of a humid warm front accompanied by possible thunderstorms or showers.

The next time you see this cloud formation in the sky, you can say cielo a pecorelle acqua a catinelle! and therefore both sagely predict the weather and impress people with your Italian at the same time.

Viene giù che Dio la manda

'It's raining and God is sending it.'

Blasphemy is a delicate topic in Italy, a country that is overwhelmingly Catholic, but you'll notice that a lot of Italian phrases curse God or Mary (Madonna).

If you really want to emphasise how much it's raining, this phrase will express it well – just be careful who you say it to.

Piove di brutto

Perhaps you want to say more than it's just simply raining. The heavens are opening and it's bucketing down; it's definitely not a little drizzle. 

Commenting piove doesn't quite cut it in this case. Adding di brutto makes it clear that it's raining 'badly'.

You can use di brutto in many contexts to emphasise your point, just as in English you might say you want something badly. It isn't always necessarily negative; rather, it magnifies and adds weight to your point.

Piove a dirotto

The expression piove a dirotto is used to describe an abundant, copious amount of rain. The origin of the term is believed to be linked to the etymology of the adjective rotto, which means 'broken'.

It provides the imagery of rain breaking into several parts, like a river bursting its banks.

Si muore di freddo

It's so cold that you can't feel your fingers or your toes, and all you can do is imagine getting somewhere warm and cosy before you turn into a complete ice block.

Si muore di freddo gives the really rather serious impression that it's so cold, you'll die because of it - equivalent to the English 'I'm dying of cold'.

Piove sul bagnato

If it's so wet that you just can't get any wetter, this phrase will come in handy.

Piove sul bagnato means it's raining on the wet.

This is handy for those days when you wonder if you'll ever see the blue sky again.