'Mezzogiorno' is the Italian for midday - 'middle-day', if you take it apart. But the very same word also means 'the south', and there's a reason the two go together.
One word, two meanings - noon and the south. The cards take 'mezzogiorno' apart, trace each half back to Latin, and explain why noon and the south turned out to share a name - and why French and Spanish do exactly the same thing.
• An illustrated black-and-white word-history in comic form - stage panels, one idea to each, taking 'mezzogiorno' apart and following both its meanings, noon and the south, to their roots
• The word-history breakdown, Latin to modern Italian, with a date at each stage the record allows
• A sources page listing where every claim comes from
• A short guide for the adult on how to use the cards
The PDF prints two ways, and you choose which suits you. The large cards - one idea to a page - are made to be laminated and clipped onto a single binder ring, so a child can handle them, turn them over and lay them out in order. You print, laminate, trim and bind these yourself; the cards are numbered, so a loose deck goes back in sequence. The single sheet at the end holds the whole word on one page - print it and it's ready, no laminating or cutting - for the pencil case or the middle of a lesson. You'll need a printer; a laminator and a ring are needed only for the deck.
Because the large cards come apart, there's more to do with them than read. Rebuild the timeline in order. Sort the meaning cards into the two senses - noon and the south - and talk through what joins them. Hold up the English-cousin cards and match each to its Latin half. If you own more than one word from L'Officina Radice, clip the shared day-cards onto one ring and put them together. It's the same cards, talked through and handled differently - adult-led, a few minutes at a time, never a drill.
'Mezzogiorno' carries two meanings at once - noon and the south - and a learner who meets only one is caught out by the other. Once a learner can see the two ordinary words inside it, and why noon and the south turned out to share a name, the two meanings stop competing and start to make sense together.
Made for secondary Italian learners at Key Stages 3 and 4, but it suits a wider range:
• Anyone who likes where words come from
• Italian learners in Key Stages 3 and 4, and GCSE students meeting 'mezzogiorno'
• Home-educated children
• Learners who find vocabulary hard to hold when it's taught as isolated words - including dyslexic and working-memory profiles
• Parents brushing up their own Italian, or studying alongside a child
• Adults coming back to Italian after school
This isn't a first step into Italian, and it isn't only about telling the time - 'mezzogiorno' as 'the south' matters for reading and geography too. A learner should already be meeting the word in lessons or reading. If a child hasn't started Italian at all yet, this will come too early.
Related resources
• In L'Officina Radice: 'oggi' and 'buongiorno' are the nearest neighbours - both built on the same 'giorno'.
• For anyone who likes the links across languages: French 'midi' and Spanish 'mediodía' pull the same trick, meaning both noon and the south (neither is sold as its own resource yet).
• In the Compendium: the post on why word origins help dyslexic learners with modern languages.
• Free in The Wordhord: the English cousins - 'medium' and 'median' from 'mezzo', 'diurnal' and 'journal' from 'giorno'.
For personal use in home education and tutoring only.
Available now as a PDF download.
'Mezzogiorno' is the Italian for midday - 'middle-day', if you take it apart. But the very same word also means 'the south', and there's a reason the two go together.
One word, two meanings - noon and the south. The cards take 'mezzogiorno' apart, trace each half back to Latin, and explain why noon and the south turned out to share a name - and why French and Spanish do exactly the same thing.
• An illustrated black-and-white word-history in comic form - stage panels, one idea to each, taking 'mezzogiorno' apart and following both its meanings, noon and the south, to their roots
• The word-history breakdown, Latin to modern Italian, with a date at each stage the record allows
• A sources page listing where every claim comes from
• A short guide for the adult on how to use the cards
The PDF prints two ways, and you choose which suits you. The large cards - one idea to a page - are made to be laminated and clipped onto a single binder ring, so a child can handle them, turn them over and lay them out in order. You print, laminate, trim and bind these yourself; the cards are numbered, so a loose deck goes back in sequence. The single sheet at the end holds the whole word on one page - print it and it's ready, no laminating or cutting - for the pencil case or the middle of a lesson. You'll need a printer; a laminator and a ring are needed only for the deck.
Because the large cards come apart, there's more to do with them than read. Rebuild the timeline in order. Sort the meaning cards into the two senses - noon and the south - and talk through what joins them. Hold up the English-cousin cards and match each to its Latin half. If you own more than one word from L'Officina Radice, clip the shared day-cards onto one ring and put them together. It's the same cards, talked through and handled differently - adult-led, a few minutes at a time, never a drill.
'Mezzogiorno' carries two meanings at once - noon and the south - and a learner who meets only one is caught out by the other. Once a learner can see the two ordinary words inside it, and why noon and the south turned out to share a name, the two meanings stop competing and start to make sense together.
Made for secondary Italian learners at Key Stages 3 and 4, but it suits a wider range:
• Anyone who likes where words come from
• Italian learners in Key Stages 3 and 4, and GCSE students meeting 'mezzogiorno'
• Home-educated children
• Learners who find vocabulary hard to hold when it's taught as isolated words - including dyslexic and working-memory profiles
• Parents brushing up their own Italian, or studying alongside a child
• Adults coming back to Italian after school
This isn't a first step into Italian, and it isn't only about telling the time - 'mezzogiorno' as 'the south' matters for reading and geography too. A learner should already be meeting the word in lessons or reading. If a child hasn't started Italian at all yet, this will come too early.
Related resources
• In L'Officina Radice: 'oggi' and 'buongiorno' are the nearest neighbours - both built on the same 'giorno'.
• For anyone who likes the links across languages: French 'midi' and Spanish 'mediodía' pull the same trick, meaning both noon and the south (neither is sold as its own resource yet).
• In the Compendium: the post on why word origins help dyslexic learners with modern languages.
• Free in The Wordhord: the English cousins - 'medium' and 'median' from 'mezzo', 'diurnal' and 'journal' from 'giorno'.
For personal use in home education and tutoring only.
Available now as a PDF download.
