Lingua
An Italian word for family that doesn’t mean what you think
How to avoid a very crowded misunderstanding
When an English speaker sees the Italian word parente, they think: easy, parents! But watch out: if someone invites you over and says you'll be meeting their "parenti", you aren't in for a quiet evening at home.
Because "parenti" in Italian isn't just parents, but indeed one's entire extended family: aunts, cousins, grandparents, second cousins, nephews, niblings... everybody.
The funny thing is that the two languages are using the same root: both Italian's "parenti" and English's "parents" use the Latin "parens". It's just that over time Italy widened the usage, while English kept the narrower sense of "mother/father".
By the way, who will you be seeing on that quiet night when your new friend invites you home to meet mamma e papà? The Italian equivalent for "parents" is "genitori".
(And one last thing to check: if they invite you home to meet papa, rather than papà, maybe put on something nice, since apparently they're related to the Pope!)
